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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
General I^iterature and Science
PUBLISHED BY THE PAUUST FATHERS.
VOI,. XCI.
APRIL» X910, TO SEPTEMBER, I9xa
NEW YORK :
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLICj WORLD,
lao West 60th Strsst.
1910.
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CONTENTS.
American History in Roman Archives. —
Cart Russell Fish, . . . .657
'Belloc, Hilaire (A Champion and His
Labors). — Virginia Ji, Crawford, 1
Black Forest, A Comer of the.— -£". C
V^nsittart, . " . . . . 369
Book-Lovers of Old (Catholics and
Books). — Louis O* Donovan, D»D., , 17a
Books, A Few General Ideas on (Catho-
lics and Books). — Louis O'Donovan,
D.D., 72
Campagna, A Walk Across the.— /%, H.
^., 640
Carra and Tirawley (In), County Mayo.
— Wilfrid St. Oswald, . . .755
Catholic Literature (Life and Literature).
—/oAn /. BurAe, CS.P,, . . . 289
Catholic Musician (A) of the Sixteenth
Century (Sebastian Westcott).— IF.
//. Grattan Flood, Mus.D., . . 668
Catholics and Books.— /^Mt> O* Donovan,
D,D,, 7a, 17a
Champion and His Labors, A. — Virginia
M. Crawford^ I
Charity, Problems in. — William /.
Kerby, Pk,D,, 790
China, The Catholic Church 'm,—£llis
Schreiber, 433
Christology and Criticism.— IF. T, C.
Sheppard, 0,S.B,, B,A,^ . . .721
College Plays— Are They Worth While ?
— Thomas Gaffney Taafe, . 225, 374
Conn and CuUen (In Carra and Tiraw-
Icy, County Uayo),— Wilfrid St.
Oswald, 755
Costa Rica, An Episode in. — /ohn Arm-
strong //erman, .... 649
Criticism, Some Thoughts on. — S,M,F,, 507
De La Pasture (Mrs.), The Novels of.—
Agnes Brady, . . . . • . 304
Divorce in the Russian Church. — An-
drew f, Shtpman, » . . , 577
Drum Major's Daughter, The — feante
Drake, 28, 160
Dying Man's Diary, K.-~Edited by W.
.i. Ltlly, . . . . . 351, 445
Education, Development, and Soul. —
Edward A, Pace, Ph.D., . . 817
Foreign Periodicals,
119, 261, 403, 556, 695, 844
Green Wood and Dry. — Helen Haines, 326
Haydn. — Edward F. Cur ran, . .513
*' History " of Religion, A New. — F,
Bricout, . . . ... . 362
International Eucharistic Congress, The.
— P. W. Browne, .... 527
Italy, Methodism in (Methodist Pioneers . .
in Italy).— /<?Aii F. Fenlon, . . 230
Labor Problems in Switzerland (So-
cial Work in Switzerland). — Vir-
ginia M. Crawford, . . , 764
Life and Literature.- /i?An /. Burke,
C.S.P., 289
Literature, Life and. — /ohn /. Burke,
C.S.P,, 289
Madrid and Toledo (Recent Impressions
of Spain).— ^ff^rm; /. Sktpman, . 56
Mamichee. — Mary Austin, . . . 183
Methodist Pioneers in Italy. — [ohn F.
Fenlon, . .... 230
Mexico of To-Day, The.—/. B, Frisbie, 39
Missionaries in China (The Catholic
Church in China).— -£"//»> Schreiber, 433
Montreal Congress (The International
Eucharistic Congress). — /*. W,
Browne, 527
New Books, 95, 247, 382, 533, 678, 826
Old Wastrel, hn.^ Katharine Tynan, . 45
Orpheus, by Reinach (A New ** History "
of Religion).—^. Bricout, . . 362
Patmore, Coventry. — KcUkerine Brigy, 14
Patricia, the Problem.— i^jM^r W,
Neill, .... 484, 589* 736
Publicity and Social Reform. — [ohn /.
Burke, C.S.P,, . . . .198
Recent (Current) Events,
126, 267, 41a, 565, 704, 852
Russian Church Laws Concerning Maiw
riage and Divorce (Divorce in the
Russian Church). — Andrew /. Ship-
fnan, 577
Scholastic Logic and Modem Theology.
^W, H.Kent, O.S.C, ... 83
Shearing Time.— J/. F, Quintan, . . 92
Social Reform and Publicity. — /ohn /.
Burke, CS.P., . . . .198
Social Reform (H. G. Wells).— W. E,
Campbell, . . . 145, 312, 471, 613
Social Work (Problems in Charity). —
Willtam /. Kerby, Ph.D., . . 790
Spain of To-Day. — Andrew /. Shipman, 801
Spain, Recent Impressions of. — Andrew
/. Shipman, 56
Stolen Fortunes. — Marie Manning, . 774
Switzerland, Social Work in. — Virginia
M. Crawford, .... 764
'TtTtsaL,S\..— Walter Elliott, C.S.P., . 627
Theodora and the Pilgrim. — Marie Man-
ning, 212
Theology and Mathematics.— IF. H,
Kent, O.^.C, 342
^ Venice, A Daughter oi.-^An Irish Ur-
suline, 456
Wells, H. G.— IF. E, Campbell,
M5» 31a. 471, 613
Westcott, Sebastian.— IF. H, Grattan
Flood Mus.D., 668
With Our Readers, 139, 279, 423, 571, 714, 862
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Contents.
iii
POETRY.
Helen.— ^. G.Smith, . . . .311
H0I7 Communion. — Katharine Tynan^ 626
Is It I, Rabbi }— Richard L. Mangan, SJ,^ 71
* Mane Nobiscum Domine ! " — Vera M.
St. Clair,
234
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Altar, Towards the, .... 843
American Indnstrial Sodetj, The Docu-
mentary History of, . . . • 253
American Prose Masters, . . • 683
Amirique de Demain, La, . . . 400
Angelas (The;, and the Re£:ina Coeli, . 398
Athiisme, Les Argnmenti de la, . • 402
Ball and the Cross, The, ... 836
Barat (Mdre), La Bienhearense, . • 403
Barrier, The, 838
Bible Stories Told to ** Toddles,** . 397
Bibliotheca Ascetica Mvstica, . . 2^9
Bioeraphj of a Boy, The, . . .681
Blened Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows,
The Life of, 688
Blessed Virgin, Treatise on the True De-
votion to the. 399
Bolivar (Simon), <* £1 Libertador," . 387
Brahmanisme, Le, 402
Brother's Sacrifice, A, • . . . 548
Brownie and I, ..... 547
Buds and Blossoms, .... 691
Captain Ted, 547
Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury, History of the, . . . .382
Catholic Church in Western Canada
from Lake Superior to the Pacific,
History of the, 384
Catholic Encyclopedia, The, . . 533
Catholic Paper, The, .... 842
Cave-Woman, The, .... 692
Childhood, The Story of a Beautiful, . 398
China and the Far East, .. 539
China, The Catholic Church in, from
i860 to 1907, 97
Christ (A Lite oO for Children, . .112
Christianisme, L'Avenir du, . . . zi6
Christianity, The Development of, . 826
Christ in Palestine, With, . . .116
Christ, The Courage of, ... 255
ChristJThe Life of) Told in Words of
the Gospel, Z12
City Boss, The Dethronement of the, • 840 •
Classical Moralists, The, ... 104
Clericus Devotus, . . • . « 1x5
Comedias Modemas, Tres, . • xi3
Coming Religion, The, .... 843
Comparative Religion, .... XC9
Confederate War, The History of the ;
lu Causes and Conduct, . -385
Confessions (The) of St. Augustine, . 99
Corrigan (Condy), The Escapades of, . 548
Critidsm (Old) and New Pragmatism, . 538
Damien of Molokai, .... 829
De France, Madame Elisabeth, . . 833
De Maistiv Blanc de Saint-Bonnet
(Joseph), Lacordaire, Gratry, Caro, . 402
De Masenod (Bishop), His Inner Life
and Virtues, 103
Dias (Porfirio), President of Mexico, . 388
Divine Liturgy, Hand Book of, . . 547
Divine Lover, The Holy Practices of a ;
or, the Saintly Ideot*s Devotions, . 256
Divine Story, The, • . • • 547
Doctrines Religaeuses des Philosophes
Grecs, 693
Donnelly, Charles Francis, . . . 399
Dundalk, A Short History of, . . 544
Earl or (Jhieftain, 549
Raster, Book of, 115
Eglise Gatholique au XIX. Sidcle, Pe-
tite Histoi^e de la, . . . . 402
Eglise (La) et la Critique, . . . 109
Enchiridion Historian Ecclesiastical Uni-
versae, , 542
English Literature in Account with Re-
ligion, 555
Essays (Little) for Friendly Readers, . 102
Eternal Wisdom, Little Book of, . 832
Eucharistic Triduum, The, . . • 105
Eucharist ie (La), et la Penitence durant
les six Premiers Sidcles de TEglise, • 693
Exiled Nun, The Diary of an, . • 691
Faith, Heroes of the, .... 394
Faith (Our) is a Reasonale Faith, . 548
Field and Woodland Plants, . . 546
First Communion of Children and Its
Conditions, 549
Forei^ Missions, 682
Francia's Masterpiece, .... 396
Franciscan Legend, A Sienese Painter
of the, 398
Francis de Sales, 553
Gait (Kenneth), The Redemption of, • X13
Girls, A Bunch of . . . . • • 549
God, How to Walk Before, . . • 547
Gossamer Thread, The, . . • 841
Government by Influence; and other
Addresses, 540
Gray (Very Rev. Dr.), The Blindness of
the, 251
Greek Lands and Letters, . . • X02
Halton (Mrs.), The Fascinating, . . 39a
Haunted House, The, .... 390
Heavenly Heretics, . . . . xxi
Hiawatha's Black Robe, . . . 549
Historic PageanU, Three, . . . 84a
Holy Eucharist, In Honor of the (Pour
TEuchanstie), xz8
Holy Eucharist, The Sublimity of the ;
also a Visit to the Seven Churches
in Rome on the Occasion of the Jubi-
lee, 3Q4
Housing Reform 69a
Human Body and Health, The, • • 549
Human Life (The Problem oQ as Viewed
by the Great Thinkers from Plato to
the Present Time, . . • 537
Id6aliste du Sentiment Religieux, La
Forme, 550
Internelle Consoladon (La), Sainte
T^rdsa, Pascal, Bossuet, Sainte Be-
nott Labra, Le Cur£ d'Ars, . . 402
Ireland Yesterday and To-day, . . 248
Israel, Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church
(Cours Superieur d*Instruction Reli-
gieuse. Israel, J^sus Christ, L*Egli»e
Catholique), ¥^
A
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IV
Contents.
Jesus Chirst (The Childhood of) Accord-
ing: to the Canonical Gospels, with aa
Historical Essay on the Brethren of
the Lord,
J6sus Christ, Traite du Devoir de Con<
duire les Enfants 1, .
J6sus et le Rationalisme Contemporain,
L* Existence Historique de,
Jesus, Some Features of the Moral Phys-
iog^nomy of,
Joan and Her Friends, .
Joan of Arc (Blessed), Life Lessons
from,
Kindergarten in the Home, The, .
King, I'he Coming of the,
King^ The Laws of the, .
Latin, The Teaching of,
Library and the School, The,
Lincoln Died, When ; and Other Poems,
Little Brother O'Dreams,
Liturgie et la vie Chr^tienne, La, .
Lorraine (Clare); or. Little Leaves From
a Little Life
Lourdes, The Glories of,
Lucia's Stories of American Discoverers
for Little Americans, .
Madone a Travers les Ages, La Repr£<
sentation de la, .
Man Mirrowing His Maker, .
Margaret's Influence,
Meditations for Each Day of the Month
of June, Dedicated to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus,
Mercier's (Cardinal) Conferences,
Merton (Lady), Colonist,
M6todo Prictico para Aprenderd EscribTr
por el Taco,
Miracle, Le Discernement du,
Missale Romanum,
Modem Chronicle, A, . . .
Modemisme, Le, ....
Modemisme Sociologique, Le : Decad-
ence ou R6g6n6ration ?
Monastery, The, • . . .
Morale Scientifique et Morale Evange-
lique Devant la Sociologie, .
Morals in Modem Business, .
Mother Erin,. Her People and Her
Places, . '. ,
Naples, Elchoes of , .
Negro Americans for Social Betterment,
The Effects of the,
New York, A Political History of the
State of,
Nightingale (Florence): a Story for
Young People, ....
Night Thoughts for the Sick,
North America, Pioneer Priests of,
Officium et Missa pro Defunctis, .
Old Ivory, A Bit of ; and Other Stories,
On Everything, ....
Orpheus With His Lute,
Pain, des . Petits (Le), Explication Dia-
logue du Catechism, ....
Papacy (The) and the First Councils of
the Church, .
Papacy, The Purpose of the,
Passers- By,
Peggy the Millionaire, .
Penitent Instructed, The,
Pens^es,
P6tau,
Peter of New Amsterdam,
Peuples non Civilises, La Survivance de
TAme chee les, ....
Philomena, The Fortunes of.
Piano Compositions,
686
40a
40a
1x8
549
834
397
549
693
548
548
390
842
553
547
108
549
403
395
549
683
247
390
843
550
397
391
55a
550
843
40a
545
544
399
69a
108
i»3
114
534
397
547
540
107
118
98
393
114
549
549
40a
403
548
40a
549
XI4
Politics and History, Psychology,
Pragmatisme, Modemisme, Protestant
isme,
Predestined,
Pridre Divine, La ; Le " Pater," .
Problem, The Great,
Psychology and the Teacher,
Questione Femminile (La) in Italia e il
Dovere Delia Donna Cattolica, .
Question of the Hour. The, .
Religion in Good Government, The
Place of,
Religions Orien tales : La Religion V^
dique
Richard of Jamestown, .
Rogers (Commodore John), Captain,
Commodore, and Senior Officer of the
American Navy
Roman Campagna, Wanderings in the,
Round the World, .....
Sacraments, The Esoteric Meaning of
the Seven, - . . , .
Sacraments, Theology of the.
Sacred Heart, Practical Devotion to the,
Sacred Heart, Prayers to the,
St. Batt's, The Boys of,
St. Clare, The Life of , .
St. Francis Borgia, History of (Histoire
de Saint Francois de Borgia), .
St. Gerard Maiella, Life of, .
Saint Paul (Epitres de), Lemons d'Ex-
£g€se,
Santa Melania.Giuniore,
School Room Echoes, . .
Scriptura Sacra, De, . ...
Sens Commun (Le), la Philosophie de
TEtre et les Formules Dogmatiques,
Sermons for the Christian Year, .
Simon the Jester, ....
Sin, The Chief Sources of, .
So As By Fire,
Socialism, The Substance of.
Social Science and Political Economy,
The Elements of, ...
Son^s From the Operas for Alto, .
Spints, The Discernment of, .
Spiritual Canticle (A) of the Soul by St,
John of the Cross, ....
Stanley, G.C.B. (Sir Henry Mortimer),
The Autobiography of, . . .
Stories (The Best) by the Foremost
Catholic Authors,
Strain of White, A, . . .
Strictly Business, ....
, Tower of Ivory, ....
Traits des Scmpules,
Trammelings,
Trant (Luther), The Achievements of,
Tme Church, My Road to the.
Unbelief, The Causes and Cure of.
Undesirable Governess, The,
United States in the Year 1883, Diary of
a Visit to the, ...»
Up-Grade, The, ....
Van Schurman (Anna), Artist, Scholar,
Saint,
Verses ....
Ward (Mary), The Life of, \
Wayfarer's Vision, The,
What Times I What Morals I Where on
Earth are We? ....
When Love Calls Men to Arms, .
Whirlpools,
Winnowing, A
AVorld's Classics, The Best of the,
Young Man's Guide, The,
350
556
391
55a
loa
679
107
385
399
117
548
389
X06
546
259
254
114
693
554
zx8
107
400
X06
398
40Z
W.
51
693
260
257
545
694
100
684
685
260
393
694
a6o
a6o
391
aS9
no
390
397
536
840
689
68S
»'5
541
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. APRIL, 1910. No. 541.
A CHAMPION AND HIS LABORS.
BY VIRGINIA M. CRAWFORD.
[HE standpoint of modern English literature when
judged in the mass is so universally non- Cath-
olic, often so materialistic, that the discovery
of a Catholic outlook in a book that is neither
controversial nor devotional itirs one with a
glad sense of surprise. Such an outlook confers a note of dit*
tinction, even of originality, on many a page that without it
might be commonplace or conventional, and it arrests the
reader with a realization of identity of interest between him-
self and the author as pleasant as it is rare. The discovery
may be made in books on almost any conceivable topic grave
or gay. For the distinction I refer to is not in surface matters
at all, nor in mere opinions, rather it affects the whole of a
man's attitude towards life; it underlies the course of human
thought so that whatever subject may be under treatment, be
it history or travel, act or politics, the Catholic philosophy
pierces through irresistibly, tingeing all the output. The note
is unmistakable, all the more where it is allied with imagina-
tive and intellectual gifts of a high order. We should know,
even if we had no previous information on the subject, that
no one but a Catholic could have written the poetry of Coven-
try Patmore or Francis Thompson; so, none save a Catholic
could have given us the prose of Mr. Hilaire Belloc.
Having asserted his distinctive Catholicism, one must go
Copyright. 1910. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
IN THE State of New York.
VOL XCU^I
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2 A Champion and His Labors [April,
a step farther and confess that Mr. Belloc is as little dis-
tinctively British as may be. One is almost tempted to wonder
how he came to write in English at all, so remote is his cast
of thought from anything that Oxford is wont to produce.
Yet, in point of fact, his clear-cut, penetrating French intel-
lect finds its expression in peculiarly robust and picturesque
English, and much of the charm and originality of his writing
lies in the contrasts thus brought into juxtaposition. English
vagueness and love of compromise and our pleasant, if illog-
ical, capacity for sympathizing with both sides are wholly
alien to Mr. Belloc's mentality. His mind is impregnated with
the Roman ideals that have been perpetuated on Gallic soil.
Thus he stands always for centralized authority as against a
powerful aristocracy, a conviction that finds vivid expression
in his word- pictures of Runny mede and of the flight of James
11. in that fascinating volume The Eye^Witness. So, too, he
believes passionately in peasant- proprietorship as the funda-
mental basis of a Catholic state. He is anti-Semitic, as are
nearly all French Catholics, and he is apt to discern malignant
Jewish influences on every side in our modern life, much as a
certain school of Protestants discover Jesuits. He has an in-
stinctive hatred of Prussia and of all that Prussia stands for
in modern Europe. He is anti- feminist, although his mother
was one of the earliest workers in the cause of women's en-
franchisement He is anti-Puritan and believes in the honest
enjoyment of all the good things of this life, including the
pleasures of eating and drinking. Indeed, he can barely speak
of the temperance movement with patience, so allied is it in
his mind with nonconformity and with a false conception of
human liberty. He cares nothing for games or sport, but he
is an enthusiastic walker of remarkable endurance, and en-
dowed with a talent for topography, perfected by much use.
Finally he is a militarist devoid of jingoism or vainglory ; it is
the same militarism of the professional soldier, who loves for
its own sake the art of war, and all that appertains to it.
It is only natural to seek the key to characteristics so di-
verse in Mr. Belloc's parentage and upbringing. English on
his mother's side and French on his father's, he also claims,
through a grandmother, a strain of Irish blood in his veins.
He has, by the way, made his children's descent even more
cosmopolitan than his own by marrying a Californian. Mr.
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I9IO,] A Champion and His Labors 3
Belloc's father, a French barrister, died after a few years
of marriage leaving two yoang children to the care of his
widow, who, as Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes, was well known,
previous to her marriage, to a large circle of intellectual men
and women in England. Old Madame Belloc, who happily
still lives to follow with keen pleasure her son's many triumphs,
could count among her personal friends such names as those
of Gabriel and Christina Rossetti, William and Mary Howitt,
the Brownings, George Eliot, Adelaide Procter, and Mrs.
Jameson, and was herself one of the earliest promoters, in
mid- Victorian days, of the higher education of women. It is
more than half a century since, on a visit to Dublin, she had
her attention drawn to the splendid service rendered to the
poor by the Irish religious orders of women, and the under-
standing of the Catholic faith that came to her through inter-
course with them proved the first step towards her own con-
version to Catholicism in 1864. Several charming and thought-
ful volumes of reminiscences and impressions, instinct with
Catholic feeling, are due to her pen.
Thus Mr. Belloc and his sister, now Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes.
grew up, partly in France, partly in England, amid Catholic
and literary influences, and both took to their pens with as-
tonishing ease when they were barely out of school. Each
possessed the advantage of being perfectly at home in two
languages and of being equally conversant with the literature,
the politics, and the daily life of nations as diverse as the
French and the English. Both elected, however, to make
English and not French their written language, and England
their permanent home. Mrs. Lowndes, previous to her mar-
riage, did much successful journalistic work on the London
press ere she settled down to the writing of novels of con-
temporary society life, of which Thi Heart of Pitulope and
Barbara Rebill have been perhaps the most successful. Mr.
Belloc, after being educated at Edgbaston in days when Car-
dinal Newman's frail and bent figure still gave a unique dis-
tinction to the Birmingham Oratory, had already started on a
journalistic career in London before he was called away,
through his French paternity and French citizenship, to do a
year's service in the French army. Thus it came about that
he went to Oxford and to Balliol considerably later than is
usual, and certainly with a wider understanding of life and of
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4 A Champion and his Labors [April,
affairs than most English undergraduates can boast. Already
history claimed his allegiance, and he left the university a
winner of the Brackenbury History scholarship, and with a
first class gained in the History Schools. For some years Mn
Belloc divided his time between journalism and the duties of
a University Extension lecturer. Happily, literature absorbed
him more and more, and the volumes that now follow each
other in rapid succession from his pen certainly leave small
leisure for other occupations. Even his parliamentary duties,
as member since 1906 for one of the divisions of Manchester,
seem in no way to have lessened his remarkable literary activ-
ity. History and biography, essays, travels, and novels, polit-
ical tracts, and nursery rhymes, he has tried his hand at them
all and failed in none. Unquestionably Mr. Belloc holds to-
day a very foremost place in the world of English men of
letters.
The individual event which has exercised the strongest in-
fluence on Mr. Belloc's career, was probably the year he spent
in the garrison at Toul as driver in a French artillery regi-
ment. To have passed from an English public school to
French barracks, and thence, after naturalization, to the House
of Commons, must constitute a unique experience in contem-
porary life. More than once in debate, when military matters
have been under discussion, the member for South Salford has
intervened with telling effect because he has been in a posi-
tion to bear personal testimony regarding service in a foreign
army. This, however, has been but an accidental result. His
books testify in a hundred ways to the permanent mark the
experience so gained has left on his life. The influence on
character in instilling powers of endurance and the spirit of
comradeship and social ^equality must have been in the high-
est degree formative. It was his military training that first
developed his keen vision for the natural features of a land-
scape, invaluable alike to the descriptive writer and the ardent
pedestrian. It is, however, as a military historian — and fight-
ing plays a prominent part in many of his books — that the
advantages of first-hand knowledge makes itself felt beyond
dispute. Clearly, a campaign to a soldier represents something
very different from what it is to an armchair historian. For
obvious reasons I cannot pretend to express any opinion as to
Mr. Belloc's qualifications as a military writer in the eyes of
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I9I0.] A Champion and His Labors 5
military experts. But as representing a somewhat numerous
type of feminine reader, to whom war is a somewhat repulsive
subject and descriptions of campaigns unutterably tedious and
incomprehensible, it appears to me no slight praise to testify
that Mr. Belloc is arresting and convincing even when he is
describing a battle. Manoeuvres take on a new meaning under
his pen; battles are seen in their most dramatic aspect — read
" Roncesvalles " or " The Battle of Lewes " in The Eye^ Witness^
or the pages describing Carnot's relief of Maubeuge in the last
tragic chapter of his Marie Antoinette — and the importance of
apparently small military episodes in leading up to events of
European importance is lucidly indicated. Much of all this, I
say, may be traced to those arduous months as a conscript at
Toul, glimpses of which may be enjoyed in the engaging pages
of A Path to Rome.
Before the brilliant diversity of Mr. Belloc's literary pro-
ductions, his novels, his biographies, his travels, his essays on
nothing and on everything, and his wholly fascinating picture
books, illustrated by himself, for ''bad** children, it would
seem at first sight difficult to determine any one permanent
bent of his mind. In point of fact, that bent is clear and con-
tinuous; his constant pre-occupation is history. Even when
he is not professedly writing it, be is studying life from the
historical point of view. Esto Perpetua^ a little sketch, vivid
and suggestive, of a few weeks* ramble through Algeria, is in
its essence an historical essay on the destruction of Reman
civilization by the might of the Arab and Mahometan domina-
tion, and on the gradual reconquest of the Maghreb by the
Latin nations in our own day — a type of the age* enduring
conflict between the Crescent and the Cross. Other books of
wandering, notably The Old Road, are full of historical recon*
struction and allusion. Even Mr. Belloc's novels deal — in bis
most caustic vein — with contemporary politics, and touch with
inimitable skill on many matters of contemporary interest.
To him the attraction of politics is that it is history in the
making, actual manifestations of forces and principles with
which he has made himself familiar through study.
It is perhaps rash to assume that it is chiefly as an his-
torian that Mr. Belloc's name will survive, but undoubtedly, in
mere point of bulk, his historical writings claim priority of
notice. They consist of three biographical volumes dealing
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6 A Champion and His Labors [April,
with the French Revolution, his Danten (1899), his Rcbespierre
(1901), and finally his Marie Antoinette (1909). Though bio-
graphical in form, these three books treat of varying aspects
of one of the most bewildering periods in modern history, and
between them they exemplify very clearly the author's theories
of the extremely difHcult science of historical reconstruction.
His historical scenes are often so picturesque and so dramatic;
he conveys, aided by the magic of bis style, so intense an im-
pression of the personalities he depicts, that the sober reader
is, perhaps, inclined to mistrust the effect and to ask how
much is true to actual fact, and how much the outcome of a
keen and cultivated imagination. In the preface to his Robes^
pierre Mr. Belloc himself supplies the answer. Admitting that
bis imagination, amid favorable surroundings for reverie, evokes
shadows from the past, these shadows 'fugitive if grandiose
imaginaries,'* can only be transformed into ''certain and well-
guarded possessions *' by the laborious building up of innum-
erable details into an historic narrative. Much, he says, has to
be sacrificed in the course of the task.
'' Nevertheless, the sacrifice repays. It is like the growing
of slow timber upon a sheltered hill; you seem to have es-
tablished an enduring thing. There stand out at last a vigor
and a plenitude that are to the unsubstantial origins of such
a search what touch, sight, and hearing are to memory.**
For two of the features attached to writing history by this
method, Mr. Belloc considers that an apology is needed. In
the first place you have to make the physical environment of
your figure reappear; in other words, you must write, more or
less, as an eye-witness, a somewhat perilous proceeding; and,
second, you must admit "laborious and dusty discussion, not
only of disputed events, but of the inner working of a mind."
This two-fold endeavor may result in inartistic incongruity, but
it brings you as near as may be to the truth.
For my part, it seems to me that the historian one should
distrust is precisely he who supplies a perfectly smooth, straight-
forward narrative with simple issues, plausible motives, and
logical sequence of events. Life, whether national or inter-
national, can never be simple; it is rarely logical, at least on
the surface, and it is always built up of a bewildering medley of
good and evil. One of the impressive qualities of Mr. Belloc
as an historian is his capacity for indicating the chaos of pas-
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19 lo.] A Champion and his Labors 7
sions and emotions from which great events spring, while pre-
senting to the reader a consecutive thread of narrative.
Sach a feat is well exemplified in his volume on Danton.
In style the book is inferior to its successors; here and there
it is careless in construction, and it lacks the ease and briU
liancy that practice alone can give. But in firm grasp of a
highly complex situation and in vivid presentment of the cen-
tral figure it is a remarkable achievement. The description of
the revolution* on the very first page as ''a reversion to the
normal " makes] it plain at the outset that no conventional
view of that great cataclysm need be feared. The author's
strong prepossessions in favor of the army and of peasant pro-
prietorship, are shown in the remark that the 'Uime had turned
the commonplace sons of bourgeois into something as great as
peasants or as soldiers.*' Yet from the nature of the case the
book could hardly be a popular one. It necessarily assumes a
considerable knowledge of the period, more than the ordinary
English reader possesses, and it gives him a hero with whom
he can hardly be expected to sympathize. Even Mr. Belloc
fails to make Danton attractive, or to make us really under-
stand how it was he could have brought ''all who ever knew
him closely to respect or to love him.'' Mr. Belloc's concep-
tion of him is of a man who cared passionately for France and
for the Revolution, who, left to himself, was naturally on the
side of the Moderates and the Diplomatists, but who, by some
cruel fate, was always being flung back into the arms of the
Extremists. His vote for the King's death was given when his
own young wife was on her death-bed and when bitterness
and anger had overcome every normal consideration. Even
so, all one feels inclined to say in his favor is that he appears
to have been less personally responsible for the worst excesses
of the period than the popular verdict has assumed. Only on
the scaffold was he truly great, "still courageous, still power-
ful in his words," and judged from the manner of his death
his life takes on a nobler aspect.
Mr. Belloc's Matte Antoinette suffers from none of the draw-
backs of his Danton. The subject is one that exercises an un-
failing fascination over many minds, and, thanks to his pro-
longed study of the period, the author has been able to pose
his central figure against a background from which none of
the salient features of the European situation have been
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8 A Champion and His labors [April,
omitted. The book is far from being merely a personal biog-
raphy, detailed and even intimate as portions of the narrative
are. Rather it is a scholarly attempt to give Marie Antoi-
nette her rightful place in the development of international
alliances and rivalries that culminated in the Napoleonic wars.
Did the old society of Europe attack the Revolution to destroy
it, or did the Revolution break out into a flame which threat-
ened to consume the old order throughout Europe? Mr.
Belloc shows convincingly that the Queen was but a pawn in
the great game for supremacy that was being played between
the Powers, the victim of that Franco-Austrian alliance that
was the most notable achievement of Maria Theresa's patient
diplomacy, to which, ignorant ot the tragic future, she cheer-
fully sacrificed her little daughter. Incidently there is an ad-
mirable appreciation of the Austrian Empress, '^perhaps,''
writes Mr. Belloc, "the only worthy sovereign of her sex
whom modern Europe has known." He feels, himself, and
makes his readers feel, that from her very cradle the fates
were against Marie Antoinette; that, do what she might, a
doom hung over her which could only be consummated on the
scaffold. Concerning her personal defects, he is brutally frank.
He strips her of all sentimental adornment and shows her as
she really was, a vivacious, very ignorant girl, a mere child in
years on her first arrival at the French court, who grew up
into a fascinating woman, extravagant and irresponsible, for-
ever interfering in affairs of state that she was eager to con-
trol, though incompetent to understand. One sympathizes
with her in her proud young contempt of the du Barry, how-
ever unwise, and even in her wilful disregard of the oppressive
court etiquette. But in her absolute inability to adapt herself
to the French point of view, in that something within her
that caused her to remain the hated Auttichienne to the bitter
end, one must admit a lack which made her temperamentally
incapable of filling the great role of Queen of France. That
she was placed in an extraordinarily difficult position Mr. Bel-
loc shows; he shows, too, how lamentably she failed in it. Yet
for her, as for many, adversity proved a compelling teacher,
and that last power of hers, which to many proved irresistible,
was, as he truly says, *^ a power made of abrupt vivacity tamed
at last by misfortune into dignity and strength.'' He clears
her absolutely of all complicity in the squalid intrigue of the
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I9I0.] A Champion and His Labors 9
diamond necklace, 80| too, of anything save a romantic friend-
ship for the faithful Ferseni yet on both these counts she was
the victim in her lifetime of the grossest accusations that
wounded her to the 'quick. Misunderstandings and blunders
were on both sides, but fate ordained that Marie Antoinette
should expiate hers by months of slow agony in the Temple
and by that last awful drive, bound, on an open cart, amid a
howling mob to the scaffold on the Place de la Concorde.
** This is known, that she went up the steps of the scaffold
at liberty and stood for a bare moment seen by the great
gathering in the square, a figure against the trees of what had
been her gardens and the place where her child had played.
It was but a moment, she was bound and thrown, and the
steel fell.''
One is tempted to linger too long over this enthralling
book. Readers must go to its pages for Mr. Belloc's dramatic
delineation of the closing tragedy, the personal aspect of Marie
Antoinette's sufferings skillfully interwoven with the national
aspect involved in the invasion of French territory by the
allies which she had done her utmost to precipitate. They
will find, too, interspersed through the book those vivid per-
sonal convictions concerning a variety of themes with which
Mr. Belloc is so delightfully prodigal. A casual reference to
the partition of Poland at the instance of Prussia tempts him
into an emphatic denunciation of the crime as '^ the first pub-
lic renunciation of the international morality which bad hith-
erto ruled in Christendom/' and as ** the germ of all that in-
ternational distrust which has ended in the intolerable armed
strain of our time." In connection with the flight to London
of Madame la Motte, the infamous schemer against the
Queen's honor, we find the sarcastic remark that she was ''not
welcomed in London with those transports of affection or
homage which she would receive to-day." All that Mr. Belloc
has to say on the subject of the Catholic faith is full of in-
terest in connection with contemporary events in France.
There can be no shadow of a doubt that the prospects of re-
ligion were incomparably worse then than now. ''It is diffi-
cult," writes our author, "for a modern man to conceive how
tiny was the little flickering flame of Catholicism in the gen-
eration before the Revolution." Then the whole clergy were
national in their sympathies. To-day their loyalty to the
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lo A Champion and His Labors [April,
Holy See is unimpeachable. Unhappily now, as then, the rul-
ing powers are committing the blunder of slighting religion.
I have left myself but scant space in which to do justice
to Mr. Belloc*s lighter literary efforts. Undoubtedly a first
place must be given to his books of travel. These are records
of true pilgrim wanderings. Mr. Belloc tramps on foot with
no luggage and very little money, often sleeping in the open
air or in some barn, and philosophizing wisely and wittily on
the way. The personal, rather intimate, note that such a
journal warrants lends itself admirably to the author's most
engaging characteristics: to his vivid perceptiveness, his
humor, his diversified knowledge, the literary flavor of his
style, even when most colloquial. In The Path to Rome he
describes how he tramped, in fulfillment of a vow, from Toul,
in the Vosges, to the gates of Rome. He meets with few
definite adventures on the way, but instead charms us with a
good deal about eating and drinking as behooves a sturdy
pedestrian, with much philosophizing concerning the differ-
ences between the German and the Latin tongues and tem-
peraments, and with a succession of vivid pen pictures of the
valleys through which he passes% St. Ursanne tempts him to an
outburst on ** the high worship of windows.'' At Meiringen he
falls in with a crowd of tourists and characteristically vows
''a franc to the Black Virgin of la D^livrande (next time I
should be passing there) because I was delivered from being a
tourist," and for being instead ''a poor and dirty pilgrim.''
In the latter part of his journey the Italian peasantry win his
heart as they win the hearts of all who sojourn among them
in the right spirit, and lead him to a theological digression
upon how *^ the Catholic Church makes men," and how ** of
her effects the most gracious is the character of the Irish and
of these Italians." Solitude and the long days under the open
sky, and intercourse with simple village folk bring the reali-
ties of religion very near to him, and there are pages on
** that attitude of difficulty and combat which, for us others, is
always associated with the Faith," that will awaken a respon-
sive echo in many. But I venture to think the Catholic reader
will thank Mr. Belloc most for his really beautiful passage on
the hearing of daily Mass. He arrives at a village to find
that Mass is over, and ''this justly annoyed me; for what is
a pilgrimage in which a man cannot hear Mass every morn-
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I9I0.] A Champion and His Labors ii
ing?'' He recalls St. Louis and his custom on the march of
daily hearing Mass, by attendance at which '^you do all that
the race needs to do, and has done for all these ages where
religion was concerned/' and at which you gain ''all that your
nature cries out for in the matter of worship''; and he com-
pares the time spent at Mass out of a busy life to '' a short
repose in a deep and well-built library, into which no sounds
come and where you feel yourself secure against the outer
world."
The Old Road possesses less charm — perhaps because the
pilgrim is no longer in a Catholic country — but it will appeal
to all lovers of historic reconstruction. The theme is the fol-
lowing of the road that in Roman and even pre- Roman days
served as the main link between England and the Continent,
a road whose devious course Mr. Belloc traces from Winchester
to Canterbury. He brings to his task a shrewdness and a zest
that mark at once the expert and the enthusiast and mingles
fact and theory into a fascinating record of winter wandering.
To him an old road is ''one of the primal things that move
us,'' and "the humblest and most subtle, but, as I have said,
the greatest and most original of the spells which we inherit
from the earliest pioneer of our race. It was the most impera-
tive and first of our necessities." More than rivers and moun-
tain-chains, he says, roads have molded the political groups of
men. His keen eye for topography is an indispensable adjunct
for the by no means easy task he has set himself, and it is
characteristic of him that having led his reader on so novel
a pilgrimage he should end it abruptly at the desecrated shrine
of St Thomas at Canterbury. As he approaches the Cathedral
at dusk he confesses never to have known " such a magic of
great height and darkness," but within, instead of a realiza-
tion of the sacredness of the spot, there was only a blank, so
chilling that, "to an emptiness so utter not even ghosts can
return." Yet he cannot refrain from setting down a vivid word-
picture, too long for quoting here, of how Becket met his death.
The volume on the Pyrenees, published only last year, is
more of a guide book than either of its predecessors. The
whole mountain range is made wonderfully vivid by the de-
lightful illustrations drawn by the author, while the maps and
accompanying descriptions are models of lucidity. The book
contains detailed information concerning inns and mountain
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12 A Champion and His labors [April,
paths, and would be invaluable to any one prepared to wander
as Mr. Belloc wanders, on foot with provisions slung in a sack,
and as often as not, sleeping out by a camp-fire. The rich
tourist, however, who merely wishes to stay at fashionable re-
sorts, such as Cauterets or Eaux- Bonnes, will find little to his
taste in the book, for as the author asserts with vehement
frankness :
''The rule holds here, as everywhere, that where rich peo-
ple, especially cosmopolitans, colonials, nomads, and the rest,
come into a little place, they destroy most things, except the
things that they themselves desire. And the things that they
themselves desire are execrable to the rest ot mankind.''
In political matters Mr. Belloc always strikes one, in spite
of the fact that he is a member of the British House of Com-
mons, as an outside critic of English affairs rather than a par-
ticipator in her political life. He never looks at things with
English eyes, and he is keenly alive to all the national weak-
nesses and conventions and inconsistencies. Judging not only
from his writings but from his platform utterances he enter-
tains a somewhat poor opinion of the political morality even
of the House of Commons, and he has the worst opinion of
Jewish finance and newspaper combines, which fill so dominant
a part in the public life of the modern State. Caliban's Guide
to Letters is a brilliantly written dissertation on modern jour-
nalism and its methods, with caustic comments on the interview,
the personal par. the topographical article, etc. It affords most
entertaining reading. His latest novel, A Change in the Cabi*
net, published only last year, is an amusing skit on parliamen-
tary life written with the intimate inside knowledge of a mem-
ber.
Other and far graver revelations Mr. Belloc is in process
of making in the pages of the Dublin Review. In an admirable
presentment of the notorious Ferrer incident (in the January,
1 910, number) the first authoritative version of the event to
appear in the English press, Mr. Belloc establishes beyond
question the Freemason influence.
''What power is it," he asks, "which made this man so
suddenly important, which raised an international and criminal
mob in Paris and in various towns of Italy ? What is it which,
when the truth about Ferrer began to be known, suddenly put
an extinguisher upon the discusson of his life ? • • • Above
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I9IO.] A Champion and His Labors 13
all, why and how was this strange, highly organized, and abrupt
international movement — abrupt and evidently acting at a word
of command in its rise as in its sharp cessation — connected
with an equally abrupt and equally organized attack upon the
Catholic Church ? "
In a series of articles to be entitled ''The International"
Mr. Belloc intends to give the solution to the riddle.
Quite recently he has come forward as an opponent of So-
cialism. He has published more than one pamphlet expounding
his views. If Mr. Belloc opposes Socialism it is not in the
least because he is content to let our existing industrial and
economic conditions continue. On the contrary : the results of
capitalism are, in his opinion, abominable, and English so-
ciety to-day he holds to be in as sad a condition as it is pos-
sible for a Christian society to be. The remedy, for him, lies
not in collectivism but in peasant proprietorship and co-opera-
tion. He believes the whole spirit of the Catholic Church to
be opposed to Collectivism, and he denies that a Catholic so-
ciety can remain CoUectivist or a Collectivist society Catholic.
The Church prizes human dignity and human freedom, and
both would be imperilled by Socialism. In his opinion the
struggle of the future lies between Socialism and Catholicism,
for the Catholic Church is the only institution strong enough
to oppose the advance of a movement that appears to promise
so much for human happiness. The weakness of Mr. Belloc's
argument where England is concerned is that though in coun-
tries such as France, Ireland, and Denmark, love of the soil
may and doubtless will oppose a bulwark against the inroads
of Socialistic theories, the English have shown for centuries no
sort of capacity or desire for peasant proprietorship. Nor are
there any symptoms, in Europe at least, of a Catholic revival
on a sufficiently wide scale to warrant any blind confidence in
the ultimate issue of the struggle to come.
Yet I would not end this article on a note of depression.
Mr. Belloc is an exhilarating writer with a keen imagination,
strong sympathies, and a mind instinct with Catholic faith.
He deserves to be as widely read in the New World as in. the
Old.
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COVENTRY PATMORE.
BY KATHBRINB BR£GY.
II.
\ first person to be apprised of Coventry Pat-
iore*8 submission to the Church was an English
Eidy then resident in Rome, Miss Marianne
Caroline Byles, a convert and close friend of
!)ardinal Manning's. ** I had never before be-
held so beautiful a personality/' Coventry declared with his
usual ardor, ''and this beauty seemed to be the pure efful-
gence of Catholic sanctity," The world was soon to know
her as Mary Fatmore, our poet's second wife I '' Tired Mem-
ory/' an ode of great beauty, interprets that delicate and
difficult experience by which the new love was reconciled to
that other, infinitely mourned, infinitely cherished, scarcely yet
resigned to the ''stony rock of death's insensibility." In the
pathos and intimacy of its self-revelation, the poem is not un-
worthy of comparison with the Vita Nuova. Emily Patmore,
when death seemed quite near, had begged her husband to
wed again: so now, in a passionate revery, he brings her his
confession of the strange new joy which will not be denied,
O my most dear,
Was't treason, as I fear?
the poet muses. And with brief strokes of surpassing deli-
cacy he traces love's "chilly dawn," the coming of this fair
stranger with her starlike, half- remembered graces, the tired
heart's reluctant stirring.
And Nature's long suspended breath of flame
Persuading soft and whispering Duty's name.
Awhile to smile and speak
With this thy Sister sweet* and therefore mine;
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1 9 lO.] Co VENTRY PA TMORE 1 5
Thy Sister sweet,
Who bade the wheels to stir
Of sensitive delight in the poor brain/
Dead of devotion and tired memory,
So that I lived again,
And, strange to aver,
With no relapse into the void inane
For thee;
But (treason was*t?) for thee and also her.
There were more than subjective difficulties in the way of
a marriage, however. Miss Byles would seem to have taken
a more or less formal vow of chastity, from which later on she
was duly dispensed; while the poet, on his side, impetuously
and quite unreasonably left Rome upon the discovery that
his fiancee was possessed of a large personal fortune. By the
good agency of friends all was eventually reconciled. Patmore
returned to England to prepare his little family for the new
mother, and on the i8th of July, 1864, the couple were mar-
ried by Cardinal Manning at the church of St. Mary of the
Angels, Bayswater.
Of course, neither the second marriage nor the religious
change was welcome news to our poet's English friends. Yet|
in the home circle at least, Mary Patmore's victory was com-
plete. The few letters of hers which have been preserved
evince the most gentle, even scrupulous tenderness toward
Patmore's children, a fastidious interest in his literary work,
and a certain sweet austerity which must have been distinctly
piquante to her outspoken and imperious husband. There is
something deliciously daring in her shy comments upon the
''Angel'': ''It is a shame for you to have been initiated into
a thing or two quite solely feminine," she writes to Coventry;
and yet again she refers to the "Wedding Sermon" as "not
so high in some parts as St. Thomas ^ Kempis, than whom
nobody ought to be lower, to my thinking." It sounds just a
little bit formidable! Yet that uncompromising elevation of
soul, and the vestal reserve of manner which few friends were
able to pierce, were in reality tbel best possible foil for Pat-
more's passionately sensuous yet mystical nature. All of his
most searching work — "The Odes," perhaps the lost Sponsa
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i6 Coventry Patmorb [April,
Dei^ and the complete finding of his own soul — were accom-
plished during his life with her.
Shortly after this marriage, our poet's lungs were found to
be so seriously affected that it became necessary to leave
London and the Museum permanently. And so during the
main part of Mary Patmore's life they resided first at '' Heron's
Ghyl '' (an extensive Sussex estate which Coventry spent several
healthful years in supervising and improving) and later at old
Hastings by the sea. The circumstances of the family were,
of course, vastly more felicitous than during the early days;
and now, for the first time in his life, Patmore found leisure
for continuous, concentrated study, as well as for that quiet
meditation which is the seed-time of creative thought. His
preoccupation with theology proved more absorbing than ever ;
so that he often spent four hours a day upon the works of
the more mystical saints — Bernard and John of the Cross, St.
Theresa's Road to Perfection^ and always the monumental
Summa. In the symbolic teaching of Emanuel Swedenborg,
also, he found many points of agreementy being wont to de-
clare that the latter's ''Catholic doctrine without Catholic
authority'' would deceive, if possiblci the very elect
A slender volume of nine odes, printed for private distri-
bution in 1868, inaugurated Coventry Patmore's second and
greatest poetic period. Superficially, there may seem but
slight continuity between these searching and paradoxical poems
and the domestic "Angel" — yet in essence they are close
akin. For the master*passion of Patmore's life and the abiding
inspiration of his poetry were identical: his work was one
long Praise of Love. And so it was to an artistic and mys-
tical development rather than to any temperamental breach
that these odes bore witness. Our poet spoke, indeed, a
language little intelligible to his countrymen; and the white
heat of his passion, his seemingly esoteric psychology and his
uneven but arresting metres, inspired dismay rather than any
other emotion. Few of those men (poets, for the most part !)
to whom the precious volumes had been sent, showed the
slightest comprehension of this ** gray secret of the east/' and
only the most perfunctory acknowledgments reached the author.
So, with characteristic disdain, Patmore consigned all of the
edition remaining to his own log fire ! '' Tired Memory " was
one of the collection; so also was the brief and beautiful
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19IO.] Coventry Patmore 17
^'Beata'*; '^ Faint Yet Pursuing/* an exquisite piece with what
we now know as the true Patmorean flavor; and the resur-
gent loveliness of ** Deliciae Sapientiae de Amore/' With these
were two or three ironic Jeremiads of political and philosophic
nature, and ''Pain" — which no other modern English poet,
except perhaps Francis Thompson, could have written. Our
poet's brooding and scornful reflections, as he watched the
flames consume these first fruits of his richest thought, scarcely
tended to commute the pessimistic opinion he had already
formed upon latter-day taste and institutions.
The genuine significance of these odes, both metrically and
philosophically, can scarcely be overstated. To discerning
readers, even the extracts already quoted must reveal a divine
intensity, a subtlety of poetic feeling, beside which all of Pat-
more*8 early work seems tentative and imperfect. Their verse
form (which the poet somewhat vaguely described as based
upon catalexis) has successfully defied all but the broadest
critical analysis, and its effect would seem to depend almost
wholly upon some intuition, alike musical and emotional, of
pause and rhythm.* Yet it provides an almost perfect vehicle
for the intermittent stress and reticence, the amazing passional
surge, the mystic and often scholastic reasoning of the poems
themselves. Always fascinating and usually dangerous has it
proved as a model to younger poets; but at its best and in
the master's hand, there is an impetuous freshness about this
ode form which is the next thing to a new-blown wind flower.
And this spontaneity was no mere illusion. Patmore spent
months, even years, in maturing the matter of his greatest
odes, but their actual form was often the work of two or three
hours.
'* I have hit upon the finest metre that ever was invented,
and on the finest mine of wholly unworked material that ever
fell to the lot of an English poet,*' Coventry Patmore wrote
exultantly when the ''Unknown Eros'' was in preparation.
This mine was mystic Catholic theology, in particular the
nuptial relations of the soul to its God, and in general that
essential and passionate humanity^ which is at the core of
* *' It is in the management of the pauses — ^in the recognition of the value of time-beats —
that Coventry Patmore's supremacy in the ode form lies. In his ' domestic verses/ he uses
rhyme in places where Tennyson would not have dreamed of it — recklessly, audaciously, but
in his highest moods ... he treats rhyme as an echo." Maurice Francis Egan ; '* Ode
Structure of Coventry Patmore." Studits in Literature,
VOL. XCI.— 2
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I8 COVENTRY PATMORE [April,
nearly every doctrine of the Church. But here was a task to
stagger Orpheus himself, had Orpheus turned Christian t For
how translate the secrets of the saints to a gaping multitude?
How teach men what love meant, and what the Word made
Flesh implied? How draw back the veil of mystery and sym-
bol and allegory without breaking in upon the '* Divine Si-
lence''? In an agony of concentration! in prayer and fasting^
the poet toiled on, still falling short of that infinite ''beauty
and freedom " which the work demanded, were it to be done
at all. Patmore reached at length his own explanation of this
failure : not until these things should become controlling reali-
ties in his own spiritual life could he sing of them worthily.
No shade of religious doubt had crossed his understanding or
his conscience from the moment of his reception into the
Catholic Church. Yet with his rare and resolute candor, he
has confessed that the quiet and absolute regnancy of faith
before which his soul longed to bow was denied for many a
weary year. More particularly was he conscious of something
perfunctory in his service of the Most Blessed Virgin — of an
imperfect harmony with the mind of the Church in this im-
memorial devotion. So he resolved upon a curious and con-
spicuous act, half-votive, half-penitential, very humble and
popular and un-Patmorean — namely, a pilgrimage to LourdesI
The poet set out toward the grotto of Bernadette's vision with
a beautiful crushing of personal repugnance, asking much of
the good God, giving what in him lay. The result is best
told in his own words:
On the fourteenth of October, ^^11 1 1 knelt at the Shrine
by the River Gave, and rose without any emotion or enthu-
siasm or unusual sense of devotion, but with a tranquil sense
that the prayers of thirty-five years had been granted. I paid
two visits of thanksgiving to I<ourdes in the two succeeding
Octobers, for the gifl which was then received, and which has
never since for a single hour been withdrawn." *
One more dogma was thus revealed to Coventry Patmore,
not merely as a convenient ^'form of sound words," but as a
fact with vital bearing upon the rest of life. Mary of Nazareth
became to him thenceforth the essential womanhood — the sym-
• Autobiography : 4/. * • Memoirs and CorrespontUncit** ut supra.
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I9I0t} Co VENTR Y PA TMORE I9
bol and prototype of homanity, natorei the body. In her little-
ness and sweetness was found the perfect complement to God's
infinitude: i^e was Regina Mutuli as well as Regina Caslif
foreshadowing the triumph of every faithful souL A great
epic upon the Marriage ol the Virgin was to have celebrated
this theme, but it never saw completion. However, in that
extraordinary surge of creative energy which peace brought to
our poet, the nucleus of it all stole into one exquisite ode,
''The Child's Purchase.'' This poem, written late in 1877,
stands in a true sense as the crown and flower of the ''Un-
known Eros," the consumnoation of Patmore's poetic career.
Opening with the parable of a little child who receives
from his mother a golden coin-— which at first he plans to
spend " or on a horse, a bride-cake, or a crown," but brings
back wearily at the last as guerden for her own sweet kiss-—
the poet dedicates his gift of precious speech to this most
gracious Lady. Then follows the glorious invocation:
Ah, Lady elect.
Whom the Time's scorn has saved from its respect.
Would I had art
For uttering that which sings within my heart!
But, lo.
Thee to admire is all the art I know.
My Mother and God's; Fountain of miracle!
Grive me thereby some praise of thee to tell
In such a song
As may my Guide severe and glad not wrong.
Who never spoke till thou 'dst on him conferr'd
The right, convincing wordt
Grant me the steady heat
Of thought wise, splendid, sweet.
Urged by the great, rejoicing wind that rings
With draught of unseen wings.
Making each phrase, for love and for delight.
Twinkle like Sirius on a frosty night 1
Aid thou thine own dear fame, thou only Fair,
At whose petition meek
The Heavens themselves decree that, as it were.
They will be weak t
Thou Speaker of all wisdom in a Word,
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20 Co VENTRY PA TMORE [April,
Thy Lord!
Speaker who thus could'st well afford
Thence to be silent: — ah, what silence that
Which had for prologue thy ** Magnificat *' ? —
• • • • • •
Ora pro me I
Sweet Girlhood without guile,
The extreme of God's creative energy;
Sunshiny Peak of human personality;
The world's sad aspirations' one Success;
Bright Blush, that sav'st our shame from shamelessness ;
Chief Stone of stumbling; Sign built in the way
To set the foolish everywhere a-bray;
Hem of God's robe which all who touch are heal'd;
• • • • . • •
Peace-beaming Star, by which shall come enticed.
Though nought thereof as yet they weet.
Unto thy Babe's small feet.
The mighty, wand'ring disemparadised.
Like Lucifer, because to thee
They will not bend the knee;
Ora pro me I
Desire of Him whom all things else desire
Bush aye with Him as He with thee on fire!
Neither in His great Deed nor on His throne—
O, folly of Love, the intense
Last culmination of Intelligence —
Him seem'd it good that God should be alone t
Basking in unborn laughter of thy lips.
Ere the world was, with absolute delight
His Infinite reposed in thy Finite;
Well-match'd : He, universal being's Spring,
And thou, in whom art gather'd up the ends of every-
thing I
Ora pro me I
Throughout that supreme series to the *^ Unknown Eros,"
Patmore leads his reader into realms of palpitating beauty,
truth, and love. The sensuous nature, by no means annihi-
lated in this new life of the spirit, is glorified and inconceiv-
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19 ic] Coventry Patmore %\
ably satisfied. The capacity of the soul for good (which our
poet always contended was 'Mn proportion to the strength of
its passions ") is infinite, because these passions are marshalled
into the orderly service ol God. Here, at last, the Body re-
ceives its meet salutation — not as ** Our Brother the Ass/' but
as the
Little sequestered pleasure-house
For God and for His Spouse;
and human love becomes a ladder leading up to mystic visions
of Christ as the Love, the Bridegroom of the soul. Pre-emi-
nently in the old exquisite myth of Eros and Psychci but
scarcely less in the experiences of every loving and suffering
life, Patmore found this all but unspeakable truth prefigured,
and he played upon the motif in ode after ode of marvelous
beauty and tenderness.
The exceeding intimacy with which our poet clothed (or
shall one say — unclothed?) his transcendent theme has proved
distasteful to many a devout but colder mind : to Aubrey de
Vere, who begged the suppression of the Psyche odes ; to Cardi-
nal Newman, who never became quite reconciled to thus '^ mixing
up amorousness with religion.'* The same exception, obviously^
might be taken to the Canticle of Canticles, and to much sub-
sequent mystical writing. For love, as Coventry Patmore un-
derstood it, was '* the highest of virtues as well as the sweetest
of emotions, . . . being in the brain confession of good ;
in the heart, love for, and desire to sacrifice everything for the
good of its object; in the senses, peace, purity, and ardor.'' In
this most elemental of human passions be found the one per-
fect and consistent symbol of the Divine Desire and the Divine
Espousals.
And without this rare ability to translate spiritual truth
into the terms of a vibrating humanity — this impassioned and
mystic sensuousness (which some, doubtless, will label a 'Mivine
sensuality"), Patmore could scarcely have escaped the snares
which yawn before every poet conscious of a message. But, in
point of fact, he was never more supremely the poet than
when he was most radically the seer. Never, save possibly in
one or two political arraignments, does the personal note de-
rogate from the permanence of his poetry; never once, for all
his vehemence of belief, does he descend into didacticism.
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2z Coventry Patmore [April,
Nor does his symbolic analysis of human emotion even for a
moment lessen the intense reality of pain and of love through-
out his song. Here is one little '^ Farewell/' scarcely sur-
passed in its quiet heartbreak:
With all my willy but much against my heart.
We two now part.
My Very Dear«
Our solace is« the sad road lies so clean
It needs no art,
With faint, averted feet
And many a tear.
In our opposed paths to persevere.
Go thou to East, I West
We will not say
There's any hope, it is so far away.
Buty O, my Best,
When the one darling of our widowhead.
The nursling Grief,
Is dead.
And no dews blur our eyes
To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
Perchance we may.
Where now this night is day.
And even through faith of still averted leet.
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;
The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content
With tears of recognition never dry.
In *' Amelia'' (Patmore's favorite poem, but scarcely his
readers' 1) we find this ode form combined with the simpler
narrative theme of [his earlier days. And once again we are
forced to feel how dangerous and difficult a thing truth to the
Utter of life may become I Yet there are perfect touches in
the poem ; suggestions of Patmore's really great sea music, and
Nature flashes like that
young apple-tree, in flush'd array
Of white and ruddy flow*r auroral, gay,
With chilly blue the maiden branch between.
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i9ia] Coventry PATMORE t%
** St. Vatentine's Day " and many another lyric bear witness
to our poet's searching observation of natural beauty, yet this
was less an object in itself to him [than a sensitive mise en
seine for the human drama. To the core he was a symbolist;
and of natural phenomena he seems to have felt what he
somewhere declared of natural science — ^that its only real use
was "to supply similes and parables'' to the spiritually elect.
The year 1880 brought sorrow back into Patmore's life in
the sudden death of his wife Mary. Her loss proved the first
of a bitter trilogy. Scarcely two years later, his well loved
daughter Emily (Sister Mary Christina as she had become, of
the Society of the Holy Child Jesus) died in her nearby con-
vent. The passing of this rare spirit, from childhood so deep-
ly in sympathy with his own (a poet herself, and one of the
best critics of her father's work), can scarcely have been less
than a sundering of our poet's very life. And then there was
Henry, Patmore's third son, whose brief novitiate of pain and
promise came to a close in 1883. His little bark had never been
very sea- worthy, yet in spite of serious illness he left poetic
fragments of decided beauty and originality. ''At twenty
years of age his spiritual and imaginative insight were far be-
yond those of any man I ever met," Coventry declared, and
it was his belief that had the boy lived to maturity, his poetic
achievement might have surpassed his own.
The decade commencing in 18S4 Patmore devoted to a
aeries of varied and stimulating prose essays, contributed main*
ly to the St. Jatnes Gazette. Politics, economics, philosophy,
art, literature, architecture, were in turn touched upon with
powerful and trenchant originality. The most significant of
tiiese critiques were subsequently collected, partially in Principles
in Art, 1S89, partially in that precious volume, Religio Poeta,
1S93. A little book of pregnant aphorisms and brief, unequal
essays. The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, closed this prose
sequence in 1895.
Meanwhile the Twilight of the Gods was drawing apace
upon this inspired and imperious spirit. Flashes of comfort
there were, indeed; the devoted companionship of Harriet
Robson, who became our poet's third wife, and that little late-
bom son, Epiphanius. In the friendship of Mrs. Meynell, too,
Patmore found throughout these latter years one of God's best
gifts, an exquisite community of ideals. One of his latest essays
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24 Coventry PATMORE [April,
was an appreciation of her own work both in prose and verse ;
and through her he came into close touch with the young
Francis Thompson, helping on the critical world to a recogni-
tion of his genius.
Daring all this time the poet's heart was growing in-
termittently weaker, and his lungs, long underminded, caused
increasing anxiety. At Lymington, whither he had removed,
there were repeated attacks and convalescences ; and at last, in
the November of 1906, a congestion set in. ''What about
going to heaven this time?'' Patmore asked his physician,
with weary but irrepressible irony. The next day, after receiv-
ing the last Sacraments, his agony commenced. His words
were broken prayers and thoughts for those about him. ''I
love you, dear," he whispered to his wife when the end was
very near, ''but the Lord is my Life and my Light." Into
this larger life he passed painlessly on the 26th of November.
And in the humble habit of St. Francis' tertiary his body was
borne to its long rest in the little seacoast cemetery.
Coventry Patmore's career as poet had closed full twenty
years earlier, with the " collected " edition of 1886; consequently
his place in our literature has passed the first tentative stage.
The waxings and wanings of contemporary taste — the flood
tide of the "Angel," the ebb-tide of the earlier odes, the
ominous calm of the final years — no longer any whit affect his
reputation. He has attained a certain degree of permanence.
He has, quite indisputably, survived : as a name^ indeed, to the
" general reader," but as a fact in the great confraternity of
song. Francis Thompson was eager in acknowledging his debt
to " this strong, sad soul of sovereign song," and others not so
eager have gathered the riches of his vineyard. It is even
possible to say that the chances of any just appreciation of his
work are greater to-day than they were yesterday, and that
probably they will be greater to-morrow than they are to- day.
For in the literary world, as in the philosophic, mysticism-^
the symbolic interpretation of life — is once again becoming a
potent factor. At the same time, a certain analytical brutality
has accustomed latter-day readers to face reality, even to crave
reality. Each of these tendencies is favorable to Patmore, cre-
ating an audience (larger, though never large I) which his poetry
may in time both delight and dominate.
" I have written little, but it is all my best," our poet wrote
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I9IO.] Coventry Patmore 25
in one of his prefaces ; '^ I have never spoken when I bad
nothing to say, nor spared time or labor to make my words
true. I have respected posterity; and should there be a pos-
terity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect
me/' He did, in fact, write little, and not one of the great
works he planned was ever completed. Neither can all of this
little be rightly termed his best. His style was nervous and
unequal: capable of the most breathless perfection both of
passion and of music, but capable also of perversity and a curi-
ous commonplaceness. Yet the most fastidious posterity shall
respect him. He was in his great moments one of our supreme
lyric artists. He sounded the heart-beats with poignant and
unforgettable truthfulness. He may be said to have created a
i^erse form of powerful originality. And then, his was that
fusing imagination (the crowning gift of genius!) which trans-
mutes reason and emotion with equal facility into one ''agile
bead of boiling gold."
But it is not merely with Patmore's poetry — nor, for that
matter, with his prose — that the critical world must one day
reckon. It is pre-eminently with his poetic philosophy. Teach-
ing in his verse only by suggestions of rare beauty, but through-
out the essays with increasing definition and completeness, he
formulated a very consistent rationale of life, love, and God.
It was a mystical superstructure reared upon the foundation of
Christian dogma, an interpretation of the " corollaries of belief.''
In another sense it may be called the psychology of sex, since
in the mysteries of manhood and womanhood Patmore found
the heavens above and the earth beneath explained. God he
apprehended as the great, positive, masculine magnet of the
universe; the soul as the feminine or receptive force; and in
this conjunction of highest and lowest lay the source of all life
and joy. '' This voice of the Bride and the Bridegroom " he
detected in literature and art, as intellectual strength or sensi-
ble beauty was found to predominate; while in the workings
of conscience there was a similar duality, the rational and the
sensitive soul. But as the poems have shown, it was the '' great
sacrament" of nuptial love which most clearly manifested the
mystery.
The whole of life is womanhood to thee,
Momently wedded with enormous bliss,
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26 Coventry Patmore [April,
bis Psyche cries oat to her immortal lover: and even so did
Patmore conceive of the life-giving God. Originally, he de-
clared there were three sexes (which in the Holy Trinity, Troth,
Love, and Life, found their divine prototype) and it was mainly
in order to achieve this complete but forgotten hotno that *' nup-
tial knowledge*' became the one thing needful. Woman, be
writes in that daring and suggestive essay, Dieu ei ma Dame^^
'Ms ' homo ' as well as the man, though one element, the male,
is suppressed and quiescent in her, as the other, the female, is
in him; and thus he becomes the Priest and representative to
her of the original Fatherhood, while she is made to him the
Priestess and representative of that original Beauty which is
' the express image and glory of the Father,' each being equallyi
though not alike, a manifestation of the Divine to the other.^
Upon this symbol^ conjugal love, Patmore indeed based the
body of his work: yet he cannot justly be accused (as it would
seem that Swedenborg in his much-discussed work must needs
be I) of sacrificing to it the eternal reality — love divine. Chas-
tity our poet recognized as the final and perfect flowering of
this fair bud, and it was the '' Bride of Christ " alone who folly
attained here below to that double sex which shall distinguish
the regenerate in heaven. One of his most perfect odes, '' De-
lias Saptentis de Amore," stands forever as defence and vin-
dication. Boldly it calls to the glad Palace of Virginity those
''to whom generous Love, by any name, is dear"— who, all
gropingly and unwittingly, have sought and yet seek
Nothing but God
Or mediate or direct
Father Gerard Hopkins, upon his single visit to Hastings
in 1885, was shown the manitficript of a prose work, Sponsm^
Dei^ designed by Patmore for posthumous publication, and con-
taining the fullest expansion of these transcendent views. He
returned it with one grave remark: "That's telling secrets.'*
It was upon the " authority of his goodness " our poet always
declared, that this beautiful treatise became fuel for another
liistoric burnt offering; but one can scarcely doubt that he him-
self had come to recognize the delicate rightness of the priest's
judgment, and the fact that his subject demanded the parabo-
*^^de RiUgio Poita.
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I9IO.] Coventry patmore 27
He vesture of poetry. We have the less cause to moarn over
this lost manuscript, since most of its matter appears to have
reached us through the pages of Religio Poetcs. The Precursor
of this latter volume is probably the most illuminating criti-
cism upon natural and divine love which Patmore (or any other
modern) has given us — ^the essence of his poetic philosophy,
.thrown out with live sparks of mystical insight.
There is about Coventry Patmore's work a supreme, almost
an infallible, rightness of spirit; but not infrequently an ex-
travagance and perversity of literal expression. Two explana-
tions are at hand — the fact that much of his writing was
''special pleading,'* and the exalted, autocratic nature of his
genius. '' My call is that I have seen the truth, and can speak
the living words which come of having seen it," he asserted;
and his shafts were driven home with the instinct of a born
fighter. Yet there can be no question of the constructive value
of his teaching, of the overwhelming reality with which it re-
veals the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real
Presence, and the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. All his life
be was, in his own words, trying ''To dig again the wells
which the Philistines had filled '' — building up the supernatural
upon the basis of natural good, bowing down before the divine
weakness and nearness of God in Christ, rather than before His
primal isfiaity. It is all symbolised in that cryptic tomb at
Lymington: the obelisk of Egypt (Nature) and the Lion tA
^ah, rising upon the three steps of the Trinity; the Cross,
the Host, the Virgin's lilies; and for a text that stupendous
promise. My cmfinant shall be in your flesh.
(THE END.)
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THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER.
BY JEANIE DRAKE.
E military parade bad been passing for hours.
Now came still anotber regimental band playing
the Russian National Hymn, and then the Seventh
in all the bravery of new uniforms and perfect
drilling.
''What regiment is this, I wonder/' said Arnold Van
Twiller, an on-looker, to his companion, Olmsted, ** a good
many of them look like foreigners. Best music yet*-and what
a fine-looking old drum major 1 Get up, Olmsted, and look at
him— it's worth while."
''I don't believe I can see him/' answered Olmsted, pul-
ling himself up and peering with half-shut eyes. *' Oh, yes, F
know; a good many Frenchmen in that regiment. Drum
major's name is Deluce, I think. I have seen him at a
downtown restaurant where I sometimes go to study men and
manners. A handsome, soldierly old fellow/'
** Come, then," said Arnold, '' this is the last company.
Let's be going/'
As they waited for a car, debating whether they would go
to the restaurant or to Arnold's home for dinner, a tall man
in uniform separated himself from a passing group and hailed
a car going south. His action seemed to lead Olmsted to a
decision. He scrambled in after the uniformed man and was
followed by Arnold.
''What did you take this car for?" asked Arnold.
''I don't know exactly," answered his friend. ''It was
just one of those impulses which sometimes come to us scrib-
blers. We have abundant time to go to that restaurant I told
you of, and then go uptown to dinner. Meantime, you may
observe the object of your admiration, the drum major, for it
was he who got in with us."
True enough, seated nearly opposite them, his bearskin
shako laid across his knees, sat the fine- looking old man they
had remarked in the parade. His great height and soldierly
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I9IO.] THE DRUM MAJORS S DAUGHTER 29
bearing could only be suggested now; but his features were
seen to be clearly handsome ; his hair and moustache of sil-
very whiteness, while his dark eyes retained much of the quick-
ness and fire of youth.
'' My cherished dream as a small boy/' whispered Olmsted,
''was to be a drum major — just to wear that gorgeous shako
and twirl that baton once — and die!"
'Tve a mind to speak to him/' said Arnold, ''but perhaps
it wouldn't do— he might presume — "
Olmsted was about to interrupt, but his words were cut
short by the stopping of the car and the exit of the drum
major. " Come/' he said to Arnold, " this is our street."
They followed the erect figure that walked before them down
one of the streets going eastward, and then, after a sharp turn
to the left, stopped in front of a low building with a dingy
sign in front, Cafi Jurot^ and went down a few steps and dis-
appeared. The friends found themselves in a low-ceilinged,
smoky room, resounding with a babel of tongues. Olmsted
showed himself perfectly at home. The proprietor, a stout,
rosy-faced Frenchman, spoke to him as to a favored, habitual
guest.
"Ah, Monsieur Olmsted," said he, "you will have seen,
without doubt, that fine parade to-day ? Our friend, Deluce "
— glancing towards the drum major, who sat a little distance
from them — "he must have been superb."
" He certainly was. Monsieur Jurot," assented Olmsted.
"What a frightful noise," murmured Arnold.
"One gets accustomed to it," answered his friend, "and
learns that the speakers are not quarreling, but merely arguing
with an animation that is unknown to our calmer race."
A heated discussion going forward at a near-by table
seemed to contradict this statement. Two Italians were talk-
ing with great bitterness of feu Napoleon Trois^ calling him
false and unreliable, and saying that if Orsini bombs had not
failed of their mission, Sedan had not followed. Olmsted saw
the drum major's face twitch convulsively. He watched the
old soldier, who finally could no longer contain himself, and
with a blow of his fist on the table, called out:
" Tonnerre de Dieul only cowards insult the dead! And
it takes ungrateful Italian cowards to forget Magenta and
Solferinol"
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30 THE DRUM MAjaitS DAUGHTER [April,
Instantly one of the others was on his feet, apsettiog his
chair^ but the host immediately interposed with a firm: ''No,
no, messieurs; I will have no disputing here nor politico
You know the rule of our house: Peace and quiet— or out
you go."
The hot words were presently apparently forgotten and the
clamor of voices went on as before. The old soldier arose
in a little while, paid his bill, and went out A moment later,
with a glance at each other, the Italians went too.
''That may mean nothing," observed Arnold, "still we
might see"; and, Olmsted agreeing, they followed. In the early
dusk a few street-lamps twinkled, but the lights were poor in
this out-of-the-way quarter, and it was not easy to distinguish
the drum major's figure, already some distance ahead. Walk*
ing rapidly, they managed to get nearer, and also to distin-
guish two prowling forms which kept in shadow on the other
side. The old man turned into a side street, dark, narrow, and
deserted; and in a moment his pursuers crossed over, ap-
proached, and jostled him. A few sharp words were inter-
changed, a blow struck, and while he warded another his foot
slipped on the mud of the pavement and he went down.
With a shout Olmsted and Arnold ran forward; and the as-
sailants, seeing them coming, disappeared.
"I hope you are not hurt, monsieur," Arnold inquired,
helping him up.
"Not at all, monsieur, thanks to you. Though, my word
of honor I I would have been a match for both of the ac-
cursed cowards if I had not slipped. All the same, I owe you
many thanks; and to whom am I indebted?" he asked, with
a courteous inclination of the head.
"My name is Van Twiller," said Arnold, "and this is my
friend, Mr. Olmsted."
"My name, messieurs, is Deluce, formerly Sergeant in the
Imperial Army of France; now, drum major in a regimental
band of this city. Perhaps" — with sudden thought— "you have
not supped. My dwelling, a very modest apartment, is near
here, and my supper waits, if you will give me the pleasure — "
"Certainly," said Arnold, seeing dissent on Olmsted's lips.
Monsieur Deluce led the way, and they threaded a labyrinth
of narrow, dirty, and noisy streets. Arnold had almost begun
to share his companion's reluctance, when their guide turned
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i9ia] The Drum Majoi^s Daughter 31
into a much quieter side-street. It was a mere lane in lengthi
and poor enough in general appearance, but the door-steps of
most of the houses were fairly clean and faded blinds hung
before the windows. One of these was the Major's dwelling.
He had conducted his rescuers upstairs and then left them for
a few moments. On his return he said:
''I will beg you to say nothing to my daughter of that
affair. .It would frighten her. I have explained a bruise she
observed on my forehead by telling of the fall and your kind
assistance after."
Through a dimly- lighted hallway they passed into a tiny
room, which opened into still another, and from the inner one
a young girl came out to meet them. ''These are the Mes-
sieurs Olmsted and Van Twiller, Madeleine, my child," he said ;
and the girl stretched a slim hand to one and then to the other.
'' I greet you in the American style," she said in English,
but with the prettiest accent, ''so to thank you for the great
kindness my father tells me of."
"You may talk French, my Madeleine, if you will," ob-
served the drum major, " these gentlemen speak like Parisians."
They had conversed but a very few moments when, with
feminine quickness, she discovered that while Olmsted, the care-
less, indifferent-looking elder, was entirely at his ease talking
in a foreign tongue, it was something of a restraint on the
younger.
" I will beg of you a favor," said she, bending a little
towards Arnold, "I may speak my own language at all times
with Papa; but I should be so glad to practise my English.
May I not with you ? "
Presently, rising and laughing, she said : " Papa, you must
be thinking about your supper, for I know well that hungry
look. But I must first finish the salad; and will we have tea
or coffee?"
" Anything, ma mignonne^^ said her father, " for I am truly
exhausted."
The jdyous look left the girl's face, and she sighed uncon-
sciously as she moved about in the inner room. The one the
others were in, though small and bare, was scrupulously neat, and
had a very homelike look. The waxed floor was covered with
one or two home-made rugs; on a polished table stood a shaded
lamp; the curtains and chair covers were delicately tinted;
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32 The Drum Major's Daughter [April,
some books and music were scattered about; and a few flowers
stood in a slender glass upon the mantel-piece. But what most
surprised Olmsted was an open piano of the best make, which
was comparatively new.
''Madeleine will give us some music by and by/' said her
father, noticing his glance ; '' and will you smoke now ? '' Olm-
sted accepted; but Arnold declared that he seldom smoked;
which amazing misrepresentation only meant that at -present
he had other views. He was watching through the open door-
way the unconsciously graceful movements of a gray-clad, girl-
ish figure, performing deftly various household services. Made-
leine suddenly entered again and took the lamp from the table.
''You have another light here; can you spare me this?'*
she inquired.
As she was lifting it, he took it from her hands: "Where
shall I place it?'' he asked.
"Just there," she said, indicating a small supper- table, neatly
laid for four. Then, with gracious permission from her, he
brought the flowers to decorate, and hastened to say, pleadingly :
"Mademoiselle, if there is one talent I possess — ^my only
one, in fact — it is to make mayonnaise. Let me assist you, I
beg."
"I do not know," she answered, pretending to regard him
searchingly, "they say two persons should be very — how do
you say it? — in sympathy, to make mayonnaise together. And ''
— with a smile in her eyes-^"it is not so many minutes since
Monsieur and I ai^e acquainted. The salad might be spoiled."
"We will prove our sympathy, then," insisted Arnold; and
he had his way. In a few moments there was great activity in
the inner room. Coffee simmered and hissed on the little brass
stand; eggs were broken into a dish and madly beaten by
Arnold, while Madeleine, standing over him, poured a thin,
steady stream of oil from a wicker flask.
" More, more. Miss Deluce," he cried reproachfully ; " you
wish to spoil it, so that you may declare that we are not sympa-
thetic."
" No, no, indeed " ; she protested laughingly. She was made
girlishly light-hearted by this unwonted charm of youthful
companionship ; and Arnold's boyishness of manner had set
her quite at ease with him.
In the dimmer light of the outer room the father and 01m«
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I9IO,] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER 33
sted sat and smoked, but the picture framed by the doorway
distracted the latter's attention from the drum major's remarks.
He regarded steadily the brightness of the lamp, the shining
brass, and the youth's handsome head bending over a dainty
figure whose grace idealized the commonplace household duties.
He felt very old all of a sudden, sitting in outer dimness. He
lent only an inattentive ear to the former sergeant's reminis-
cences, and he absently lifted his hand to feel for som^ gray
hairs which he had perceived in the mirror that morning.
A fresh, soft ripple of laughter crossed their talk again, and
the father said contentedly: ''My Madeleine seems to enjoy
your friend's chat; and I am glad, she has so little pleasure.
Figure to yourself, Monsieur, that I am father, mother, brother,
everything to my little girl. Her mother she lost when an in-
fant; her brother" — his moustached lip quivered — 'Mater, at
Sedan, a mere boy. There is no one else; and it is hard for
a girl of nineteen to have only an old father who feels very
tired and useless sometimes. But she is a brave child" — draw-
ing himself up — " a true daughter of a soldier. She is mana-
ger, housekeeper, everything in our small minage. Then she
teaches French of mornings in young ladies' schools and music in
the afternoons. She has bought herself the piano you see there."
" You may well be proud of her," said Olmsted, touched by
these simple confidences. The object of their eulogy stood now
in the doorway.
" Supper," she smiled, " with the kind assistance of Monsieur,
is now served."
It was easy, Olmsted admitted to himself, for Arnold to
drift here into some "confounded folly." Easy even for him-
self to forget that they were supping in a shabby apartment
over a shop in a quarter where Arnold at least had never be-
fore found himself, and that their host was a simple drum
major. The little table was so pretty, with its flowers and
lights, its fragrant coffee and perfect salad. And this fair
young hostess pressing hospitable attentions on hungry men —
this was Arcadian. Meanwhile young Arnold was affiliating
with their host and giving adhesion to Utopian views of politics
quite foreign to a practical nature. He renounced all interest
in the French Republic in favor of the Empire, and finally
professed a loathing for all things German, which was singular
enough considering that his last few years had been spent by
VOU XCI.— 3
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34 THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER [April,
choice in that country. But it was easy to see that he had won
the heart of Monsieur Deluce.
Afterwards, when Madeleine cleared the table, she quite na-
turally permitted Arnold to help her; but to Olmsted she said:
''I will not trouble Monsieur."
** Will you sing for us ? " her father asked her afterwards*
'' I will play/' she said, seating herself at the piano. Olm-
sted, /lothing if not critical, prepared for endurance ; but he
was altogether disappointed. Simply, unpretentiously, she
glided into melodies clear, tender, lovely — some of them he
knew, others he had never heard.
The guests had risen to go and Olmsted was thanking her
father with grave courtesy for his hospitality. Once more she
offered her hand in saying good-night; and while her father
cautioned as to the steps and the nearest way to their car, she
answered Arnold graciously:
'' It will be a pleasure to Papa to hear you sing, and I
shall be very glad."
The two men went their way silently for a while; then
Arnold began: ''She is quite unusual — and unexpected."
''A very pretty girl," said Olmsted.
'' Pretty I " indignantly answered Arnold, '' she is much more
than that, and her manner is perfect."
'' I wonder then where she acquired it," continued Olmsted,
'' for her father told me that his people had always been small
farmers near Nancy, when they were not fighting. He is a bit
prejudiced himself and irascible now and then; but, on the
whole, a fine old fellow."
'' I know all about them, for we talked while making the
salad."
"No doubt."
''Her great-grandfather was devoted to the first Napoleon,
and her grandfather fought at Magenta. When the Empire
went out at Sedan and this one lost his only son before Paris,
he would stay in France no longer, but came here to begin
again. Some friend obtained for him his present position, and
she procured music pupils and French classes, and hopes, she
says, to make much money, and then the 'dear father, so old
and kind, shall march no more ! ' He moved with her to
Paris, it seems, when she was a little child and managed to
have her well-educated at a convent — especially in music.
But think how lonely for that young girl."
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I9IO.] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER 35
** What was the Christian oame of her great-grandmother ? *'
asked Olmsted in a very serious tone; ''and did you discover
how many heads of poultry and cabbage they raised on the
farm at Nancy, before they moved to Paris?"
** How altogether hateful you are this evening I '' cried
Arnold impatiently. ''One thing I can tell you, you might
have been with her for hours and she would never have grown
friendly; for she said that your eyes, or glasses, or manner,
or perhaps all together, were ' un peu sivire V and when I said
that you were a litterateur^ she supposed you must be a
critic/'
Up in Richard Olmsted's rooms, on a warm afternoon some
weeks later, a pleasant breeze was swaying the lace curtains
to and fro. It blew some papers off the table where he
sat writing, but he did not raise his eyes from the page down
which his pen was rapidly traveling. A knock at the door was
repeated twice — thrice — before he heard it. "Come in," he
shouted, without looking up.
"The divine afQatus never inspires you to tear visitors to
pieces, I hope," said Arnold Van Twiller.
"Oh, it is youl" said Olmsted in some surprise, "where
have you been for the last three weeks? At Newport, I
suppose."
"No"; answered Arnold slowly. "I escorted my mother
and party there; but came back immediately, and have been
in town most of the time."
"In town — so long — at this season I And never came near
me I " exclaimed Olmsted.
"Well, I knew how hard you were working at those papers
for the Athenian^ and that I would only interrupt you. The
sooner you get through, you know, the sooner we can start
Westward," was the calm answer.
" I have heard," said Olmsted quietly, " of something school-
boys call ' a face of frozen brass.' "
" Well, then," answered Arnold boldly, " I have been quite
busy myself and scarcely had a moment's leisure."
" You have not, then," Olmsted asked, drawing careless lines
on the nearest sheet of paper, " you have not seen, by chance,
our friend the drum major since we were last together?"
"Once or twice," answered his visitor, reddening.
" Once or twice, perhaps three or six times, or even a
dozen," added Olmsted. "Well, he is quite interesting."
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36 THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER [April,
<« I assure you/' cried Arnold eagerly, ** he is the most in-
teresting old fellow possible. He has seen so much of life and
men in stirring times; and you are the very one who could
appreciate him, Olmsted; and*-and — why do you smile in
that exasperating way ? "
Olmsted did not answer.
''I do wish/' continued Arnold, ''that you would keep
your smile for some other subject. I am free to confess
that I find Mademoiselle Deluce very attractive, and*' — defi-
antly — ''I have been there a great many times. We sing
duets together. I am a friend of the household.''
'' And the neighbors " — Olmsted resumed his pencil tracing
as he spoke — ''what do they think of a young man of your
general appearance coming so often?"
" I don't care a rap what the neighbors — " Arnold began.
"That's not the point," Olmsted interrupted. "See here,
Arnold," he continued, laying aside his ironical manner with
his pencil, " what little I saw of this girl induces me to be-
lieve that, under a pretty, coquettish manner, she is a true
woman and has earnest aims in life. Her old father is bound
up in her; but she has her own way to make. Now, is it
manly to cross her path just to amuse yourself and, possibly,
unsettle her mind?"
"It's not so easy to unsettle," he began; then, breaking
off : " Suppose that you go this afternoon. If you wilU I
promise always to remain under your wise and prudent
guardianship during these visits. Come now. Mentor I"
Olmsted seemed at first irresolute, but an hour afterward
they stood together before Madeleine's house. The hall door was
open and likewise an inner door this sultry afternoon, and they
could distinguish the accents of a low, clear voice. Madeleine,
in some light-tinted muslin, was seated in a low chair, little
Hans, the child of the watchmaker below stairs, was in her lap.
The child's rosy cheek was pressed to hers and his yellow
locks touched the dark ones where a rose was fastened like
some others glowing in a vase at hand, which Olmsted noted
and guessed the sender.
"All at once," she was saying, "the tin soldier fell, head
over heels, from the window into the street. It was frightful I
He stuck one leg into the air and stood on his military cap,
his bayonet between the stones. The maid and the little boy
ran down but could not find him, for he did not think it
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I9I0.] THE DRUM MAJOR* S DAUGHTER 37
proper to cry out, because be was in aniform. Ab, Monsieur
Van Tweeleer, it is you. I am glad, but I will not rise, I am
so tired/' Seeing tben an unexpected figure following bis, sbe
did arise, coloring a little and letting tbe cbild slip to bis feet.
''My fatber will be so pleased to see Monsieur again,'' sbe
declared politely.
''Wby are yon so tired, Mademoiselle Madeleine?'' in-
quired Arnold.
''Tbe weatber, perbaps," sbe answered, leaning back a
little languidly, "and I bave to go far to my classes. But
I do not mind, for imagine to yourself " — witb ready confidence
in bis sympatby*-" tbat I bave five new pupils ; and in a few
years I will make money enougb, wbo knows, (or Papa to stop
work and we may live togetber — in Paris, perbaps, and tben be
could visit bis old bome in tbe country. But I forget " — turn-
ing to Olmsted — "tbis cannot interest Monsieur. I am sorry
Papa is late. He bas so mucb to tell always tbat is pleasant ;
tbougb I believe" — besitatingly— " tbat you do not always
agree witb bim. Monsieur Arnaut, now" — witb a gleam of
miscbief in tbe dark eyes — ^"be tbinks in everytbing like my
fatber."
"Tbat is very remarkable, indeed," observed Olmsted
drily.
" Yes " ; sbe continued, witb more reserve, " considering tbe
ages. He must like you very mucb. Monsieur Arnaut, or be
would not speak to you of my dead brotber. I was a very
little cbild tben; but I remember we were all croucbing in a
cellar in Paris— tbe women and tbe cbildren~-and trembled
wben we beard a sbell bursting, or tbe far-off artillery. It
was a terrible time. We bad often notbing to eat all day, and
were bungry— ob, very bungry."
"Pray do not tell us" — interrupted Olmsted, almost
rottgbly " I can bear to bear or read of borrors ; but not of
tbem bappening to delicate women and cbildren— tbose we —
we know."
She looked at bim in evident surprise, baving given bim
credit for but little sympathy.
"Would you care to sing a little, Monsieur Arnaut?"
asked tbe young girl.
"Yes"; consented Arnold, "but without the lamp. Tbis
twilight is so pleasant."
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38 THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER [AprU.
Olmsted turned to look at the accompanist, and, looking,
forgot the song. Her gracious young head was outlined against
the window, a slight smile parting the lips, the red rose shining
in its dusky setting. He gazed until the end, then rose abruptly,
pushing Arnold aside. '' Come," he said, ** make room, my
dear fellow, it is my turn ! I shall fright the ravens, but I am
moved to raise my voice in song.'* She left the piano, and
seating himself, he struck a chord or two; then in a voice,
harsh, it is true, [in comparison with his friend's, but with
something in its timbre which impressed and thrilled, began:
''Du bist wie eine Blume."
When this was over, he went off into another song of
Heine's — a wild thing and reckless in tone, but passing into
soft tenderness at the last. Rising with a laugh of apology,
he found Arnold his only listener, and Madeleine just return-
ing with the shaded lamp. Perhaps it was because he had
taken off his glasses while at the piano that she gavQ him now
a quick, intent look, as though she saw him strangely and for
the first time.
He also noted her pallor, saying: ''You are, indeed, tired,
Mademoiselle."
" Yes " ; she admitted, lightly adding that she was suffering
for her usual season at some fashion resort.
" You like the country ? "
''Oh, yes"; she answered with unconscious wistfulness*
" It is so close here sometimes. Near Paris there were many
pretty places where one could go on Sundays and holidays for
the fresh air."
"There are such here, too," said Olmsted, "We could ar-
range a day. But we can speak to your father about it; and
now we must go away and let you rest."
" Yes " ; Madeleine answered with simple dignity, " as my
father is late, I will wish you good- night."
"What in the world," began Arnold when they were once
more in the street, "made you sing German songs? It was a
monstrous want of tact. The father cannot endure anything
German, and of course she feels the same. You saw that she
could not bear to stay in the room."
" I had forgotten," said Olmsted, " but, as you say, it must
have annoyed her."
(to bb concluded.)
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THE MEXICO OF TO-DAY.
BY J. B. FRISBIE.
' is a lamentable fact that a major part of the
articles published in the United States, and other
countries, regarding Mexico* are inexact and mis-
leading. The writers of these articles have, in
the majority of cases, made but hurried trips
to the country, and have gone back to their homes imbued
with a superabundance of fantastic fiction with which to de-
ceive, so far as a general impression is concerned, millions of
readers, and create erroneous estimates hard to eradicate. The
result is that Mexico suffers great injury and injustice.
We do not claim that these articles are, in all cases, de-
liberately untruthful, but the careless, haphazard way in which
alleged data are gathered, the implicit credence given to profes-
sional dispensers of sensational trash, is to blame, in most
cases, for the circulation of so much that is false concerning
Mexico.
To select a few defects, real or alleged, and then to en-
large upon them, to magnify them into gigantic inventions of
the imagination, is, at best, a cruel and cowardly way to treat
a neighboring and a neighborly people, especially when that
people is doing all in its power for the advancement of the
country — an advancement which has made such stupendous
strides during the last thirty years, a progress which surpasses,
relatively, even the wonderful development of the United
States.
To call a country ** barbarous** whose enormous Indian
population, excepting a few wild tribes, is absolutely docile,
law-abiding, and Christian ; whose upper classes compare fa-
vorably with the aristocracy of any nation in the world, in
birth, education, character, and gentility; whose government
is striving its utmost for the uplift of its people; where the
education of the masses is being enhanced day by day; where
strikes and labor unions are unknown ; where cranks and anar-
chists are not permitted to enter; where divorce is not tolerated;
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40 THE MEXICO OF TO-DAY [April,
where the people of all classes are devoted to their religion;
and where one of the very greatest men of his time rules
with wisdom and justice, is, certainly, employing the phrase
to signify what its very antithesis would better express.
If drastic measures have, at times, been adopted in dealing
with the marauding Yaqui and Maya Indians, with bandits and
criminals and disturbers of the country's peace, such meas-
ures have been put into force only when circumstances justi-
fied their being used; and as to the evils of the peonage
system, and other exaggerated and imaginary calamitous prac-
tices, in the sense intended by Turner in the American Maga^
sinSf these exist only to a very limited degree, if at all, and
will surely be wiped out, just as every evil in the country
is being properly regulated where its complete obliteration is
impracticable.
Articles such as we refer to only invite retaliation and
engender bad feeling; and while common sense, and the know-
ledge that they are the exaggerated statements of professional
'' muck-rakers/' will prevent any serious or disagreeable con-
sequences — so far, at least, as Mexico is concerned— their
publication, in all fairness, and for the general good, should
be suppressed. The friendly relations existing between the
United States and Mexico, the great volume of constantly in-
creasing commercial and industrial intercourse, the amicable
and fraternal feelings of the people for each other, the well-
defined understanding between their governments, the inherent
spirit of American patriotism which animates both nations, and
the recent hand-clasp across the border of Presidents Taft and
Diaz, all tend to foster friendship and mutual regard. Such
friendship will render futile the pusillanimous efforts of a few
misguided writers to disrupt the prevailing harmony and create
international discord.
The Mexicans are modest in their claims, and freely admit
their defects, which, after all, are no more, no less, than those
of any other great civilized nation; they are liberal in recog-
nizing the good in others, and are sure to work out their
destiny to their own satisfaction, and to that of the world at
large, for they are intelligent, educated, enterprising, compe-
tent, and patriotic.
The story of Mexico's progress during the last thirty years
reads like a fairy tale, and in no other nation in the world
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I9IO.] THE MEXICO OF TO-DAV 41
can such relative progress be demonstrated. When General
Porfirio Diaz assumed power in 1876, the country, just recov-
ering from the effects of the French intervention and its con-
sequent war and desolation, was infested with bandits and out-
laws, was subject to constant turmoil by internal dissensions and
bloody revolutions; its commerce was at a standstill, its finances
bankrupted, its industries dormant; means of communication at
home and with the outside world were lamentably lackiDg, and
the relations between Church and State in a most deplorable
condition of animosity.
But how changed is all that now! General Diaz adopted
a policy of enlightened progress, and from national ruin and
veritable chaos, has evolved a mighty nation, universally re-
spected, whose credit is unsurpassed, whose commerce and in-*
dustries have been developed in a wonderful, almost miraculous
degree, whose government is wise, stable, and just, whose peo-
ple are hard-working and progressive, where Church and
State have, in a great measure, adjusted their differences. Of
course, there is a so-called political opposition which, at times,
occasions some excitement, but it is seldom taken seriously by
the thinking people. No one is opposed to General Diaz,
or his policies— there might be a few remote and unimportant
cases — and it is the universal prayer in Mexico, that her Grand
Old Man will be spared for many years. The rare gifts of this
great soldier-statesman have done more than aught else in the
up-building of this great nation, and while there are many pa-
triotic, able, and scholarly collaborators aiding, very materially,
in the colossal development under way, everybody, irrespective
of creed or nationality, recognizes and appreciates the splendid
worth of " El Gran Presidente,'' whose name will live as one of
the greatest in American continental history.
The government of Mexico, federal and local, is doing all
in its power for the uplift and advancement of the people,
and the forward march of the nation in recent years is the
best demonstration of this fact. A few years ago public schools
were few indeed; to-day every city has its quota; so that,
with private and Catholic parochial schools and colleges, there
is no lack of educational facilities. In the city of Mexico the
government preparatory school and its colleges of jurisprudence,
medicine, civil and mining engineering, its academy of fine arts,
and conservatory of music, compare most favorably with any
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42 THE MEXICO OF TO^DAY [April,
similar institutions in the worlds and in the larger cities and
towns of Mexico the same advanced conditions prevail. Edu-
cation is compulsory, just as it is in the United States, and so
the rising generation will not be deficient in this regard. A
few years ago hardly any of the working classes could read or
write; the reverse is now the rule.
Besides these splendid educational institutions mentioned,
the Jesuits and Marists have several fine colleges, and the Ladies
of the Sacred Heart and other Orders conduct well-appointed
schools and convents, which are patronized and supported by
the best people of the country.
In the trades the masses are constantly improving them-
selves, and the skilled Mexican artisan can 'well hold his own
with his brothers of other countries. Whenever the govern-
ment grants a concession to an individual alien, or to a foreign
corporation, it exacts that a majority of the employees, as soon
as conditions justify it, be Mexicans; thus it is that on the
railroads preference is given to a Mexican over a foreigner when-
ever the former is found competent. It will take some time,
however, to nationalize thoroughly the railroad service, for the
country is young in railroads, and there exists, unfortunately, a
tendency among the better classes to decry subordinate positions;
but the railroads and the many great industrial enterprises,
most of which have had less than a quarter of a century of ex-
istence, are also great educators of the people, and the ad-
vancement in this respect has been nothing less than phenomenal.
It is estimated that there is about one billion dollars of Amer-
ican capital invested in Mexico. England, Germany, France,
and Spain follow in the order named, and altogether they have in-
vested hundreds of millions. It is a well-known fact that every
dollar of this stupendous sum is adequately protected ; the safety
of life and property, generally, is not excelled anywhere, and no
reputable foreigner has aught but encomiums for this splendid
phase of governmental efficiency. So marked has been this good
will towards the alien, who is treated as well as the native,
that he has become just as enthusiastic in his love and respect
for the country and its great Chief Magistrate as is the Mexican
himself. It speaks volumes for Mexico that when a foreigner
takes up his residence within her borders, he almost al-
ways makes it permanent, and that the foreign colonies
are constantly being added to by the influx of business men
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I9IO.] THE MEXICO OF TO^DAY 43
and their families from all over the world. While speaking of
the foreign colonies it might be well to add that the Amer-
icans, French, and Grermans have their own colonial schools;
the Americans and French have fine hospitals ; the Americans,
English, French, and Spanish have their own cemeteries; and
each colony has its club, its benevolent society, to care for in-
digent countrymen, and its organization to promote good fellow-
ship. They all properly recognize and celebrate their re-
spective national holidays.
The city of Mexico is governed by an '' Ayuntamiento,'*
or Board of Aldermen, composed of twenty-four members, who
choose their own presiding officer, the Mayor of the city. The
members of this body are invariably selected from among
the best class of citizens, and so the city is splendidly gov-
erned; luxuries are heavily taxed, the city is rich, and public
improvements are constantly in progress. It is doubtful if any
other city in the world has as clean and as able a municipal
government.
The city is situated in the Federal District, which corresponds
to our own American District of Columbia, and which has its own
governor, appointed by the President. The present incumbe*nt
of this office is Sefior Guillermo Landa y Escandon. He was
educated at the Jesuit college at Stony hurst, England, and
is a gentleman of the highest culture. Governor Landa is
the man who '*put the lid on'' in Mexico. He has done,
and is doing, much for the good of the district and city.
He takes great interest in the working classes, and is con-
stantly promoting some beneficial work in their behalf, giving
liberally from his private means to help the poor and promote
their welfare. As it is in the capital city, so it is, more or
less, in the other cities of the republic, and the march of progress
is plainly manifest throughout the country. [In Mexico City a
new post-office building was recently finished, at a cost of
$6,000,000; a new national theatre is being erected, to cost
about $10,000,000; a number of governmental structures are
under way, all of them along the same lines of cost and beauty.
The city is exceedingly well paved and lighted, has a good
water supply, is remarkably well policed, and is, undoubtedly,
from an historical viewpoint, the most interesting city on the
continent. Its great churches, its magnificent monuments, its
beautiful parks, its attractive homes, the culture of its people.
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44 THE MEXICO OF TO-DAY [April.
and its ideal climate, tend to make it intensely alluring, and
well worthy of its sobriquet, ''The Paris of America.''
Mexico is Catholic; absolutely, immutably Catholic. No
amount of proselytizing will ever make the slightest inroad
upon the established religion of the country. The faith is
there, and there to stay. The men are good Catholics, gener-
ally, many of them magnificent exponents of Catholic manhood^
and the women are strong in their faith. Volumes have been
written about the irreligion of Mexico. As a rule they contain
an ounce of truth and a ton of fiction, and are begotten of
either ignorance or prejudice. Without doubt they are flagrant*
ly unjust to Church, and country, and people. Visitors to the
country go there harboring wrong impressions, obtained from
such writings. Invariably they depart for their homes with
such impressions entirely eradicated, edified by what they have
seen, filled with admiration for the religious zeal and patriot-
ism of the Mexican people, and stirred by the ideal democracy
exhibited in the churches, where aristocrat and peon worship
side by side.
The foregoing, while but a brief synopsis, is, in the writer's
opinion, a fair, truthful recital of the existing situation in
Mexico. His residence there for thirty- two years should give
him a thorough knowledge of the country, its people, resources,
customs, and conditions, and enable him to write more intel-
ligently, in so far, at least, as facts are involved, than the so-
journer for a fortnight, who gathers his data at random, often
from questionable sources, and spreads them, not knowing
whether they are fact or fiction.
M$xic0 Cify, Febmary, igio*
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AN OLD WASTREL.
BY KATHARINE TYNAN.
> Dan Connors was sitting in the workhouse
'ard. There was a starved thorn-tree over his
lead, and it had just come out in new leaf.
^erhaps that was what made him think of Old
Sawn. There wasn't another green thing visible
in the great stony yard of the workhouse, except it might be
a hardy grass-blade that pushed its head up between the
stones, imagining that it was growing into a field, only to be
crushed flat by the shuffling feet of the workhouse inmates.
They all shuffled more or less. They were a disgraceful
lot, to old Dan's thinking,^ those able-bodied men and women,
who shuffled about on their unwilling employment. They were
mostly fat with the fatness of idleness and an ignoble content.
As a woman came in his view, her hands resting on her enor-
mous hips, her tow-colored hair pulled back from her red,
flabby face, her whole person hideous in the workhouse garb
of coarse blue woolen stuff, old Dan groaned aloud, making
the woman pause to ask a ribald question.
It was not such women old Dan was accustomed to; and
in spite of all the ups and downs of his life he had kept a
curiously fastidious and innocent mind about women. He had
never married, but his experiences had been fortunate ones.
He groaned again, this time taking care to look about him
first to see that no one was in sight, as he recalled the old
days in Ireland, his mother and Kitty and Nora and Brideen,
and Eily Driscoll, who was dead long ago, who might have
been his wife and kept him straight if only she'd stayed in it
and not been so quick to get to heaven. He had a wander-
ing drop somewhere in him, and Eily's death had unsettled
him, cut him adrift from his moorings. The old place had
become dull and strange with Eily's death. The restlessness
had come upon him and he had gone off in the following
spring to America, where there was a chance for a man, and a
crowd to be forgetting in, not the death-in-Iife of Old Bawn.
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46 AN OLD WASTREL [April,
So he had said thirty years ago. Now, sitting in the work-
house yard, he recalled, as he had done many a time before.
Old Bawn, looking at it through the dim eyes of his spirit as
though he looked into Paradise. There was the low white
house under its thatch, with its background of orchard — one
gable opening on a green old garden, the other on the stack-
yard and cattle-sheds, full of golden corn, of red and white
cattle. He could see as plainly as though he had left it only
yesterday the placid, white- washed kitchen, with its red-ocfared
tiles, the settle against the wall under the little lattice window
that opened into the orchard, the dresser full of crockery, the
chairs of twisted straw by the fireside in which the father and
mother had sat, the flitch of bacon and the drying herbs above
the fireplace, the chimney shelf with its row of brass candle-
sticks all shining bright, the wag-by-the-wall clock.
The kitchen opened on to a green space, bound on one
side by the wall of the barns and outbuildings, on the other
by the neat privet hedge that outlined the lawn which lay in
front of the hall door. A row of sycamores and chestnuts
went down by the hedge.
Sitting there in the workhouse yard, his old knotted hands
clasped on his stick, he fancied himself sitting on the stone
bench outside the kitchen door. He could see the very lights
and shadows cast by the trees on the grass. A flock of yel-
low ducklings came waddling to the kitchen door to be fed.
Pincher, the Irish terrier, came out in a leisurely indignation
and drove them away. He could hear the swish-swish of the
churn handle in the dairy close by.
Something struck him lightly and he came back to the
horrible workhouse yard that was like a prison. He had
dropped asleep perhaps. One of the able-bodied ones, with
humorous intention, had flung a potato at him as he passed
and wakened him out of his happy dream.
It was too bad that he should have gone and left them—
he, the eldest one too. It was a bad example for the younger
ones. There had been a long line of younger ones when he
left— down to a baby in the cradle three months old. Herself
had been a fine strong woman, but himself had never been
very strong. He supposed both of them were gone long ago.
Thirty years brought such changes.
Thirty years I Of such a life as his had been! It had
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1910.] AN OLD Wastrel 47
been a record of dismal failure. He bad gone out with a fool-
ish certainty of success. He had even put his going on a
high, unselfish plane. There were too many of them dragging
out of himself and Old Bawn. It was right that one of them
should go out and seek his fortune and be able and willing to
share it with the others. There were eleven children in the
family when he had taken his departure. He wondered what
had become of them all. He had a sudden fond memory of
Dicky a little lad of four, who had been a special pet of his.
Dick would be thirty«four now if he was alive. Why, he
wasn't much more than fifty himself, now he came to think of
it, only he had had such hardships and seen so much trouble
that he was an old man before his time — liker seventy than
fifty-four.
He had gone under from the time he had left them at Old
Bawn — gone under, not by any choice of his own, but because
things were against him. Once or twice he had been on the
up-grade. Once a partner had absconded, leaving him only
debts and angry creditors. Another time his savings had been
stolen — eight hundred pounds, which he had toiled hard to
earn. He had worked incredibly hard. The hardship had
aged him as much as anything. But he was an innocent
prodigal after all — scarcely a worse sin to his account than a
few drinking bouts in which he had quarreled and assaulted
the police. There were no shameful memories to come be-
tween him and his faith in good women. A poor old wastrel,
that was how he thought of himself. But he need not be
afraid of his mother's eyes, nor of Eily Driscoll's when they
should meet in heaven.
Ah, there were good women in the world, if there were
shameful hussies. There was poor Honor Daly, with whom he
had lodged these ten years back, whose death had sent him
to the workhouse. Honor had been fond of him. When he
could work he had brought her his wages. When he was too
crippled with the rheumatism to work, she kept him all the
same — an heroic soul, with her three children and her helpless
lodger to support by standing over the wash-tub all day. She
was gone now, and the children were scattered in various in-
stitutions. How Dan missed the children, to be sure ! He had
been worth his keep for amusing the children. Honor Daly had
often declared in the days of his rheumatic attacks, or when
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48 AN OLD WASTREL [April,
the pain in his back was too bad to permit his working as a
quay laborer.
Some one passing by with a brisk step, very unlike the able-
bodied inmates*, pulled up in front of Dan Connors and spoke.
It was the workhouse doctor, a man with a ruddy, wholesome,
out-door face and very blue eyes — a countryman of Dan's, too
and a man with a quick compassion for the flotsam and jetsam
of humanity! that came his way : '' Heartbroke,'' Dan would
have said, ''with trying to mend the workhouse ways/*
''Dreaming, Connors?'* he said.
Dan looked up at him with eyes in which the dreams were
plainly visible.
"Aye, sir"; he said. "I believe I was back in Ireland.
The color of your moustache, now — I thought for a minute it
was old Pincher's coat; *twas the little bit of a dog we had
at home when I was a boy.**
The doctor smiled.
" I can see you've come of decent stock, Connors,** he said.
" Isn't there some one would take you out of this ? It isn't a
place for the like of you."
Dan looked down at his corduroyed knees.
"I was just wonderin*," he said, "if there was any of them
left in Old Bawn at all. There was little Dick. He was no
more than four when I went out of it, and a terrible fond child
of me. I don't know that I'd like them to know where I was.
'Twould be a terrible disgrace for them. The Connors were
always decent people."
The doctor protruded his lips rapidly and drew them in
again in a characteristic gesture which Dan did not see.
"How old are you, Connors?" he asked.
"Fifty-four come Michaelmas, sir.**
" You're sure of that ? "
The doctor looked startled, as well he might. He looked
down at Dan Connors, huddled up on the wooden bench under
the hawthorn, and believed him. The age of the man was
merely superficial. And there was nothing wrong with him but
the overwork and the rheumatism that had resulted from ex-
posure to all kinds of weather.
"I'm surprised,** he said kindly. "Why, there's only ten
years of difference between us. Plenty of men have done a
lot of work after fifty-four. You'd be some use yet, Connors,
under happier conditions."
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19 la] An Old Wastrel 49
'^ I might," said Dan httmbly, his eyes looking with admi-
ration at the doctor*s stalwart, gray-clad figure. '^Snre, you
look like my grandson/' he added. ''Tis the feeding youVe
had, sir, and the care. Forty's too old for a quay laborer/'
'' Let me see — you come from the County Tipperary ? "
'' Near the foot of the Keeper Mountains. Twas a lovely
little place we had there. Coolmore was the name of the vil-
lage. You've maybe heard of it. There's great fishing there
in the Coolbeg."
'' I was there once. A very different place from this, Con-
nors."
'' You're right, doctor. Well, sure, God help us — 'tis often
easy enough to be steppin' out of a place an' not so easy to
be steppin' back. What would I be but a disgraceful old ghost
goin' back among them. 'Twas different ideas I had once, when
I thought of bringin' them home a bag of gold. Ah, thank
you kindly, doctor. 'Tis very good of you."
The doctor had held an open tobacco pouch under Dan's
nose. Dan took a fill with trembling fingers and looked up at
the doctor, sudden tears in his eyes. It wasn't often you met
with any humanity in such a desolate old place.
The doctor passed on to bring a breath of the open air and
a touch of human kindness to the old people in the bedridden
ward, while Dan sat on under the tree, once again lost in his
dreams.
The next day the doctor, passing him by, dropped an open
paper across his knees. Dan fumbled for his spectacles, and
having found .them, spread out the sheet and began to read.
It was a little sheet, not very well printed, but it might
have fallen straight from heaven so far as Dan was concerned.
Why, every bit of if was set, as though with a clear, shining
gem, with a well- beloved name. Coolmore, Coolbeg, Drumer-
iskey, Emly^ Shanagolden, Derrybawn. They leaped out of
that wonderful lost past as though they had been so many
shining flowers. It was kind of the doctor, so it was — God
bless him I The time wouldn't pass slowly for Dan having the
Tipperary People to read. Why, it was like as though some-
body had opened a door into a wonderful lost Paradise and
bidden Dan walk in.
For a time he hovered uncertainly over the paper, sipping
at the sweets, so to speak. At length he settled himself down
VOL. XCI.~4
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so AN OLD WASTREL [Apri,
for a steady read through it. He wasn't going to get tired of
it easily. When he had gone straight through it he could be-
gin it all over again. Perhaps the wardmaster would let him
keep it by his bed. It would be great company in the lone-
some night, with the old people sighing and groaning wearily
all about him, to have the Tipperary People tucked away under
his mattress. And — who knew? — God was good — maybe Dr.
Devine might bring him another paper some day.
He read on, and names of people long remembered or long
forgotten sprang up out of the printed line and confronted
him. Dear, dear I To think old John Cunningham was yet
alive and doing well! for there was a record of the sheep he
had bought at an auction. Elsie Doyle had taken a high place
at the Intermediate Examinations. He wondered would she be
Peter Doyle's daughter at all ? Peter and he had been at school
together. The girsha couldn't be Peter's granddaughter. Surely
not! Why, Peter would be a personable man still. He'd be
about fifty-three. What was fifty-three to them that had had
a chance of minding themselves?
He hovered over the paper like a bee over a flower bed,
picking out a name here and there. Suddenly he swooped
like the bee and rested. He sat staring at a name:
''Among those present was Mr. Richard Connors, J.P.,
D.C., P.L.G."
Dick!— could it be Dick? Was it possible it was little
Dick, who had followed his big brother about with a dog- like
devotion in those days long gone? A J.P. too! A Justice
of the Peace! And a Poor Law Guardian! Dan wasn't sure
what D.C. meant. That was a new happening since his days.
Little Dick! Ah, well, sure it was a great thing there were
some to keep up the old name and make it honored and re-
spected when there were others that dragged it in the dust.
He was so elated by Dick's success in the world that he
sat in the stray gleam of sun that had found its way over the
top of the high buildings, transported out of himself for the
time being. It kept him happy for all that day. But the in-
evitable reaction followed. A chill sense came to him that
Dick's advancement had closed in his face the door which had
let through the faintest chink of light. He imagined Dick's
glories. In his day to be a Justice of the Peace was to be a
person of social importance, to keep a carriage, to follow the
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igio.] An Old Wastrel Si
hounds, to be a gentleman in short. Great man Dickl Dan
remembered what a cute little codger Dick bad been, even at
four years old. What would he be doing, a poor old shabby
workhouse ghost, if he could return into the midst of such
splendors, but frightening the life out of them all by his re-
turn?
He supposed it would be the workhouse to the end — the
workhouse and the association with people whose ways and
whose words repelled his curious natural innocence. He was
more aloof from them than ever after his wonderful discovery
about Dick, and they hustled and trod on him worse than
need be as they went in to meals and on the way up to bed.
One of the pauper nurses reported him to an official for in-
subordination — ^there never was a more groundless charge — and
he was threatened with punishment unless he mended his
manners.
His manners! — in that mannerless, morallcss abode! Dan
had never lost his excellent, old-fashioned manners. They
made him a softy to the rough lot about him and furnished a
reason for his toes being trodden on and his ribs punched,
till he began to see red and came near earning the threatened
punishment.
The pauper attendant, coming into the ward where the old
men were beginning to brandish their sticks, cooled the hot
blood by throwing cold water over some of them. Whether
by accident or design Dan got more than his share of the
water. His anger died down as though it had been actual
fire. Sure, what right had he to be angry, God help him ?
Hadn't he deserved any ill-treatment he got, he who had
flung himself like a fool away out of Old Bawn into a world
which had no place for him?
A dreary sense of the futility and hopelessness of it all
descended upon Dan. Sure, what were they fighting about ? —
a lot of poor old wastrels that the grave might swallow to-
morro^jir and welcome ! Weren't they all only cumbering the
earth? What was the use of their vexing and annoying each
other when they were only a vexation and annoyance to them
that were doing the world's work and living decently in honor
and esteem?
The next day he was racked with the rheumatism and
could hardly crawl out of bed. But he was better out of bed
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52 An old Wastrel [April,
than in bed, for the day was the day for washing out the
ward, which was done with a great swishing of water, to the
grievous discomfort of the rheumatic patients who must stay
in bed. He crept out through the ophthalmic ward, where
the patients were groaning in misery because the walls had
been newly white-washed, and into the yard, where he crawled
like a sick old fly in the sun.
He ^z& let alone, being plainly too twisted and crippled
with the rheumatism to do anything. He sat for hours under
the thorn-tree, where the master's dog, who happened to be
an Irish terrier, came and rubbed himself by Dan's knees,
giving htm a sense of companionship. After a time he no-
ticed and was moved to a simple wonderment at the knowl-
edgeableness of the dog, who was reputed proud in his ways,
and well able to distinguish between an official and an inmate.
He must have known that Dan was a countryman of his own
and made an exception in his favor. Dan, with his hand on
the dog's little hard head, got some comfort from the compan-
ionship. It made him think of Pincher long ago at Old Bawn.
Pincher would be dead this many a year. Dan began to won-
der if any of Pincher's blood were left in it. They had been
a notable breed of Irish terriers and a cause of great pride to
the Connorses of Old Bawn.
The days slid over Dan's head in a waking dream. Some-
times he was very ill at ease with rheumatism. He had bad
nights. It had been nobody's business to dry his bed where
the water had been flung on it. The bad nights made him
sleepy in the day. He dozed away a great part of the sunny
days, sitting on the seat under the thorn-tree, which was now
becoming quite green, his old knotted hands clasped over the
stick and his chin leaning on them.
Once or twice Dr. Devine caught sight of him as he passed
briskly to and fro, and spared to wake him. It was unusually
warm weather for May, and the warm sun on Dan's rheumatic
old bones was the best possible treatment for him. The doc-
tor understood why it was that Dan wasn't to be found with
the other old men where they shuffled about in their recrea*
tion yard. He said to himself that he must remember to ask
the master, who was a good fellow, to let old Dan have the
run of his garden, and after a time, when the rheumatism
troubled him less, to let him do odd jobs about the garden.
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I9I0.] AN OLD WASTREL 53
*^\i I had my will/' said Dr. Devine to himself energeti-
cally, '' the like of him would never be in the workhouse, any
more than the children. It's no place for the decent old and
the children.''
That was after he had become aware that some one had
burnt Dan's lips with a match as he slept — a brutal jest which
might have had serious consequences in a man of Dan's age.
The perpetrator remained undiscovered. If Dan knew he would
not speak. Dr. Devine rather suspected that he did know.
'' It keeps me from feeling the rheumatics so bad/' was
Dan's remark to Dr. Devine, who was too well used to the
ways of his countrymen to wonder at this good wrung out of
evil.
But, awake or asleep, Dan's soul was in Old Bawn. The
Tipperary People had made it all real and living as of old.
He seemed to have forgotten the great stretch of failure and
hardship that lay between him and Old Bawn. The sunshine
that dazzled his eyes through the closed lids resolved itself
into the garden of Old Bawn, with the summer house in the
middle of it, overhung by a tree which bore the most luscious
yellow apples known this side of Paradise. There was the
tree* peony and the box borders and the gravel path, and the
stone seat in the privet hedge, and the white walls of the
garden. Or he was in the fields, and the mountains were over
him, and the little streams singing. Or he was coming home
at evening, healthily tired with the work he had despised, to
supper in the parlor and a delicious sleep in his room under
the thatch. What a fool he had been ever to leave it I What
a fool ! A fool i And his mother, so fair and comfortable and
kind. She had always been there to stand between him and
his father's severity. Well, he had repaid her ill. He had
been her favorite. He wondered how she had taken his disap-
pearance — how long she had waited and hoped for a letter
from him or for his return. In the last letter he had ever
had from her she had bid him remember that his place waited
for him still.
Footsteps on the gravel-path disturbed the quiet of the
noonday heat. He opened tired old eyes. There was the
doctor standing looking at him with a peculiar kindness. There
was some one else besides the doctor, some one young and
strong enough to have been Dan's son. Some fragrance from
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54 AN Old Wastrel [Aprils
the far-off fields seemed to have come with this new arrival.
He was a big, burly, broad-shouldered young man in a suit of
gray, with a simple, kindly, capable face. His eyes were very
blue. Dan's own had once been as blue before they had faded
and grown blurred with fatigue and regrets. Dan's mother had
had just such eyes.
'' A friend to see you, Mr. Connors,'' said the doctor, with
a new respectfulness of address.
Dan blinked and stared at the handsome young man.
There was some memory of the past troubling his tired old
heart. Was it? — no, it couldn't bei
<< You're kindly welcome, sir," said Dan with old-fashioned
politeness. '' Who might it be ? I disremember somehow. I'm
not as young as I was."
'*Why, Dan, don't you guess who I am? Little Dick."
The speaker's voice shook. *'0f course I couldn't remember
you. I was only four when you went away. Nor you me.
But the mother has talked to me of you so often. 'Keep a
place for Dan,' she said, 'whenever he comes home.' Glory
be to God — she's with us still. She wanted to come, but I
thought it better not. I've come to take you home, Dan."
After all, the Dan who arrived at Old Bawn a week or two
later, although he was glad of his younger brother's strong
arm to lean upon, was a very different person from the broken
old pauper who had sat nodding on the seat under the thorn-
tree, quite unaware of the wonderful good fortune that was on
its way to him. Dan, in a well-made new suit of clothes, fur-
bished up, well-cared for, even to the flower in his coat, to
say nothing of the effect of hope and happiness, had gone
back almost to the proper looks for a man of his age. After
all, one on the threshold of heaven, new 'scaped from the
bitter slough of the world — why, to be sure he is new-made.
The workhouse was a page closed forever in Dan's life. No
one except Dick and the mother knew where Dan had been
delivered from. That shadow was never likely to fall on Old
Bawn and the honorable position Dick had won for himself—
to say nothing of the comely wife and children, and Dan's
brothers and sisters who were married and settled all about
the country and were coming for a family reunion as soon as
Dan's meeting with the mother was got over.
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I9IO.] An Old Wastrel 55
Why, if he had made his fortune, as he had meant to do,
they couldn't have given him a greater welcome. Was that
Pincher, or was it Pincher's great-grandson, whose eyes met
Dan's with a grave friendliness as he emerged from the little
pink-cheeked mother's embrace? It might have been old
Plncher and Dan young and hopeful again
For the matter of that, Dan felt fresh energy stirring in his
veins. He wasn't going to be the old man in the chimney-
corner^not just yet. He'd throw off the rheumatism, please
God, with the great comfort and the great happiness. He'd
be some use to them yet. They were not ashamed of him.
There was only love in their eyes for him.
'"Tis a great day," said the mother, ''when I've my Dan
come home to me. I'knew in the heart of me he wasn't
dead."
'' Wasn't it by great good luck entirely we found him ? "
said Dick, smiling happily, as though the discovery of an old
wastrel were a matter for the greatest congratulation.
'' 'Tis dreamin' I am that I'm in heaven," said Dan to him-
self. ** Maybe I'd be wakin' up and findin' I was back there**
But the sights and scents and sweet sounds of Old Bawn
were about him. There was the white house and the mountains
and the cattle grazing peacefully in the May pastures. Never
had a prodigal such a]^happy home-coming.
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RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN.
BY ANDREW J. SHIPMAN.
MADRID AND TOLEDO.
railways in Spain are proverbially slow, yet
e found that they went at a fair speed, even
dged by American ideas of swiftness. After
1 there was a good reason in part for their
owness. The railways of Spain, with the ex-
ception of a comparatively short stretch on the Northern
Railway out of Madrid, are single track, and they are rather
to be compared with our railroads west of the Mississippi
River than with those in the eastern part of our country. But
we found the sleeping cars quite comfortable and fitted up with
much more privacy than is usual in the American Pullman
car. The fast expresses have a letter box or slot on the side
of the mail car and it is no infrequent sight at the country
stations to see the people come trooping down to meet the
train in order to mail their letters at once.
The land through Castile and New Castile looks desolate
and deserted to American eyes, so accustomed to farmhouses
nestling among the trees. There are no trees in Castile and
but few in New Castile. The Spanish countryman has an idea
that trees afiord merely lodging places for the birds, where
they may lie in wait and steal the grain the farmer so care-
fully plants. In Castile they have a proverb that a lark has
to bring his own provisions with him when he visits their
province. As one views the rolling country and distant hills
from the railway they seem like large brown sea waves hard-
ened and fashioned into earth. Still the Spanish peasant is a
painstaking and hard-working farmer. His fields are tilled with
all the care and minuteness of a garden. Every bit of land,
as far as' we could see on either side of the railway track,
was under cultivation, and we were told that it produced
good crops. The community life, whereby the Spanish peas-
antry dwell in villages and go abroad to till their fields, gave
a curious aspect of desolation to the landscape, for no houses
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I9ia] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 57
or farm dwellings are seen scattered over the landscape. There
is a village, then a desolate stretch of farm land, then another
village, and so on.
Finally we came into Madrid, at the Atocha Station, at the
southern end of the Prado. The long line of hotel omnibuses
and cabs bidding for the travelers showed that Madrid was as
active in that line as our own land could be. Indeed, in one
respect, it was far more advanced than New York has yet
dared to become. The Spanish mail wagons {correos) were not,
as here, drawn by horses in a more or less miserable condi-
tion, but were smart, light-running automobiles, which went
around the city with marvelous celerity and delivered the mail
with great rapidity.
Madrid, in some respects, is a disappointing city. It is
old enough not to be new as our cities are ; and yet it is not
old enough to be ancient as many other Spanish cities are.
For instance, its Cathedral, Nuestra Senora de la Almudena^
has not got above the basement story, and in that it re-
sembles the beginnings of many American churches. Some-
how that circumstance made us feel quite at home when we
went down to admire it. The basement, which is used just
like our churches, is very beautifully constructed and has a
fine organ. Some time, when money is more plentiful in Spain,
the splendid main structure will be built Another instance of
newness is the Church of San Francisco— the Pantheon or
Westminster Abbey of Spain — for it looks almost as if it left
the builders' hands only the day before yesterday. It is a cir-
cular church with a very lofty dome like the Capitol at Wash-
ington or St. Paul's in London. The stained glass is very
modern, but it contains examples of the very finest German
and French artists in modern glass-design and coloring. The
whole effect is one of beauty and harmonyJ But the church
hardly fulfills its purpose ot being the resting-place of the
great men of Spain, as the inscription on its front ''Spain to
her distinguished sons'' (Espana d sus preclatos Hijos) so
proudly proclaims. The commission entrusted with the matter
.was unable to find the bodies of Guzman, Cervantes, Lope de
Vega, Herrera, Velasquez, or Murillo, nor does any one know
their present resting-places, so that they cannot be removed
•to this church. Even many of those who were disinterred
and buried here had afterwards to be removed and restored to
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5 8 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
their original tombs, becaase of the vigoroas protests and
threatened lawsuits by their descendants and their fellow- pro-
vincials. New buildings are going up everywhere; a fine new
post-office building intended to be very modern and up-to-
date« and a still finer hotel — one of the Ritz-Carlton series —
which is intended to eclipse anything of the like nature, while
a host of apartment houses and minor structures are projected.
Even the first hotel we went to was being modernized to such
an extent that holes were bored in the walls and the floors
to admit a wondrous steam-heating plant. The proprietor
begged us, with many courtly bows, to stay, that the installa-
tion of the calefaccion should not disturb us, for it would be
carried on in another part of the house. But notwithstanding
his entreaties, and the fine rooms with special balcony over-
looking the Carrera de San Jeronimo, we took up our quar-
ters elsewhere, giving a weak-kneed promise of coming back
when the calefaccion was installed.
Madrid cabmen are very independent They seem to be
self-possessed, are chary of speech, and will seldom abate much
of their price for a drive. Indeed, they may be said to be the
opposite of the Italian cabman in these respects. Once I asked
a cabman how much he would charge to drive me across Madrid
to the Museo de Arte Moderno^ and he answered : '' Dos pesetas
y medio** (Two and a half pesetas). I said that I would give
him two pesetas, and all that he did was to look at me re-
proachfully, take out a cigarette, slowly light it, and set to
smoking. He had named his price and that was all there was
to it. Nor did any of the other cabmen in the line make a
move to secure me as a fare.
The focus of life in Madrid is at the Puerta del Sol — the
Gate of the Sun. Once upon a time, when Madrid had its
beginning and there were walls, which had not then gone out
of fashion, there was a Gate of the Sun. It has disappeared
long ago, and now one looks directly upon the rising sun, if
one strolls out early enough. The place is now a large oblong
plaza, the starting-point for all the electric street cars in Mad-
rid and the location of some of the most fashionable hotels.
The population of Madrid surges through it at all times of the
day, and in that respect it may be compared to Fifth Avenue
in New York or to Trafalgar Square in London. From it radi*
ate a number of important streets, and of them the Calle de
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I9IO.] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 59
Alcali is the largest and best known. It is far wider than the
widest street we have in New York, and it leads directly to
the Buen RetirOt or Central Park of Madrid, passing by the
PradOf or great avenues of trees, which is known all over the
world. The very word Prado brings up the memory of the mag-
nificent Museo Nacional de Pintura y Escultura^ which contains
such fine collections of the great masters. There are two rooms
there, each devoted to Murillo and Velasquez, which are the
mecca of the admirers of the Spanish painters, to say nothing
of the treasures of the Italian, Flemish, German, and French
schools. It is especially rich in examples of Rubens and Van-
dyke, while the works of the Spanish painters of the various
schools can here be studied to greatest advantage. Raphael
and Titian are well represented, and the portrait of Cardinal de
Paira, by the former, seems almost as though the subject him-
self was before the behplder. Art critics have done ample jus-
tice to this noble gallery, and it would be but repetition to
add my words of appreciation.
Behind the Museo del Prado is the quiet little white Church
of San Jeronimo el Real (St. Jerome the Royal), the church in
which the sovereigns of Spain are wedded. In fact all this
part of Madrid, back in the times of Lope de Vega was the
^* meadows of St. Jerome,'' where the fashion of the Court
used to go for recreation. The Church of San Jeronimo and
the great promenade of the Prado are all that now recall it.
In this church also (up to the year 1833) the members of the
Cortes used to come to hear the Mass of the Holy Ghost and
to take their oaths at the opening session of Parliament; but
all that is now done away with. Here, too, the Prince of As-
turias (as the heir apparent of Spain is called, something like
the Prince of Wales in England) used to come to take his oath
to observe the laws of the kingdom. Now, however, the church
plays no greater historic part than receiving the marriage vows
of the sovereign. It was here that King Alfonso and Queen
Victoria were married on May 31, 1906, in all the pomp and
circumstance of the Spanish Court, only to narrowly escape
death a half hour later on the Calle Mayor on their way back
to the palace. The cruel bomb, concealed in the midst of a
huge bouquet of roses, was hurled from the third story of a
house by Morral, an anarchist teacher in the Ferrer schools in
Madrid, and it struck directly in front of the royal carriage
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6o Recent Impressions of Spain [April,
killing the horses and killing and maiming a score of {Arsons.
As we entered the quiet, prim-looking chnrch, escorted by a
small boy of the neighboring school, we tried to imagine the
splendor of that event which so nearly had a tragic ending
for the royal bride and groom. Almost across from the church
is the severe -looking building of the Spanish Academy, while
to the south lies the great Botanical Garden.
The legislative chambers in Madrid are situated widely apart.
The lower house of the Cortes meets in the Palacio de Con-^
greso on the Carrera de San Jeronimo, an unimposing building,
while the Senate meets two miles away to the north of the
Royal Palace, in an old building which was originally an Au-
gustinian college. Further north is the Central University,
made up of the union of the University of Alcald and the
University of Madrid in 1836, which is now attended by 6,600
students. The main building of the University is known as
the NoviciadOf because it originally was a novitiate when the
Jesuits formerly owned that property before their suppression
in the eighteenth century. A little further on is the great
Hospital de la Princesa, which, together with the great Hos-
pital General, make two fine extensive institutions^ probably the
equals of any in the world. In fact, I think Madrid is almost
too well supplied with hospitals for a city of 600,000 inhabit
tants. It has altogether eleven, and a special one for small
children, besides having fourteen ambulance stations (Casas
de Socorro) scattered over different parts of the city, affording
first aid to the injured.
I noticed the number of news stands and the great sale of
illustrated papers, newspapers, and light novels, and concluded
that the Spanish illiteracy could not be as great as repre-
sented, or they and the numerous book stores would rapidly
go out of business. On coming home t looked the matter up.
I found that the statistics on the subject were much at vari-
ance with the popular ideas and loose percentage given. For
instance, I had heard it repeated that there was 68 per cent
of illiterates among the population in Spain. That would
mean that more than half the people could not read or write.
Yet I never met a person who could not read or write during
my whole trip through Spain; but, on the other hand, I saw
everybody reading newspapers, novels, letters, and the like.
I found that the 68 per cent was true enough when it was
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I910.] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 6l
written, bat unfortunately the figures were taken from the
Encyclopedia Britannica and referred to the census of i88o»
and could hardly be controlling to-day. When we reflect that
Spain is essentially an agricultural country, with only a small
urban population (even now only two cities have a population
of over 500,000)1 it will be seen that the diffusion of educa-
tion must necessarily be of slower growth. I have not the
figures of any late census by me, but the census of 1900 puts
quite a different phase upon the situation. The total popula-
tion of Spain then was 9,087,821 males and 9i530,265 females,
making a total of 18,618,086. The elementary schools were,
25f340 public schools with 1,617,314 pupils, and 6,181 private
schools with 344,380 pupils, giving a total of 31,521 schools
with 1,961,694 pupils. Besides this, there were ten universities^
numerous high and normal schools, and trade, technical, and
engineering and professional schools of all kinds. The illiter-
ates in 1900 amounted to 5,290,368, or less than 30 per cent
of the population* These illiterate persons were, for the most
part, persons from maturity to old age— chiefly hard-headed
peasants who had old-fashioned notions about the necessity of
reading and writing— while the younger generation was grow-
ing up bright and alert. The lack of schools is also accounted
for. Spain has local government; and the thrifty Spanish
countryman will not tax himself to maintain schools, while the
stipend derived from the central government at Madrid (which
spends about $9,500,000 a year on education) is in itself too
small to maintain schools, where no local taxation has been pro*
vided. Our analogous situation may be found in North Caro-
lina and Tennessee. In North Carolina in 1900 the illiterates
were 28 per cent of the population, and in Tennessee they
were a little over 20 per cent. Yet when we compare the
sums spent by Spain on the education of her children and the
school attendance there with the sums spent in New York
State, the comparison is not altogether unfavorable. The
various provinces and communes in Spain supply the largest
amount of money to support the schools. I have not at
hand exact figures for 1900, but I am told that it is between
three and four times as much as the central government fur-
nishes. Now in the State of New York local taxation pro-
duced $34,721,611 for public education, while the state gov-
ernment supplied $4,616,769 for the same purpose. The total
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62 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
population of the State in 1900 was 71268,0 12, so that the
State supplied a little over fifty cents per capita. The attend-
ance in the New York public schools throughout the State for
the year 1900 was 873,157 pupils. Now Spain, with two and
one-half times the population of the State of New York in
1900, supplied twice as many pupils to her public schools, and
the central government supplied for education about twice as
much money as the central government of the State of New
York. New York is nearly the foremost (and certainly the
richest and most populous) State in the Union, and when we
find that Spain is by no means lagging far behind the pace
set by the Empire State in the matter of education, we can
see that a prejudiced view — based upon antiquated figures and
compared with recent development here — has been taken of
Spain in educational matters. She is by no means as far
ahead as she ought to be; but she is not so far behind as
hostile critics would make out.
The same thing holds true of the statement that Spain is
''priest-ridden,'' that there are two many priests, friars, and
monks there. Perhaps there may be ; and the enjoyment of
the endowments of a State Church and ancient privileges may
have dulled their energy and rendered them less active and
strenuous in their sacred callings. A keen and exhaustive
study of the situation could alone determine that. Certainly
I saw and conversed with as bright, keen, and eager*faced
clergy in Spain as I have here in New York. Yet, when stress
is laid upon mere numbers as the root of the evil, a little
comparison will do much to clear the mind.
When I was in Madrid a Radical newspaper published a
severe article in which it asserted that the vast number of
celibates (priests, monks, and friars) in the clergy — and it par-
ticularly gave the figures for the city and province of Madrid
— was an evil» particularly because it meant the withdrawal from
civil life of many individuals who might otherwise be the honored
heads of flourishing families. But the illustrated journal ''A.
B. C/' replied by, a telling article in which it quoted statistics
to show that in the city and province of Madrid there were
already far more bachelors above the age of thirty years» who
were laymen, than the entire number of religious mentioned,
and it sarcastically asked why ''they did not become the
honored heads of flourishing families ** for the welfare of Spain.
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I9IO.] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 63
In Spain there were in 1900 (I have no later figures) some
11,000 male religious — priests, monks, friars, and lay religious
^-and these, in a population of 18,617,000, give about an
average of one religious or clergyman to every 1,692 persons.
By the United States religious census for 1906 (there are no
figures available for 1900) there were i64>830 ministers and
clergy of all kinds among a population that year of 84,246,250.
This gives our own country one clergyman to every 511 persons,
or over three times as many as Spain possesses per capita. Yet
we are not prone to think that the United States is ''clergy-
ridden.'' A little comparison of the relative situation of things
would make the usual criticism of Spain a little more charitable
and certainly more judicious.
Some eighteen miles away to the northwest lies the village
of Escorial, where Philip II. built the pile which has t^en that
name to itself in the minds of most sightseers. Escorial (from
the Latin scoria) was the forlorn village surrounding certain
iron mines, where the slag and cinders were the chief orna-
ment of the landscape, at the foot of the Guadarrama moun-
tains. This spot was selected by Philip II. to erect the great
building which is at once a palace, a temple, a monastery,
and a tomb, and which was the abiding-place of that monarch
in the declining years of his life. When the traveler arrives
by train, a dashing automobile takes him from the station up
the hill to the centre of the village, where the famous build-
ings are. The dull gray stone and severe architecture make
it a part almost of the frowning Guadarramas which lie be-
hind it High up oh the mountain side is a little plateau
called '' Philip's Chair " (La Silla de Felipe) where it is said
that the king caused a large throne- like chair to be placed in
which he sat and watched the workmen build the Escorial.
The gray building is situated in an enormous courtyard,
with still an inner court. Toward the east is the templo or
church, which is built in a severe style of architecture, simple
yet resembling St. Peter's Church at Rome. The high altar
has a retablo or reredos of carved wood, which reaches up to
the celling. On the Gospel side in a niche over the sanctuary
are « the figures of Charles V. and his family kneeling and fac-
ing the altar. On the epistle side is a similar bronze group of
Philip II. and some of his family (he had four wives) in a similar
attitude. High up in the rear of the church is the famous
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64 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
coro altOf the choir in which Philip sat in his stall as a monk
and which had the little postern door by his side through
which he entered and received commnnications. Here he was
kneeling when the news was brought to him that Don John of
Austria had won the battle of Lepanto, and rising he com-
manded the choir to sing the Te Deum. This choir loft is sup-
ported upon a single flat arch or vaulting which trembles under
the footsteps. It is said that the architect was told that it
would fall if it remained as he built it, and thereupon he placed
an elaborate pillar in the centre of the vaulting underneath, and
then requested his critics to examine it. TThey walked over it
again and again and pronounced it entirely safe. He then took
them down into the church below and showed them first that
the central pillar did not reach the vaulting by nearly an inch
and besides that it was made of painted paper. The choir
loft also contains a huge reading-desk some fifteen feet high
for the great antiphonals to rest upon, and yet the slightest
touch of the hand will turn it in any direction as though it
were as light as a feather.
Under the high altar, down a long staircase, lie the sarco-
phagi of the kings of Spain and their wives who have borne
kings. Queens who were childless, or whose sons did not
succeed to the throne, are not interred in these vaults. There
they range from Charles V. (or rather Charles I., as he is
known in Spain) down to Alfonso XII., the father of the
present king, and there are yet thirteen granite co£Sns un-
named and to be filled. Beyond here and to the south lie the
tombs of the Princes of Spain, some of them quite beautiful
and all quite modern. The most beautiful is the tomb to Don
John of Austria, who was killed by order of Philip II., be-
cause he won too much favor as the Regent of the Netherlands.
The monastery (of St. Lawrence) covers the whole of the
southern portion of the building and possesses a fine library
with some magnificent early Greek and Latin manuscripts. A
peculiarity about the placing of the books on the shelves is
that the gilt edges are turned towards the on- looker while the
backs are turned towards the wall — the reverse of the ordin-
ary book shelf. In the great courtyard of the Hebrew kings
(so-called because of the gigantic statues of David, Solomon,
Josiah, Josaphat, Ezechias and Manasseh) the ill-fated sol-
diers and sailors of the Invincible Armada were blessed before
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I9IO.] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 6$
it set sail for England. High up on the side of the great
central dome over the church is a speck of gold, but it is actually
half the size of a man's hand, placed there by the bravado of
Philip, as a proof that he had not, as his enemies said, spent
all the gold of his kingdom in building the Escorial, but had
still some to spare to adorn the roof. The palace he built is
on the northern side of the vast pile, but it is too formal and
gloomy and has never been occupied except for brief occa-
sions by the Spanish court. Perhaps the royal occupants real-
ize too keenly that they will come one day to the Escorial to
stay, and do not care to anticipate that last coming. We
parted from the gray buildings with keen regret, for our stay
had been too short to explore them thoroughly, for every rocm
is filled with history. The study, bedtoom, and antichamber of
Philip II., where he spent his last days and where he died,
made everything a reality for us. 'A walk through the park
and a visit to the Princes' Palace, a modern French toy • house
almost, set at the end of the park by Philip V., completed
and rounded out our visit by bringing it down to the times of
the Bourbon kings. Just near the station is a little Spanish
Posada^ the mistress of which provided us with as nice a cup
of tea (and Lipton's tea at that!) as can be furnished anywhere
in England or America.
The city of Toledo lies some fifty miles from Madrid and
is the ancient capital of Spain. Here it was that the Gothic
kings ruled and here King Reccared and King Wamba held
court in the days when Spain was converted to Christianity a
second time after its invasion by the Goths and Visigoths.
Not until towards the end of the Middle Ages was the capital
transferred to Madrid. Toledo sits high upon a hill where
the River Tagus sweeps round it in a semi- circle. It was
for many centuries a stronghold of the Moors when they held
more than half of Spain. It defied capture from the river side,
but was at last taken by the Castilians from the landward side.
Even yet, outside the church of San Juan de los Reyes, there
hang on the walls countless numbers of iron chains and shackles
which were stricken from the limbs of Christian captives at
the taking of the city. The city bears a distinctly Moorish
character in its narrow, winding, and confused streets. It is
said to be one of the hardest Spanish cities to find one's way
around in, and we marveled much at the dexterity of the driver
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66 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
who was so successful in piloting the carriage without scraping
the doorways on either side or squeezing the passersby flat
against the walls of the houses.
There are two bridges which cross the Tagus by which
one may enter Toledo. The one further up stream, the Bridge
of Alcantara (Arabic, al-kantara^ the bridge), leads from the
railway station directly into the main part of the city by a
winding road which goes past the wall and the Alcazar or
citadel, which is now a military training school — the West
Point of Spain. This bridge, as might be surmised from its
Arabic name, goes back to the time of the Moors. The lower
Bridge of St. Martin is further down the river at the other
end of the city and has a romantic story connected with it.
The architect who first planned the bridge had nearly com-
pleted it; the wooden scaffolding was still in position and the
arches were about to be finished. On going over his calcula-
tions he discovered that his bridge would not be strong enough
to bear any weight, and that when the king, court, and clergy
passed over it the arches would fall. He was wild with despair
and confided his discovery and grief to his wife. In the dead
of night, while the city was all asleep, the devoted wife crept
pown to the water's edge and set fire to the scaffolding which
supported the centring. When the whole bridge fell in the
people and court attributed the calamity to the fire. The
architect remodeled his plans and the bridge was built again,
and ever since has stood firm and true. When it was finished
the wife publicly confessed her doings to Archbishop Tenorio,
but instead of making her husband pay the expenses of re-
building the bridge, he complimented him on the treasure that
he possessed in such a wife.
The Cathedral of Toledo is, of course, the great centre of
attraction and its history dates back as far as 587. St Ilde-
fonso was one of the early Archbishops and a national hero of
Spain. The Moors conquered the city in the year 700. In
712 they turned the great church into their MasjicUal^djami^
or chief mosque, and held it for 300 years. Even when
Alfonso VI. captured the city in 1085 he permitted the Moors
to retain it for Moslem worship. But in a year or so dissen-
sions broke out between the Moslems and the Christians, and
in 1087 the Christians took forcible possession of the build-
ing and turned it into a church again. St. Ferdinand (Fer-
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igioj RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 67
dinand III.) caused the old building to be torn down and
in 1227 laid the foundation stone for the present cathedral.
It was completed in 1493, the year after the discovery of
America. After the taking of the city from the Moors, the
Archbishop of Toledo was made the Primate of Spain, and
ever since it has been the primatial See. The Court which
was established here under Alfonso VI. remained until 1561,
when Philip II. transferred the capital to Madrid. The great
Archbishops of Toledo are known all over the world. The
names of Cardinal Gonzaliz de Mendoza, the friend of Columbus,
and of Cardinal Ximenes de Cisn^ros, the great patron of learn-
ing, are among the brightest in history. The cathedral itself
is one of the most imposing Gothic monuments of Europe; it
is 4cx^ feet long and 195 feet wide, covering about the same
area as the^Cathedral of Cologne, and its stained glass windows
are the finest of their time. There 'is only one note which
jars upon the exquisite harmony of perfectly executed Gothic
architecture — the aperture pierced through to the roof over the
ambulatory behind the high altar by Narciso Tom^ in 1732 —
a *^ fricassee de marbre ** as a disgusted Frenchman called it.
It is called the trasparente or skylight by the Spaniards, and
amid the chaos of angels and clouds which adorn it in a
most rococo fashion, is the Archangel Raphael kicking his
feet in the air and holding a large golden fish in his hand.
The Cmpilla May^r or high altar, as in all Spanish cathe-
drals, is separated from the choir and is enclosed by a beau-
tiful teja or iron screen, a monument of the art of the black-
smith, with all the beauty and tracery of delicate sculpture.
Behind the altar is the retablo or wooden reredos, made of larch*
wood gilded and painted in the richest Gothic style, erected
under Cardinal Ximenez. Its five stories or stages represent
scenes from the New Testament, the figures being life size and
larger. The choir, which is in the centre of the cathedral, and
its choir stalls are magnificent specimens of carved walnut*
The 54 medallions represent scenes in the conquest of Granada
and the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The marble outside
of the choir is studded with bas-reliefs of the Old Testament.
The most peculiar thing about the cathedral — that which
differentiates it from other cathedrals in and out of Spain — is
the Mozarabic Chapel in the southwest angle, below the great
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68 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
tower. The rite of Spain originally seems to have been the
Gothic rite, not the Roman, or as it is also known, the rite of
St. James. The Goths and Visigoths of Spain, when converted
to Christianity, seem to have used this rite altogether. How-
ever, on the rise of Arianism, the Gothic races of Spain seem
to have readily embraced the error, and for a long time Arian-
ism flourished upon Spanish soil, teaching its doctrine that the
Son was not equal to the Father. When King Reccared in
586 renounced the errors of Arius and became a true Catholic,
the Gothic rite, which had been practiced and used alike by
Catholic and Arian, became in some way seemingly identified
with Arianism. The Advent of the Moors and their domination
in Spain left the question of rites undetermined. The Catholic
Christians of Toledo and other Spanish cities were allowed by
the Arabs to practice their religion und^r certain restrictions,
but they adopted the Arabic language and many Moorish cus-
toms, and in consequence became known as Mozdrahes or '' half-
Arabs/' The Mass which they celebrated and the rites which
they followed were the old Gothic Mass and ritual. In the
aorth of Spain, in Aragon and Castile, the Roman rite was fol-
lowed, and the Gothic rite became practically unknown, or at
least disused. After the conquest of the southern part of Spain
by Christian arms and the expulsion of the Moors, the Chris-
tians of Toledo came again into their own.
But those were troublous times and the Gothic rite gradu-
ally waned and there came grave question as to whether it
should be used by the Church or not. There is a legend that
a huge fire was built to try the question by fire, and two Mis-
sals, one of each rite, were cast into the flames. The Roman
Missal leaped out of the flames unscathed ; the Gothic Missal
remained there unconsumed. It was decided that both rites
were proper for the worship of the Church. Then Cardinal
Ximenes came to the rescue for perpetuity. He bad beautiful
editions of the Gothic Missal printed — some of these editions
may be seen here in New York at the Hispanic Museum — and
he established the Mozarabic Chapel in the Cathedral of Tole-
do, where the Gothic rite was to be used as long as the cathe*
dral should stand.
I had long been acquainted with the rite and had been in
correspondence with Don* Jorje Abad y Perez, the Capellan
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19 lO.] RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN 69
Capitular of the Mozarabic Chapel at Toledo. Through his
courtesy several years ago I became possessed of a fine Gothic
Missal, and the Hispanic Museum is indebted likewise to his
courtesy and advocacy for the fine specimens of the Gothic
Missals which it possesses. So when we ' had inspected the
cathedral as much as we cared to for the first time, we made
our call upon Don Jorje. He begged us to excuse him for re-
citing the vesper office in choir, but when that was finished —
and we saw the Mozarabic canons file into their stalls and re-
cite the office — he put himself entirely at our service, and not
only accompanied us over the cathedral again, but went with
us around the city and for a long excursion outside the walls
and across the Tagus. Altogether he was a charming man to
.talk to, his chief regret, as he expressed it, being that he did
not speak English. One could tell by looking at him that he
was of Gothic origin, for I was asked to translate to him the
remark that he was one of the few Spaniards we had seen with
brown hair and the bluest of blue eyes. He accompanied us
to the Hotel Castilla and took coffee with us, and on parting
hoped that he might some day visit New York, which we had
described to him, I am afraid, somewhat grandiloquently.
Up to i860 there were six Mozarabic churches in Toledo,
besides the chapel in the cathedral, but now there are only
two. The Mozarabic Mass is said in the others at certain in-
tervals during the year, notably on St. James' day. There are
also some five other places in Spain where the Mozarabic rite
is celebrated on certain days in the year, so that the rite his*
torically may never die out there. The rite is a personal and
family privilege and belongs to those whose families have
always been Mozarab. Others who follow the Roman rite are
not permitted to pass over to the Mozarabic rite, nor are
Mozarab families or individuals permitted to take up the
Roman rite except in case of marriage, where the division of
the family may result from separate rites. The decay of the
Mozarabic rite represents, therefore, the dwindling numbers of
the representatives of the old Mozarab families.
The Mozarabic Mass is peculiar in many points, and quite
Oriental in many of its characteristics. In some respects its
Latin is quite archaic, and the names for the various parts of
the Mass are quite different from the familiar names to which
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70 RECENT IMPRESSIONS OF SPAIN [April,
we are accastomed. The Psalms are from the old Italic and
not from the Vulgate, and the expression '^Oremus'' is only
used twice in the Mass; once before the ''Agios/' a prayer
not found in the Roman Mass, and again before the "Pater
Noster." The Gradual is called the Psalleudo, the Offertory
the Sacrificium, the Preface the Inlatio; while the Sanctus be-
gins in Latin and ends in Greek. The Creed, which is usually
called the Bint (couplets), is said immediately after the conse-
cration, in couplets, each one divided off from the other, and
immediately after that the Our Father is sung by the priest,
who pauses at each petition while the choir responds '' Amen."
For those who are learned in liturgies, I may add that the
Mozarabic rite is the only western rite which has an epiclesis,
which is said as the post pHdie on the feast of Corpus Christie
In the Mozarabic Mass they read the Prophecy, the Epistle,
and the Gospel, and have besides a Preface or Inlatio for nearly
every feast day and Sunday in the year. Father Abad y Perez
has compiled an excellent little Mozarabic Mass-book, contain-
ing the whole Mass in Latin and Spanish, called Devocionario
Musdrabif which is sold for a very modest sum at all the
Toledo book shops.
In addition to the cathedral and its old-fashioned cloisters
with quaint decaying frescoes, the church of Santo Tom^ is well
worth a visit, if it be only to see the pictures of El Greco.
Besides there are two old Jewish Synagogues, afterwads turned
into churches: Santa Maria la Blanca and La Sinagoga del
Transito, afterwards called San Benito. Both are now merely
architectural monuments, no longer used for worship. The
cloisters adjoining the church of San Juan de los Reyes have
been skillfully restored and show all the delicate tracery of
column and arch designed by the Gothic architect, and hard by
is the Escuila de Indusirias Ariisiicas, where young Toledans
are taught in both day and night schools to revive and con-
tinue the ancient arts of Spain.
Toledo is remarkable for its manufacture of swords and for
its inlaid gold upon steel and iron. It has also a modern
arms factory just outside the walls, but the traveler's attention
is chiefly directed to the beautiful swords and daggers twisted
into curves and knots in the armorer's show-windows. You are
asked to buy the ^'armas blancas" or ^'armas negras" — either
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f9IO.] Is IT /, RABBI f 71
of glistening steel or dull iron containing the marvelous trac*
eries of bright, flashing gold imbedded in Moorish patterns.
You may see in Toledo also the posada or inn where Cervantes
lodged and where he is said to have written, or at least con-
ceived, a portion of Don QuixoU. We were told that if one
brought his own food, he could lodge and dine there even now
at a peseta (20 cents) a day. However we did not care to make
the experiment.
IS IT I, RABBI?
BY RICHARD L. MANGAN. S.J.
Out of the darkness, yearning for the light,
I saw Thy sign and followed from afar.
Until above Thy presence, shining bright,
Hovered the mystic star :
With the poor shepherds, poor to Thee I came.
And the strange pity of Thy new life saw —
£temity bound in our human frame,
God in a little straw t
I^ater Thy hand clasped mine and gently led
My faltering steps to knowledge fairer still;
I knew Thee in the breaking of the Bread,
Knew Thee and loved Thy will.
Yea, I have talked with Thee, seen Thine eyes melt
In pity o'er the sorrows of mankind.
Dipped my hand with Thee in the dish and felt
I^ve kindle heart and mind.
Can he that dippeth with Thee, then, betray,
Deny Thee? Ah, what bitter pain were mine,
Should those sad eyes at last be turned away
In agony Divine !
I see Thee hanging on the awful Rood,
I hear Thy mournful, broken-hearted cry:
•* One is a traitor." Oh, ingratitude I
Master, it is AOt I?
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CATHOLICS AND BOOKS.
BT LOUIS O'DONOVAN, D.D.
I.
" Some loTe horses, some birds, some wild beasts ; but from my childhood a remarkable
desire has invested me to acquire and possess books." *
I.— A FEW GENERAL IDEAS ON BOOKS.
OR most of as few things are more useful than
good books. As truth is the object and food
of our intellects, and as books are great store-
houses of truth, ft follows clearly that scarcely
anything is more needed than our books, and noth-
ing deserves more careful choosing. And, like friends, books
should be few and well chosen.
Not only do almost all the truths about the past, but a very
great number of those concerning the present and the future,
reach our minds through the medium of books. Especially
is this true with regard to Catholics; for those holiest, most
precious traditions concerning the past, practices for the pres-
ent, and hopes for the future, are recorded and prophesied in
books, particularly in Thi B^ok par excellence — the Bible —
wherein ''What things soever were written, were writtea for
our learning." t
And while Ruskin observes that: "All books are divided
into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all
time"; the Bible must, if put in any class, be pre-eminent
In its unique position, because it is the inspired record of the
revealed word of God.
These pages treat only of books that may be included in
the latter half of Ruskin's division. A very few words of ad-
vice are given with regard to those of the first division.
For herein only such books as have made men and history
are of interest. They may be books of long, long ago, yet
'' down the dim, distant valley " their echoes still reverberate —
yes, in some cases, thrill and impel hearts to action. For,
* An inscription in Greek •Ter the entrance to the*public library at Constantinople, at-
tributed to Julian the Apostate : LonuUr, Dt BibliotkecU : UltrajicH, 1680, p. 132.
t Rom. ZT« 4.
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I9IO.] CATHOLICS AND BOOKS 73
wrote Channingi ''God be thanked for' books. They are the
voices of the distant and the dead, and make as heirs of the
spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true revellers. They
give to all| who will faithfully use them, the society, the spir-
itual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter
how poor I am ; no matter though the prosperous of my own
time will not enter my obscure dwelling ; if the sacred writers
will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton
will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shake-
speare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the work-
ings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his
practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual com-
panionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though ex-
cluded from what is called the ' best society in the place where
I live.' "
If the best books be known only to a few, so much greater
is the loss to those who know them not. Possibly these poor
pages may move many souls to become .brothers of the /ew.
At least it cannot be rash to hope great things of Catholics,
those guardians of the word of God, whose names were at least
once, in Baptism, written in the book of life. It cannot be
rash to expect that Catholics, of even a moderate education,
refinement, and income, should know something of the treas-
ures of their own books — books whose intrinsic beauty and
worth have appealed even to those without the true fold. Of
Catholics surely let it not be said — at least truthfully— that
they are devourers of daily newsprints and gaudy magazines.
In this paper, which does not pretend to be an erudite or
exhaustive treatise, but only a sketch of some of the odds and
ends gathered by the writer in his readings, it is hoped that
by way of a by-product, some evidence may be produced to
show that the slurs about the ignorance and grossness of the
Ages of Faith, misnamed the '' Dark Ages,'' may receive some-
thing of an answer, at least in regard to the cultivation of
books. To stimulate good reading is, of course, the writer's chief
purpose, for, as Mrs. Browning says in Aurora Liigh^ ''The
world of books is still the world."
Nor can apathy exculpate itself by alleging that the study was
made in youth. For every one's memory grows blurred, even if
his intellectual view was once so broad and piercing as not to
require further use of book-lore. Did we act otherwise would
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f4 CATHOLICS AND BOOKS [April,
not oor daily bath, and thrice daily meals, and other atten-
tions shown to our bodies, give the lie to oar catechism pro-
fession, that ''We should take more care of our soul than
of our body '' ? For if it be true that '' The camelion changes
its color as it is a£fected by sadness, anger, or joy, or by the
color upon which it sits, and we see an insect borrow its lus-
tre and hue from the plant upon which it feeds,"* it is equally
true that not only our bodies but also our souls cannot but be
strong and true, or weak and false, according as they are fed
upon good food or bad. This surely is truth and wisdom, as
Boethius — that charming, though too- little- read philosopher of
the sixth century (Christian or not it is difficult to decide)—
describes the vision of his mistress* philosophy, saying: ''In
her right hand she carried hooks^ and in her left a sceptre.'* f
St John Chrysostom, says: "It is impossible that a man
should be saved who neglects assiduous pious readings^ or con-
sideration/*!
II.— BOOKMAKERS OF OLD.
Having made our introduction, what is to follow may be
divided into two parts: the first might be called the material
side of books, and the second, for want of a better expression,
the spiritual aspect of books ; or, again, one the body, and -
the other the soul-life of books.
Under the former heading there will be a few words with
regard to the material form, or evolution of books, and some
facts and figures as to the writing of books by hand, the cost
and labor of the same, and the sizes of some of the early
libraries gathered or made and used by Catholics.
Under the head or caption of the spiritual side of books
are grouped some stories of how most of the Saints loved
books; how others, though fewer, professed not to need [thim ;
how we should use books; what are the greatest and most
helpful books for Catholics; and then an appeal to Catholics to
write books.
And first, as to the history of material, form, or evolution
of books, we are told that " The most ancient manner of writ-
ing was a kind of engraving, whereby the letters were formed
in tablets of lead, wax, or wood, or like material. This was
* Butler's Lives of the Saints, Preface. (To this inestimable storehouse of learning and
edification the writer hopes others may turn with as much profit as he has done.)
t Consolation of Philosophy. Bk. I. | Cone. 3 do Lataro.
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I9IO.] Catholics and books 75
done by styles made of iron, brass, or bone. Instead of such
tablets leaves of papyrus, which grew on the banks of the Nile
(also of the Ganges), were used first in Egypt; afterwards
parchment, made of fine skins of beasts, was invented at Per-
gamum. Lastly paper was invented, which was made of linen
cloth (and wood). Books, anciently writ only on one side,
were done np in rolls, and when opened or unfolded filled a
whole room, as Martial complains; but when writ on both
sides on square leaves, were reduced to narrow bounds, as the
same poet observes/'* '* Antiquaries, by carefully examining
the old manuscripts, have come to the conclusion that cotton
paper was used in Italy as early as the tenth century or even
the ninth; while no specimen of linen paper is supposed to
be older than the fourteenth/' f For details and examples the
standard book of reference on this subject is the monumental
work, in Latin, of the Benedictine priest, John Mabillon, De re
Diplomatica^ wherein are described many curious materials used
formerly to make books, not only papyrus, the skin of the
plant or weed that grows on the River Nile, but also rind and
bark of trees, and skins of beasts and even of fish. Also the
various colored inks — vermillion, gold, and silver, as well as
the many different styles of letters and alphabets. Curious,
too, is the system of shorthand therein described and attrib-
uted to Tiro, the freeman of Cicero, embracing five thousand
word-signs.
This is not the place to describe at length bindings, shapes,
sizes, weights, etc., of books, interesting as the study might
be. But one example may give an idea as to the extent of
the subject. We are told that the largest book yet printed
is a colossal atlas, which is in the British Museum, and re-
quires three men to carry it, being seven feet high, and weighs*
ing eight hundred pounds. It is bound in leather, magnifi-
cently decorated, and fastened with clasps of silver richly gilt
To Catholics it is more interesting and edifying to leave
aside the study of the general material make-up of books,
and to get some idea of how our forefathers in the faith, and
especially the priests and monks in their monasteries, wrote
books by hand. The more so, since such a study may help
to show us whether or not priests and monks were as lazy
and ignorant as it is sometimes charged. This charge might
well be answered by a few illustrations of some of their library
* Butler, opus ciUttum, St. Casslan M., August 13. t Spalding, Misetliama, p. 698.
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y6 Catholics and Books [April,
buildings, or " sccrctaria," "chartaria/* "archivia," **scrinia/'
"Hbraria," "scriptoria," where they wrote and preserved
books, and which were so beautifully artistic and intelligently
built. Bat architecture is not bibliography, which is our pres-
ent subject.
Abbot John of Trittenham, in A. D. 1480, said : " There is
in my opinion no labor more becoming a monk than the writ-
ing of ecclesiastical books." If one were allowed to moralize
here, one would like to accentuate or expatiate on the word
ecclesiastical. Let it be remembered also that Saints Albina
and Melania the Younger, who lived in North Africa about
the year A. D. 410, are said to have made it their occupation
not only to read but also to copy good books. And if women
outside the enclosure of convent walls so occupied themselves,
one is not surprised to read that in the convent of Marseilles
in the early sixth century some of the nuns transcribed holy
books with ability and charm.* "In the eighth century, St.
Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, writing to an Abbess, prays
her to copy in golden letters the epistles of St Peter." f
Indeed, it may be safely declared that this was a common ex-
ercise or art in convents during the Ages of Faith.
Nor were their brothers less assiduous in this labor. For
in the life of St. Hilarion, the anchorite of the fourth century,
who sailed from Egypt to Sicily to escape notoriety and
secure seclusion, we read that "upon landing he offered to
pay for his passage and that of his companions with a copy
of the Gospels which he had written in his youth with his
own hand."|: In the seventh decade of the next century An-
astasius Bibliothecarius tells us in the Liber Poniificalis that
Pope Hilary founded in Rome two libraries (perhaps more ac»
curately two book- cases): ^* Fecit autem et duas biblioihecas.*^ %
Witness, from the East, St. Stephen the Younger who was
bom in Constantinople of rich parents and became a monk at
the age of fifteen, near Chalcedon. He was made abbot at
thirty, and was martyred A. D. 764. In his life we read how
he "joined labor with prayer, copying books and making
nets." II In writing books we are told that the ''Greater
monasteries generally employed at least twelve copyists." ^
* Julia Addison, in Christian Art magazine for July, 1907.
t Spalding, MiscelUnea, p. xo8. , % Butler, Id opus., October 22.
^Migne Patroloiia LaOma, Tom. CXXVIII. || Butler, Livest November 28.
^ Spalding, iiisctUamta, p. X09.
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i9ia] Catholics and books 77
Nor was this labor pecoliar to monks only for the same aa-
thority may be quoted to show how even bishops used to make
books, for ''St. Osmund . . . disdained not when he was
bishop (of Salisbury, in England, in the eleventh century) to
copy and bind books with his own hands/'*
Still later one of the most beautiful characters of all Chris-
tian authors, Thomas k Kempis, was an example of the same
common work, for ''Thomas had ever been an indefatigable
writer, and copied books innumerable, both for the use of the
monastery and for sale. How truly he revered the work of the
copyist we know from his twentieth 'concio/ in which with
delicate tenderness he writes as follows: 'Verily it is a good
work to transcribe the books which Jesus loves, by which the
knowledge of Him is diffused, His precepts taught, and their
practice inculcated.' '' f
These are a few examples, taken far apart as to time and
place, indicating how widely spread among the clergy of the
Ages of Faith was the practice of making books. In some
cases as the labor was hard the rich might pay others to
transcribe for them. An instance of this was St. Ambrose,
a convert and a very prominent citizen of Alexandria, well-
known for his wealth and ability, and an intimate friend
of that giant soul and devoted scholar Origen. Ambrose
"maintained for his use amanuenses, or clerks, to copy his
books, besides several other transcribers for his service." t But
oiten the copyist was a monk, and, either actually or by choice
and profession, poor. The monks with whom St. John Chrysos-
tom lived in his twenties "rose at midnight and after the
morning hymns and songs, i. ^., matins and lauds, all remained
in their cells where they read the Holy Scriptures, and some
copied books.'' % And so, too, we read of St. Dunstan in the
ninth century at Glastonbury in England, in his cell five by two
and a half feet in size, painting and copying good books.
Where it could be done the work proceeded more rapidly
in a large community, for there the work could be system*
atized. One monk slowly read aloud, while many copied down.
However, sounds were at times mistaken or misunderstood, and
thus many errors of the copyist occurred.
* Butler, Liuts^ December 4.
t SU Thomas a Kimpis, by Sir F. R. Crui»e. M.D., D.L., " CathoKc Truth Society, of
Ireland."
% Butler, (Hus citatum, St. Leonldas, April 22. $ Idtm opus, January 27.
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78 Catholics and books [April,
''Many different arts were represented in the making of
the medieval book. Of those employed first came the scribe,
whose duty it was to form the black, glossy letters with his
pen; then came the painter, who mast also understand how
to prepare mordants, and to lay gold leaf, burnishing it with
an agate ; • . . after him the binder gathered up the leaves
of vellum, and put them together under covers with heavy
clasps. ... In an old manuscript in the monastery of St.
Aignon the writer has thus expressed his feelings: 'Look out
for your fingers 1 Do not put them on my writing 1 You do
not know what it is to write 1 It cramps your back, it ob-
scures your eyes, it breaks your side and stomach 1 ' "* " In a
Sarum Missal, at Alnwick, there is a colophon quoted by my
lamented friend, Dr. Rock, in his Textile Fabrics. It is appro-
priate both to the labors of the old scribes and also to those
of their modern readers: 'Librum Scribendo — Jon Whas Mo-
nachus laborabat — Et mane surgendo multum corpus macer-
abat.' " t Translation : The monk Jon Whas labored in writing
a book and by getting up early greatly reduced his flesh.
It may be of interest to know that this art of writing and
illuminating and painting on vellum is not quite dead, nor al-
together a lost art. An exhibition of a dozen or more of
pieces, altar cards, sonnets of Shakespeare, etc., executed by a
Catholic woman of Baltimore, recently drew many admirers of
a handicraft rarely seen nowadays. But of course this labor-
ious method of book-making could not be used in mercantile
competition with printing. Every one nowadays wants books.
" It is more than probable that where the ancients reckoned
their books by hundreds, we now reckon them by tens of
thousands."! Even in the early stages of the printing-press
books were multiplied with incredible rapidity. "From the
year 1455 to 1536, a period of 81 years, . . . 33,933«ooo
books were printed/'^ "More than 18,000 works, it has been
calculated, left the press before the end of the fifteenth cen-
tury.'' II And hence illumination is seldom undertaken now->a-
days; yet, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever.''
Apropos of earliest printing, it may be of interest to know
that there is a striking passage in St. Jerome where he speaks
* Addison in magazine of Christian Att, July, 1907.
t Andrew Lang, Thi Library, Chapter III.
I Spalding, MisctlUuua, p. 70Z. $ Id opus ^ p. 707.
I Andrew Lang, Tkt Library. Chapter IIL
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I9IO.] Catholics and books 79
of letters on box or ivory, which he directed to be given to a
young girl to be used as playing blocks for her education. *
Notwithstanding the fact that these were not used for print-
ing, yet they might have been suggestive in that line.
Again a curious case is that of St. Didymus, who lived
through nearly the entire fourth century, even though he had
lost his sight when just beginning to learn his letters. Never-
theless he afterwards got the alphabet cut in wood and learned
to distinguish the letters by touch. With the assistance of
hired readers and copyists he became acquainted with almost
all authors sacred and profane, and acquired a thorough knowl-
edge of grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music,
astronomy, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and chiefly
a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.'' f
Having seen something of the manner of making books, the
next question that arises is: Were they very plentiful ? If so, the
labor of the writers was, of course, correspondingly great and
their personal, painstaking, praiseworthy efforts are deserving of
the eternal gratitude of all- book-lovers. '^ We are not perhaps
at this day in possession of one-tenth part of the standard works
which were once classical in Greece and Rome. . . . Out
of 140 books of history, which we know that Livy wrote, only
35 are now extant. Varro, the most learned of the ancient
Romans, is known to have written no less than 500 volumes,
of which but two have come down to our day. Of the 40
books of history composed by Polybius, but five now remain;
while, of the same number composed by Diodorus Siculus, but
15 are extant. • . . Goth, Vandal, Iconoclast, Saracen, all
conspired for the destruction of ancient libraries. St. Athana*
sius, in his letter to Pope Mark, complains of the destruction of
records by the Arians, saying: ' They have burned every one of
our books, not leaving one fragment on account of the faith of
truth. They burned the Nicene Synod for the shame of us and
all Christians/ (The Caliph Omar ordered the 700,000 MSS.
tomes of the library of Alexandria to be burned in A. D. 632.)
Later, in France, the Huguenots burned the famous library of St.
Benedict-sur-Loire, with its 5,000 MSS. volumes. ... In
Germany, the war of the peasants sent 100,000 men to the
tomb, and consumed, no doubt, more than twice that number
* Epistle to Laeta. Fiani H litUroi vtl buxeat, vel ebumnu. Pat. Lat. Migne, Tom.
XXII. CoU 871.
t Butler's LivtSt St. Jerome, September a6.
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8o Catholics and books [April,
of MSS. volames. The great library of the city of Munster,
one of the most famous in all Germany, was destroyed by the
Anabaptists.''* So that the works now extant are bat im-
perfect witnesses to the gigantic labors spent in making and
preserving knowledge, science, art, and culture from oblivion
by the protecting hand of books. But now let us see some
examples of patient toil entailed in the copying out by hand
of these priceless treasures of ancient lore.
Of St Marcellus, monk of Ephesus, and a Basilian of the
fifth century, we read: ''The greater part of the night he
spent in prayer and the day he used in copying good books,
by the sale of which he gained not only his own subsistence,
but also wherewith to relieve the poor/'f
Coming down a century later and crossing from the Orient
to Ireland a charmingly humorous, yet also very serious, story
is told of St Columba, which shows how difficult it was to
obtain books and how highly they were valued. In the year
562 a synod was held in Ireland at Teilte, now Teltowe, a
village near Kells, in County Meath. St Columba, of a royal
house, Abbot of Derry and other Irish monasteries, when he
was on a visit to his former teacher. Abbot Finnian, had
privately made a copy of his (Finnian's) Psalter. Finnian
claimed this as his [property (because a copy of his book),
and the Irish Over King, Diarmaid, Columba's cousin, de*
cided for Finnian. By this, and also through the Church's
right of asylum by the king, Columba was so embittered that
he stirred up an insurrection against him. ''It came to a
bloody battle and Diarmaid was forced to flee. In consequence
of this the Synod of Teilte, without inviting Columba, passed
a sentence of excommunication upon him, because he had been
guilty of causing bloodshed. Coli^mba himself appeared at the
Synod and the excommunication was removed, but it was laid
upon Columba that he must convert as many heathens as there
were Christians who had perished through his fault He there-
fore left his native country and became the Apostle of Scot*-
land. The manuscript on which so much depended was sub-
sequently venerated by the Irish as a sort of national, military,
and religious palladium, and still exists in the possession of the
O'Donnell family." t Two centuries later, A. D. 766, at York,
* Spalding,* MUceUanetit p. 706. f Butler, Opus citatum, December 29.
% Hefele, Councils, Vol. IV.. p; 381., sec. 285.
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19 lo.] Catholics and books 8i
England, we read of the gnat library belonging to the Church
being committed to the care of Alcuin.*
On the mainland of Europe no brotherhood of monks was
less attached to this world than that of the Carthusians of St.
Bruno's establishment, founded in the eleventh century. And
** It was their chief employ to copy pious books, by which they
endeavored to earn their subsistence, that they might not be
burdensome to any.'' To quote from one of their most holy
members, Peter the Venefable, ^' Their constant occupation is
praying, reading, and manual labor, which consists chiefly in
transcribing books.** And while it is recorded that when the
Count of Nevers sent them a rich present of plate and they
sent it back as useless to them, yet when the Count sent them
a large quantity of leather and parchment for their books it is
not said that they refused this.t
•"The library of St. Benedict-sur-Loire had 5,000 volumes;
and that of Novaliase, in Peidmont, upwards of 6,000 That of
Spanheim, in Germany, had upwards of 3,000 volumes. These
numbers will not appear so small when we bear in mind that
those books were all written out by hand, and that many of
them were quarto and folio volumes of the largest 8ize."|: In
the fifteenth century, "Jacob of Breslau, . • • copied so
many books that it was said six horses with difficulty could
bear the 'burden of them.'"^ More interesting still, because
more detailed, is a notice of one Othlonus of Ratisbon, while
in the monastery of Tegernsee. He says of himself: ''I wrote
many books. . • . After I became a monk of St. Emeran
• . . the duties of schoolmaster ... so fully occupied
my time that I was able to transcribe only by night and on
holidays. ... I was, however, able to prepare, besides the
books I had myself composed, nineteen Missals, three books of
the Gospels and Epistles, besides four service books of Matins*
After enumerating hundreds of other copies he concludes the
list by saying : * Afterwards old age's infirmities of many kinds
hindered me."'||
We should always bear in mind that in general " Each mon-
astery had its scriptorium for those who were employed in
* Butler, Opus ciiatum, St. Elbert, May 7.
t Butler, Opus ciiatum, St Bruno, October 6.
I Spalding, Misctllanea, pp. zzo and 704.
% Addison, in Christian Art, July, 1907.
I Addison, hco citato.
VOL. XCI.— 6
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83 Catholics and books [April
transcribing books, which was the asaal occupation of the
greater part of the monks for the hours allotted to manual
labor; each monastery had its own library. There were seven-
teen hundred manuscripts in the library at Petersborough.
The library of the Grey Friars in London, built by Sir Rich-
ard Whittington, was 129 feet long and 31 feet broad and well
filled with books. Ingulf tells us that when the library at
Croyland was burned in 109 1 they lost ^QO books. The great
library at Wells had 25 windows in each side of it, as Leland
inforqas us. At St. Augustine's, at Canterbury, prayers were
always said for the benefactors to the library both alive and
dead." •
We to-day, who buy books for a few dollars, can scarcely
realize, the cost of books in past times. Yet even to-day, in
this world of dollars and cents, the catalogues of manuscript
dealers show that old manuscript Missals are listed up to one
and two thousand dollars. A recent writer on this subject
speaks of '' 100 books worth ;C40,ooo/' i. e., $2,000 per volume;
and of a sale where ;£'3,400 and £2,600 were bid for two
famous psalters respectively : i. ^., $30,000 for the two books.t
As a last example, and one nearer to us, the following is taken
from Shea's History of the Catholic Church in the United States
** A remarkable monument of patience and industry exists in two
manuscript Missals which, in his (Father Schneider, an early
missionary in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey) few and
unconnected hours of leisure, he copied out, so as to have a
Missal at different stations, and thus lighten the load he was
required to carry. Poverty made it impossible to obtain a
supply of Missals, but his patience supplied the want. One of
these is in perfect preservation, a volume six inches wide,
seven and a half inches long, and an inch thick, the handwriting
plear and beautiful.'' |
(to be concluded.)
*Butler, Livest St. Augustine of Canterbury, May 26.
t Lang, The Library, Chaps. H. and IH.
tVol. II., pp.6s^.
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SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODERN THEOLOGY.
BY W. H. KENT. O.S.C.
|0 those who are familiar with the merits of our old
theological literature, it is easy to understand the
impatience of its professors when they are told
that men of the present age find its arguments
inadequate and unconvincing, and that if religion
is to be defended at all it must needs be by some new apolo-
getic, whether it be by Pragmatism, or by appeals to the rea-
sons of the heart, or moral arguments from a cumulus of prob-
abilities, or by the admission of some ** illative sense ^* unknown
to Fathers and Schoolmen. In this matter it may be said that
this impatience with the advocates of new apologetics and new-
fangled philosophies of religion is based on something better
than the natural instinct of conservatism. And the opponents
of the new views may be pardoned for feeling that here, at any
rate, they are standing on firmer ground than in certain other
controversies. For while elsewhere it might seem that if the
conservative side had all the weight of authority and the wit-
ness of tradition, the newer critics could at least make some
plausible claim to speak in the name of reason; how, on the
contrary, the party of progress appears to be rejecting reason
and leaving both traditional authority and rational logic on the
side of the Conservatives. And even those who are enamored
of novelties may admit that it must seem the height of unrea-
son to forsake a system of apologetic which furnishes a for-
midable array of solid arguments and logical syllogisms that
issue in certain conclusions and betake ourselves to a nebulous
region of moral senses and probabilities and plausible conjec-
tures. At the same time it must be confessed that the dubious
advantages of this change of old lamps for new are hardly
made more apparent by the somewhat peremptory fashion in
which it is forced upon us. The student who has followed the
course of theological history in the past might be prepared to
learn that there is still room for some fresh developments and
modification of methods. And if some of the old arguments
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84 SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODERN THEOLOGY [April,
are set forth in a new form or are supplemented by others
possibly more adapted to the needs of some minds in the
present age, this change would bear some analogy to the evo-
lution of theology and Catholic apologetics in the time of St
Thomas. But it is a very different thing to be told that the
old method of reasoning in defence of religion is utterly worth-
less and must now give way to a radically new system. And
conservative apologists may be pardoned for suspecting that
those who speak in this fashion must be very imperfectly ac-
quainted with the literature thus utterly set aside as obsolete.
On the other hand^ it can hardly be denied that some of
the critics, at any rate, have been themselves trained in the
old schools whose methods they are now disposed to disparage,
and must be more or less familiar with their subject And it
may be well to ask how they come to take such a different
view of arguments which give so much satisfaction to others.
It is certainly a pretty problem, whichever way we take it.
For it would seem that either the critics must be blind if they
fail to see the force of clear-cut definite arguments, or else the
orthodox logicians must be the victims of some singular delu-
sion.
It must be confessed that some writers do not seem to find
any difficulty in assuming some such blindness or folly on the
part of their opponents. There are others, again, who appar-
ently think that the whole matter may be explained by the
spirit of the age or by the different mental characteristics of
the various races or nations. Deductive logic, it seems, belongs
to the Greeks and Romans and the medieval world which was
molded in the old forms. But the Germanic races and the
modern mind arrive at a knowledge of truth by experience and
intuition. It may well be that certain methods of reasoning
may be more in vogue in one place than in another, and each
age may have its own characteristic fashions in thought as in
other matters. But this theory will hardly furnish a satisfactory
solution of the problem, for we find in fact that men of the
same time and of the same race take widely divergent views.
The minds of classic or medieval philosophers were not all cast
in one mold; and in our own age there are still many who
find more satisfaction in the formal methods of scholastic logic
than in any newer means of knowledge. Is is easy to indulge
in hasty generalizations and set the old arguments aside as
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I9IO.] SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODERN THEOLOGY 85
obsolete. And, in like manner, it is easy for others to dismiss
modem criticism in the same contemptuous fashion. But in
both cases it would surely be better to exercise a little more
critical discrimination — to recognize the good work done by
the critics, while we reject the errors which arise, for the most
part, from a misapplication of true principles, and to allow the
validity and the high value of scholastic logic without over*
looking its limitations or the danger of illusions.
Opinions may differ as to the comparative importance of
formal deductive logic, induction, or other methods of reason-
ing on arriving to knowledge of the truth. But in any case
the candid inquirer must admit the validity of a genuine de-
ductive syllogism; in other words, the truth of the conclusion
follows infallibly from the truth of the premises. This doc-
trine is the keynote of scholastic logic. But it may be doubted
whether any schoolman has asserted it more strongly than one
of the best of modem philosophers, the late Edward von Hart-
mann, albeit he, like his master Schopenhauer, has had much
more to tell us of immanent logic and the method of intuition.*
And what is true of one syllogism holds good also in the case
of a series or sequence of syllogisms, wherein the premises of
the last are conclusions of preceding syllogisms, the whole
series resting, in the last analysis, on primary principles, i. e.,
propositions which are seen to be true when once their terms
are rightly apprehended. The conclusion of the last syllogism
in the sequence follows with absolute certainty from the truth
of the first principles. This, in a few words, is the ideal de-
ductive method preached and practised by the medieval mas-
ters. And though it may have obvious limitations, for it can-
not be applied in all fields of knowledge, ^.^.y in physical
science and history, though even in its proper sphere it may
leave room for other methods, it can hardly be denied that it
has the merit of safety and certainty. The most obvious ob-
jection urged against it is that it can bring no accession of
new knowledge, since the truth of the conclusion is at least
implicitly contained in the premises. But the best answer to
this may be found in the rich results obtained in the profound
* '* Aber bei gegebenen PrSmissen einen eiDfachen Schlofs falsch vollzieben, das liegt nach
meiner Anffassung gerade so ausser den Bereicb der M5glichkeit, als dass ein von zwei
Kr^ten gestossenes atom anders als in der Diagonale des Parallelogramens der KrMte geben
sollte." Philosophii dis Unbewusstin, B. VII. Das UnbtwnssU im Dinien, pp. 234-5. First
Edition*
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86 SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODERN THEOLOGY [April,
and luminous literature of Catholic philosophy and theology.
Dr. W. G. Ward was surely right in regarding this as one of
the two greatest achievements of the human intellect. ^^The
pure intellect really exhibits to the full its astonishing capa-
bilitiesi I think, only on two subjects: pure mathematics,
which are its creation, and in which it legitimately claims ab-
solute supremacy; and dogmatic theology, in which it submits
contentedly to the only position allowed it on the field of
morals and religion, the humble and dutiful subserviency to
the spiritual nature " {Ideal of a Christian Churchy Chapter V.,
8. 8, p. 281).
These considerations may be enough to explain the rever-
ence with which so many of us regard the deductive and logi-
cal method of our scholastic masters, and the pained amaze-
ment with which we learn that many modern minds fail to
find satisfaction in these luminous and convincing syllogisms.
For is not this ordered sequence of logical argument the only
way of safety and certainty? On other paths we may be
misled by fancy or feeling or the tricks of plausible rhetori-
cians. But here, at any rate, there is no loophole for illusion.
So it would surely seem so long as this method of pure de-
ductive logic is considered in theory or in the abstract. So
long as the sequence of syllogisms starts with premises which
are strictly first principles whose truth is self-evident, it must
he confessed that the method leaves no room for error or un-
certainty. But, as might be expected, this is very seldom the
case in practice. Life is short, and logic, if applied in this full
and explicit fashion, would be exceedingly long. A writer, as
a rule, has no need to go all the way back to first principles,
in the strict sense of the term; for it will be enough for his
purpose to argue from propositions which, though not self-
evident, are likely to be accepted by his readers. And in
this same way two scholastic disputants, so long as they can
appeal to principles allowed on both sides, have no occasion to
go any further or deeper. This is all very sensible and prac-
tical, no doubt. But at the same time it is well to be re-
minded that it leaves an opening for one of the illusions of
logic. In many cases we may be sure the argument has really
been carried back to its ultimate source, and, if time and space
allowed, the writer could work it all out on paper with the
fullness and fidelity of Euclid. But too often the logician who
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I9IO.] Scholastic Logic and modern theology %i
careially proves his conclusions by syllogistic reasoning would
have to admit, if closely pressed, that he has not made any
rigorous examination of the grounds on which he holds the
premises of his arguments, and too often the intelligent reader
may have a shrewd suspicion that in the last analysis it will
be found that the premises are resting securely— on the con-
clusions.
This curious form of inverted and illusory syllogism is,
naturally enough, very common in political argumentation. It
may be safely said that political measures are generally de-
cided by motives that have little to do with logic, by class or
party interests, by the pressure of circumstances, by popular
clamor. But we can hardly expect to find these real grounds
set forth in a king's speech, in the preamble of an Act of
Parliament, or in the utterances of the minister who intro*
duces the measure. Here, on the contrary, the case is sup-
ported by reasons drawn from some broad principles of po-
litical justice — adopted for the occasion. The conclusion is
supplied by other causes, and the premises of the argument
are taken up for the sake of the conclusion to be drawn from
them. The principles, no doubt, furnish a sufficient proof of
the conclusion. But it will often appear that they prove a
little too much, and lead to other conclusions by no means ad-
mitted by the political logician. His argument throughout has
an air of unreality. For one feels that he has a firmer hold
of the particular conclusion than of the general principles by
which it is supported.
It is obvious that the danger of this logical illusion is by
no means confined to the field of politics. And it may be
said that it is present in some degree whenever a logician is
engaged in defending a proposition or a doctrine which be
already holds on grounds independent of his arguments. For
the fact that he firmly holds the conclusion may predispose
him to the hasty acceptance of general principles that seem to
support it
'' Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmation strong
As proofs of Holy Writ.''
And it is safe to say that a cherished conviction which
rests on nobler grounds than jealousy may easily have a like
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88 Scholastic Logic and modern Theology [April,
effect and lend to light and worthless arguments a force that
is not their own. In this way, it may well be that the Catho-
lic theologian and the Christian apologist are specially liable
to this danger of logical illusion. The very firmness and depth
of their own faith in the doctrines they are defending may
lead them to use arguments which really rest upon it, and can,
therefore, have no weight for those who are not already be-
lievers.
It is hardly necessary to observe that in this method of
argument the natural order of the deductive syllogism is in-
verted. For by the very fact that one proposition is put forth
as a premise in proof of another, it purports to be more cer-
tain or at any rate better known to the reader than the con-
clusion that is to follow from it. It is of this very point that
Aristotle is speaking when he enunciates the dictum so tersely
rendered in Scholastic Latin — '^ Propter quod unumquodque et
illud magis.'' Analyt. PosL^ lib. I., c. 2. Cf. St. Thomas, lect.
VI., in locum. Clearly, if the conclusions are proved with
certitude from the premises, these must be more known or
antecedently certain. Yet for the most part it must be con-
fessed that the theologian or the apologist is assured of the
truth [of his conclusion before be has ever heard of the
arguments or the evidence adducible in its defence. And
when he is establishing a point of Catholic doctrine by the
customary proofs from Scripture, tradition, and theological
reasoning, the conclusion, indeed, has the certitude of faith;
but there may be room for some misgiving as to the authen-
ticity of the passages cited in evidence or as to the cogency
of the reasoning. The point is not that strong arguments are
wanting, but that one who is already assured of his conclu-
sion is in danger of being satisfied with inadequate evidence.
This may be clearly seen in the case of Patristic evidence.
The unanimous testimony of the Fathers is a sure criterion of
Catholic doctrine. And even apart from the religious and
ecclesiastical value of this testimony, which can only be appre-
ciated by Catholics, the mere Rationalist must admit that the
agreement of these early writers furnishes historical evidence
of the antiquity and continuity of Catholic doctrine. The best
and most unmistakable proof of the real tendency of this
testimony of antiquity may be seen in the history of the
Tractarians who set out to follow the Fathers and found them-
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selves landed in Rome. Clearly the writings of the Fathers do
contain valid arguments in defence of the Catholic Faith. But
to give these arguments their full force something more is
needed than a few isolated passages cited in support of a
theological thesis. Before the reader can be assured tliat he
has got the genuine teaching of the ancient Fathers he must
have the help of criticism to decide the authenticity of the
work quoted, he must consult the context, and possibly other
writings also, to ascertain the author's real mind, as well as
other Fathers in order to distinguish a concordant testimony
from local or personal opinions. Doubtless this has been done
by such masters as Petavius and Thomasinus or by later writers
on patrology. But it may be feared that few who read a
theological text-book or manual of apologetics have made any
serious study of the matter. And if they feel, rightly enough,
that the passages cited in prcTof of the Catholic doctrine, and not
those explained away in the answers to objections, give the
real mind of the ancient Fathers, it may be safely said that
this conviction arises from their faith in the teaching of the
living Church, with which the belief of the Fathers must
needs agree. On this point it may be well to recall some
words written by Newman in one of his last and ablest efforts
as an Anglican controversialist.
"A Romanist then cannot really argue in defence of his
doctrines ; he has too firm a confidence in their truth, if he is
sincere in his profession, to enable him critically to adjust the
due weight to be given to this or that evidence. He assumes
his Church's conclusion as true; and the facts or witnesses he
adduces are rather brought forward to receive an interpretation
than to furnish a proof. His highest aim is to show the mere
consistency of his theory, its possible adjustment with the
records of antiquity. I am not here inquiring how much of
high but misdirected feeling is implied in this state of mind ;
certainly as we advance in perception of the truth, we all of
us become less fitted to be controversialists'' (The Prophetical
Office of the Churchy Lect. III.).
This acute criticism of Catholic apologetics cannot be ac-
cepted without some reservation. And it may be remarked
that the writer himself in later life gave a practical proof that
a *^ Romanist" can offer real argument in defence of his doc-
trines. Yet, from what has been said above it may be seen
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90 SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODEttN THEOLOGY [April,
that there is some real foundation for this account of the Catho-
lic attitude to the testimony of antiquity. It is true that the
Catholic receives his faith in the first instance from the teach-
ing of the living Church, that he turns to the ancient records
in the confident expectation of finding them in agreement with
that teaching. This expectation is abundantly fulfilled. For
the past furnishes proofs of the present doctrines and at the
same time the present throws back some light on the obscur-
ity of the past But, as has been suggested here, the apologist
sometimes fancies that he is bringing forth proof from the
past when he is really interpreting the past by the present.
It may be well to remark that this illusion is comparative-
ly harmless so far as the apologist himself is concerned. For
his conclusion really rests on excellent grounds and his inter-
pretation of the past in the light of the present teaching of
the Church is a perfectly legitimate operation. But unfortu-
nately when it is presented to others as a proof it has a very
different effect and only serves to discredit, however unjustlyf
the whole system of Scholastic logic
. • . Et crimine ab uno
Disce omnes.
The large inference is scarcely fair. But there is, at any
rate, a rude sort of poetic justice when these lapses from
orthodox deductive logic are visited with this illogical severity.
These facts and reflections may help, in some measure, to
explain the dissatisfaction with which so many modern critics
regard the classic arguments of Catholic apologetics. But, in
addition to this, something must be allowed for a natural re-
action against the rigidity and narrowness of some orthodox
writers. There is no cause to complain of those who attach a
high, not to say a paramount, importance to the old logic of
the Schoolmen, and stoutly refuse to abandon it for some new-
fangled form of defence. But, unfortunately, this commendable
conservatism is sometimes associated with an unreasonable re-
luctance to leave room for any other method of finding or
establishing the truth. The champion of formal logic will have
nothing to say to Newman's 'Mllative sense,'' his cumulative
probabilities, his argument from conscience, or to the methods
of intuition and experience that find favor with other philoso-
phers. This attitude has something of the narrowness of prim-
itive Protestantism which finds its rule of faith in Chilling-
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19 lO.] SCHOLASTIC LOGIC AND MODERN THEOLOGY 9I
worth's famous formula: ^'The Bible and the Bible only is the
religion of Protestants/' For in much the same manner our
strait-laced logicians appear to be saying: ''The syllogism and
the syllogism alone is the logic of Scholastics/' And it may
not be amiss to suggest that both these extremists may be met
in the same manner. The Catholic does not answer Chilling-
worth by seeking to lower or lessen the authority of the Bible.
But he rightly urges that its testimony is supplemented and
supported by that of tradition. And he points out that the
Protestant is mistaken in supposing that he is really going by
the Bible only. For^ though the good man may be wholly
unconscious of the fact^ his belief in the Bible itself rests, in
the last analysis, on the authority of the Fathers or the tes-
timony of the Church .and at every turn his interpretation of
its pages is profoundly affected by the influence of tradition.
In much the same way it may be observed that the most
strictly logical series of syllogisms must needs depend, in the
last resort, on first principles whose truth is self-evident, f. ^..
is known by intuition, and on the knowledge of facts that comes
by experience. Nor is it only at the outset that these forces
play their part. For the experience of facts and the intuitive
perception of principles lend a continuous support to the train
of deductive reasoning, which is. moreover, assisted and sup-
plemented by moral and practical judgments and the estimate of
probabilities. Ail these things have their place, not only in the
philosophic writings of the present day. but in the massive works
of such medieval masters as St Thomas, who could no more
afford to do without them than we can afford to dispense with
the aid of Scholastic logic in modern theology.
St, Afafy*St BayswaUr^ London, England,
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SHEARING TIME.
BY M. F. QUINLAN.
*' The shearers sat in the firelight, hearty and hale and strong,
After the hard day's shearing, passing the joke along ;
The ' ringer ' that shore a hundred, as they never were shorn before,
And the novice who, toiling bravely, had tommy-hawked half a score,
The tar-boy, the cook, and the slushy, the sweeper that swept the board.
The picker-up, and the penner, with the rest of the shearing horde.
There were men from the inland stations where the skies like a furnace glow,
And men from the Snowy River, the land of the frozen snow ;
There were swarthy Queensland drovers who reckoned all land by miles
And farmers' sons from the Murray, where many a vineyard smiles. . . .*'
— i4. B, Pattrson,
Et. eleven months in the year nothing happens on
an Australian sheep run. The life is uniform to
monotony. Save for an occasional muster, or the
rare advent of the teamster, there is but little
to mark the passing of the days. But through-
out this time there is a feeling in the air of pleasurable an-
ticipation — of a gradual and sure unfoldingi which, like an un-
dersong of hope» proclaims the ultimate awakening.
It is this which gives a meaning and a definite aim to the
daily round, for as the sower goes out to sow his seed with
his hope set in the harvest, even so does the station- hand
tend the flocks with a view to the gathering in of the wool
in due season. To the pastoralist himself everything depends
on the yearly ^'clip''; for having put all his money into the
sheep, his profits are necessarily bound up in the success of
the wool harvest.
Before the shearing begins either he or his manager must
make the necessary arrangments. He must aUo engage the
full complement of shearing hands. Applications are generally
made some months in advance. And because of the impor-
tance of having the work done well and quickly the local au-
thorities exercise some care in the choice of their shearers.
The wool-king will only have picked hands. Therefore,
when the shearer applies for a pen in the shearing shed, he
must submit his testimonials and a deposit of twenty shillings.
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I9IO.] . Shearing Time 93
Every hand must have a satisfactory record. No man is taken
on without good references. That is to say he must know his
work; for the references deal solely with his professional skill
and not with his personal character.
So the pastoralist or his proxy picks his thirty or forty
men, and states the approximate time of shearing.
In the north of Queensland shearing begins early ; in the
central districts in July, August, and September ; in the west*
em districts up till December. By this arrangement it is pos-
sible for the same men to travel the country, picking up one
job after another.
For a full week before the shearing begins, numberless roust-
abouts besiege the station. These may be pickers-up (there
must be one picker-up to every five shearers in the shed)
'< broomies,'' tar-boys, branders, pressors, and classers.
Among the hands engaged for the shearing season, perhaps
none is more important than the temporary cook who will have
to minister to the wants of the shearers, and it is not uncom-
mon for the competing candidates to give a demonstration of
their skill on the day before. There is then a show of hands
in the shed, and the cook who has the most votes gets the
job. The cook's wages are then arranged for, the price of
rations being also set down in his agreement.
On the eve of the shearing the hands are ^' rung up ** and
when all are assembled the manager reads out the shearers'
contract, which each man must sign.
This contract sets forth the obligations which are binding
alike on employer and employed. It stipulates the rates of
payment and the standard of work required. It also legislates
for the maintenance of law and order ; and it expressly forbids
the sale or consumption of intoxicants — these and the various
other clauses having been drawn up and agreed to by the
conference of pastoralists, who conjointly with the labor leaders
represent what is known as the Shearers' Union.
The preliminaries being now complete the shearers are free
to start in; and in the morning the first ^'cut" begins. The
general superintendence of the work in the shed is in the hands of
the manager, whose tact and diplomacy are often put to the test
in managing his men. The sub- manager takes charge of the mus-
tering party ; the business of the mustering party being to feed
the ** receiving paddock." To do this, the sheep must be driven
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94 Shearing Time [April,
in from another paddock further out. The wash-pool is gener-
ally situated some four or five miles distant from the shed, and
as the fleece must be thoroughly dry before being shorn, the
sheep are put through the wash- pool some hours beforehand.
As they are washed, they are turned into an adjoining paddock
which is drawn upon as required, for the supplying of the re-
ceiving paddock.
To do this well requires careful management, since no in-
terval of time may elapse between the incoming and the out-
going flock. There must be a constant reserve of sheep wait-
ing their turn to replace those that are already shorn ; the lat-
ter being simultaneously drafted out into their allotted pad-
dock. The sub-manager must, therefore, employ some judgment
in bringing up the sheep, so that the shearers make no protest.
For, according to the shearers' contract, the men may not be
kept waiting. The sheep must be there, a constant supply
ready to their hand, to enable them to earn a maximum wage.
Shearers are paid by the piece- work system; consequently the
best man wins.
The method of work is always the same. The rams are
gathered in first. Five-pence is the standard wage for shearing a
ram. In point of time the shearing of one ram is supposed to
equal the shearing of two sheep. As a matter of fact, the ram
takes longer, for in addition to the ram's wool being harder, the
curly horns retard the clipping, with the result that the men
make less at ram than at sheep-shearing. Flock rams are always
of superior breed. Once shorn, all the rams are put in the shorn-
ram paddock, from which they are subsequently transferred to
their own appointed paddock further out on the run.
Next come the wethers. It may be a flock of ten thousand
or so, which are run into the receiving paddock, there to wait
their turn for the feeding of the shed. The wethers, like the
rams, are easily managed. They are good battlers too, and
when out on the run, can generally pick up feed for themselves.
They will also find their way into water, even though it means
traversing six, seven, and even eight miles of open scrub. From
a psychological point of view it is interesting to see how the
wethers have their preferences in the matter of friendship.
The wether won't take to every wether, but only to one. And
when the flock has been shorn and drafted out, the isolated
wether will fidget round until he finds his own mate again.
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I9IO.] Shearing Time 95
After the wethers are all shoroi it is the turn of the ewes,
and the hoggarts, and the lambs — the two latter sections being
first drawn off and drafted, so as to be shorn in separate
groups. The ewes are always a nuisance. They won't come
in without coaxing, and frequently a pet sheep must be used
as a decoy. It is the same out on the run. The ewes give
more work than the wethers and the rams put together. For
while these will pick up whatever feed there is, the ewes are
continually bothering about the welfare of the lambs. Or if
not, they are fretful at having no Iamb to fend for. Shearers
get for sheep two-pence half-penny a fleece; a good man
shearing as many as a hundred a day.
Owing to the spirit of light- hearted ness in the shearing
shed, as also to the keen competition among the men, the sheep
are always in danger of being knocked about. But here again,
the shearers' contract comes in, one clause of which provides
that if a shearer gashes one or more . sheep, be is subject to
dismissal, the manager reserving to himself the right of turning
him off, or of giving him another chance. This does not mean
that a certain amount or minor slashing may not pass, but* that
wilful carelessness is barred. As a matter of fact, the sheep
are continually being cut about, in testimony of which there are
constant cries of ** Tar i Tar i '* from various parts of the shed.
And at each summons the tar-boy rushes along with fear in
his heart, and the tar brush in bis hand, and having hastily
stanched the gaping wound, darts off to perform the same office
elsewhere. For the tar-boy learns to be nimble xp his move-
ments if he would escape being the object of the shearers' at-
tention.
So the hours speed in the shearing shed. Throughout the
working hours it is as busy as a bee-hive. Hands, tongues,
and limbs appear to be kept going continuously. There is a
low, incessant buzz of activity; for, in spite of the occasional
cracking of jokes, every man puts forth his best effort— each
hopes to come out on top before sundown, since:
'^The man that rung the Tubbo shed, is not the ringer here,
That stripling from the Cooma side can teach him how to
shear.
They trim away the ragged locks, and rip the cutter goes.
And leaves a track of snowy fleece from brisket to the nose ;
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96 Shearing Time [April.
It's lovely how they peel it off with never stop nor stay^
They're racing for the ringer's place this year at Castlereagh.
• •■••■ ■
The youngsters picking up the fleece enjoy the merry din.
They throw the classer up the fleece, he throws it to the
bin;
The pressers standing by the rack are waiting for the wool.
There's room for just a couple more, the press is nearly full;
Now jump upon the lever lads, and heave and heave away,
Another bale of golden fleece is branded ' Castlereagh/ "
The shearers' day begins soon after sunrise and continues
until the noon-day break — "Smoko" they call it.
Noon is the dinner hour, and there is nothing like shear-
ing for developing an appetite or encouraging a thirst Cold
tea is the accepted beverage, and in the shearing shed it is
absorbed by the gallon.
But now the dinner hour draws to a close; the shearers
have gone back to the shed, the roustabouts are in their ap-
pointed places — all are ready to start in when the signal is
given. From further out comes a confused blur of sounds— the
bleating of sheep, the yapping of the sheep dogs, the sharp,
short ** crack " of the sheep- whips ; and, rising above it all, the
voices of the mustering party, urging, coaxing, compelling, and
then — with a jerk and a rush and a soft patter of feet — the re-
luctant ewes are finally driven into the receiving paddock.
Whereupon :
"The bell is set aringing and the engine gives a toot.
There's five and thirty shearers here are shearing for the
loot.
So stir yourselves you penners-up and shove the sheep along,
The musterers are fetching them a hundred thousand strong.
And make your collie dogs speak up — what would the buy-
ers say
In London if the wool was late this year from Castlereagh ? "
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view £ooIi8*
One of the objections brought by
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN shrewd Protestants against con-
CHINA. tributing to the foreign missions
sustained by their churches is
that the missionaries overdo the business of advertising their
work. The prospectus is always voluminous and alluring, the
report of results generally brief and unsatisfactory. With us
Catholics the difficulty has been the other way about. It is
almost as if our missionaries forget their native language when
they learn the language of '' the natives.'' Of course it is not
forgetfulness, but an excess of modesty. At any* rate most of
us Catholics, until lately, knew little about the work that is
being done in the foreign mission field, except that this or that
order had a number of priests in China, or Ceylon, or Uganda,
and that there was a large number, or a sprinkling, of native
Catholics. It took the educational work of the Society for the
Propagation of the Faith to make the missionaries talk, and
us listen.
Father Wolfustan has discovered a way to combine the
demands of modesty and those of proper advertising. He has
composed, or compiled, a work of nearly 500 pages,* most of
which is made up of quotations from non-Catholic missionaries
and travelers on the work of the Catholic missionaries in China.
The extent of his researches may be judged from the biblio-
graphical appendix, in which he gives a list of about 300
books which he has consulted. Most of the titles may also be
found in the footnotes throughout the book, showing that he
has found some matter to his purpose in the majority of them.
He does not hesitate to cite criticisms and complaints, some
of which he answers, and others of which he admits as well-
based. But the whole trend of the testimony of these un-
prejudiced witnesses (unprejudiced, at least, in favor of Catho-
licism) goes to establish a magnificent tribute to the devotion
and efficiency of the Catholic missionaries in the Celestial
Kingdom.
Since the work is essentially a comparison of churches and
methods, it is not only a history of the Catholic Church in
* TJU Caiholu Chunk in China from i860 U 1907, By Bertram Wolfustan, S.J. St
LouU, Mo.: B. Herder. London and Edinburgh : Sands & Co.
VOL. XCI —7
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98 NEW BOOKS [April,
China in the last half century \ it is the story of the efforts of
all Christian denominations there. From this point of view,
the work becomes a strong argument for the need of Christian
unity. The havoc wrought by heresies is not so keenly per-
ceived at home, for we have grown dulled to it by use during
the past three centuries; but the extent of the evil shows it-
self when a dozen disunited churches present themselves before
a non-Christian people as being each the true Church of
Christ. Father Wolfustan touches frequently on this difficulty,
following in this the non- Catholic writers whom he is quoting.
Several chapters are devoted to the question; notably, **From
Confucius to Confusion " and ** Unum in Christo.'' The latter,
which is an account of an attempt of certain missionary bodies
to come to a common agreement, reads in places like ''The
Comedy of Convocation."
Other questions of general interest are also treated, such
as the difficulty of translating the Bible into foreign tongues,
the relative efficiency of married and of celibate missionaries,
and the relations of foreign powers with China. Throughout
the author has an eye for the interesting as well as for the
edifying, and has made his book the most readable work on
missions we have ever seen.
We venture to congratulate Father
THE PAPACY. Dolan upon the production of this
excellent book.* It may be de-
scribed as a refutation of the contention of some Anglicans
that '* Papal Claims,'' i. ^., Papal Primacy in matters of faith
and discipline, receive no support from the first great Synods
of the Church. In the first place, the Catholic position rela-
tive to General Councils is stated: namely, that the Bishop
of Rome alone possesses the right to summon, to preside
at, and to confirm the decrees of such Councils, and that
he may exercise these rights personally or through legates.
Then, basing his information on the great collections and his-
tories of Manzi, Hardouin, the Ballerini, Constant, Baluze, He-
fele, and others, the author studies the origins, circumstances,
and decrees not only of the First Six GEcumenical Councils
(Nicaea, 325; Constantinople, 381; Ephesus, 431; Chalcedon,
451; Constantinople, 553, 680), but also the Synod of Sardica
* Th€ Papacy and tJu First CouncUt of tki Church, By Rev. Thomas S. Dolan. St.
Louis: B. Herder.
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I9loJ NEW BOOKS 99
(343 01^ 344); the famous Latrocinium or Robber Synod of
Ephesus in 449 ; and some minor Synods held between
645-649.
In a most interesting and logical manner the author brings
forth from these Councils abundant proofs of the Catholic
position of Roman Supremacy in matters of faith and discip-
line. Nor are the difficulties ignored. The famous objections
against Roman Supremacy, derived from canon 3 of the Coun-
cil of Constantinople (381) and from canon 28 of the Council
of Chalcedon (451) are fully explained and successfully refuted.
The last chapter is an able summary of the entire thesis which
proves that ''the Papacy was not only a colossal fact, but a
controlling force, in its relations to those old assemblies of
the Church's shepherds.'' The author very cleverly touches
upon some of the less dignified scenes enacted in the Councils
(PP« 32-49 55-6, 87), and also points out the dangers that menaced
the Church from *'an attempted Erastianism, which found ex-
pression in the constant meddling of the Byzantine Emperors
in ecclesiastical affairs." The book contains a good index, but
its value would be increased by the addition of a bibliography.
There is no doubt that the present volume will be of great
service to students of theology: those studying De Romano Pon^
tifice will find the historical side of the dogma fully treated, while
the students of Christology will discover an interesting historical
background to the conciliar decrees. Such a study is becom-
ing a more and more necessary addition to the regular scho-
lastic course, as non- Catholics are always more interested in
the historical than in the philosophical side of theology. We
wish that the clergy of the United States were turning out
more of such volumes. They would take away our reproach
and would be fulfilling the wish expressed by Pope Pius X.
in his Encyclical on Modernism, that more attention should be
paid to the positive side of theology than has been done in
the past.
We take pleasure in calling the
CONFESSIONS OF ST. attention of our readers to a new
AUGUSTINE. edition of The Confessions of St.
Augustine.^ The translation of
the immortal classic presented here is that made by Dr. Pusey
* Tk€ CamfissUms of St, An^tuHmi, Edited by Temple Scott from the translation of Dr.
Posey. With a Preface by Alice MeynelL London : Chatto & Windus.
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in 1835. The preface is from the pen of Alice Meynell and
fittingly does she introduce the heart-appealing confessions of
the immortal Augustine : '' The great men of the race are they
who are cliiefljr capable of a great sincerity. Other men may
be entirely sincere, but the entire sincerity of great natures is
of larger importance; of them it may be said that they are
not relatively but absolutely and positively more sincere than
the rest. And in nothing else, obviously, is a great sincerity
so momentous as in religion. ... St. Augustine stood
alone with the end of his search, alone in the great sincerity,
one of the greatest sincerities in the history of the human
race/'
The volume is edited by Temple Scott and includes twelve
beautiful illustrations from the brush of Maxwell Armfield.
The letter-press, binding, the entire mechanical make-up are
of the highest order. The Scriptural quotations are all printed
in italic. May this great book of human experience be more
and more known and loved by the multitude as well as studied
by the learned.
Lovers of the holy wisdom of per-
THE SPIRITUAL CAHTICLE fection will thank Father Zimmer-
BY ST. JOHH OP THE mann, the English discalced Car-
CROSS. melite for his new edition of The
Spiritual Canticle of the SauU^
He has already given us a new edition of both The Ascent
ef Mount Carmel and The Dark Night of the Soul, in all cases
reproducing Mr. David Lewis* translation. This translator will
hardly be superceded. His fidelity to the original and his terse
clearness of style, together with the disciple's unction plainly
in evidence, make him the final English medium of St John
of the Cross. Such we believe to be the concurrent view of
English-speaking readers of the mystics. Yet Father Zimmer-
mann*s revision is of much, and in some aspects of essential,
value. For he is himself a Carmelite friar of the strict obser-
vance, and lives that daily life whose beatitude is shown in this
Spiritual Canticle. He has devoted his life to the diffusion of
this precious literature, his studies in it being honest in the
extreme. And although his style is not always smooth, it is
ever clear and emphatic
.« 4 spiritual^ CantUU ofiJu Sntl by St. John pf tJu Cross. Translated by Da?id Lewis.
RAv4Cir4 bV ptap^Gt Zimmennann, O.C.D. New York : Benziger Brothers.
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I9IO.] N£IF BOOKS lOI
St. John of the Cross wrote this, bis last literary effort,
while very near suffering a total collapse of all his aims in
aiding St. Teresa in her Reform. He was at the time in prison,
being shut up in ''a narrow, stifling cell, with no window,
bat only a small loophole through which a ray of light entered
for a short time of the day, just long enough to enable him to
say his office, and affording little facility for reading or writ-
ing."
He managed under such difficulties to put down a sketch of
these strange and charming verses, and the notes necessary for
the comments his mind was full of. After being set at liberty
he adjusted and perfected these and published them under the
title of A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul.
It is an abridged paraphrase of the scriptural Canticle of
Canticles, or the Song of Solomon. This divine song of the
celestial espousals has been grossly abused by heritics and
sensualists. False mysticism is often associated with impure
relationships between the sexes, and it has accordingly mis-
used the oriental imagery of the scriptural Canticle. Rightly
understood, the meaning is a spiritual doctrine of the most re-
fined chastity. St. John of the Cross interprets it with the
ease of a saint versed in the interior communications between
the soul and its divine Spouse. He brings to his task, be-
sides, the gifts of a natural poetical temperament. Therefore
this revision of Mr. Lewis* translation will aid in Scripture
study, as well as in the explorations of the higher paths of
prayer.
We thank Father Zimmermann for his labor and his taste,
and we trust that he will go through the entire range of the
saint's works in a similar spirit.
His editing of the Interior Castle of St. Teresa, as done into
English by the Stanbrook Benedictine nuns, entitles him to
our gratitude. And we await the same wise co-operation in
the new translation by the same competent hands of St. Teresa's
Way of Perfection. This is a manual of .ordinary states of
prayer, the only book of that mistress of earnest souls, wholly
adapted to the spiritual needs of the entire body of the faith-
ful. Canon Dalton's translation, in spite of its innumerable de-
fects, has done good work. But its shortcomings are ^always
annoying and often misleading.
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102 NEW BOOKS [April,
This is a collection of the shorter
LITTLE ESSAYS FOR papers of a nun • who is a veteran
FRIENDLY READERS, teacher among the Sisters of St.
Dominic at their well-known con-
vent in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. Judging by the tone of her
work, the years have not been able to rob her of cheeriness
and sprightliness of disposition. The Essays are on different
topics — religion, character-building, education, literature, remin-
iscences. They are written primarily, it can be seen, to suit
the needs and ideals of a convent school, and therefore will
receive their warmest welcome from .the '' friendly readers '' to
whom they are addressed. But they contain a message, or a
number of messages, to teachers and to women in general,
which are worth presenting to the larger public The remin-
iscences constitute the most interesting part of the book, and
are executed with the surest touch. We can assure Sister
Charles Borromeo that all of her readers, even her critics if
there be any, will be "friendly readers'' so far as she herself
is concerned.
The chief characteristic of these
THE OREAT PROBLEM, sermons f is their Spartan simplic-
ity. The author, a devoted and
well-loved priest of the Peoria diocese, purposely avoids rhe-
torical display. His aim— -one successsfully achieved — is to give
the people simple, wholesome, practical suggestions in a plain,
clear, direct fashion. The sermons, based as a rule, on the
Sunday gospels, have the additional excellence of brevity.
While some may think the style too severely simple, too re*
lentlessly unyielding to the popular craving for picturesque
phrases and well-rounded periods, there can be no doubt but
that, on the whole, it will be well for priests to aim always,
as this author does, at simplicity and clearness.
This book I has been written not
GREEK LANDS AND for scholars or for those who have
LETTERS. been fortunate enough to spend
much time in Greece, but for the
many travelers, whose time is limited to seeing only the most
♦ UUU Essays for Friendly Readers, Bj^Carola Milanis (Sister Charles Borromeo, O.S D.)
Dubuque. Iowa : Press of M. S. Hardie.
• t The Great PrpbUm. By Rev. J. J. Burke. St. Louis : B. Herder,
I Greek Lands and Letters. By F. G. and A. C. E. AUinson. Boston and New York :
Houghton Mifflin Company.
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I9IO.] N£IV BOOKS 103
attractive places in Hellas. For these the authors have, with
taste, selected the sites that would naturally appeal to the
imagination of tourists. That the task has been well accom-
plished is evident from even a cursory glance at the book.
One interesting feature is found in the pages devoted, in the
Introduction, to proving that the Hellenes were lovers of na*
ture. Extracts from many Greek authors are adduced to illus-
trate the Greek attitude toward nature. One-quarter of the
volume is devoted to Athens, whose beauties and historical
associations are quite fully dealt with. And the other chap-
ters are just as attractively written. This is a travel book and
tourist guide, as the authors modestly style it. But it is all
this and much more, for it would he hard to find a volume
intended for popular use, and still so replete with art and his-
tory and literature. The authors have introduced much knowl-
edge that will help the traveler; and, best of all, they have
wisely elected not to overburden their readers with ancient
lore.
Charles Joseph Eugene de Maze-
BISHOP DE MAZENOD. nod, Bishop of Marseilles and
Founder of the Oblates of Mary
Immaculate, passed from this life in the fragrance of holiness
about a half century ago. His spiritual children are numerous
and active as missionaries in all English-speaking countries (and
in many others) ; but, unlike most religious families, they have
not 1>een active in proclaiming the virtues of their holy founder.
Even in French, when Father Baffie wrote this work-in 1894,
there was but a scanty supply of literature bearing on his
work and personality. This is due, we are told, to the fact
that the humility of the man deterred his companions from
writing in his praise even after his death. It would have been a
misfortune, however, if this silence had been sustained, and we
may be thankful to Father Baffie and to his anonymous trans-
lator for making us acquainted with this model of priestly vir-
tue. Mgr. de Mazenod was one of the great bishops who have
been also founders of congregations, and as such he is a link
between episcopal government and the life and work of reli-
gious. But it is not only bishops and regulars who can gain
profit from this study of his life. The young layman, the semi-
narian, the mission priest, in fact, every aspiring Christian soul,
* Bishop d» MatiHod, His Inner Lift and Virtuis. By Rev. Eugene Baffie, O.M.I. With
portraits. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago : Benxiger Brothers.
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can gain help and inspiration from the study of this singularly
attractive type of spiritual character.
The author warns us that his work is not a biography.
He has adopted a method which Newman describes as chop-
ping up a holy man into virtues. The drawbacks of this method
are evident. But in spite of these, Father Baffie has succeeded
in presenting a very interesting and fairly clear portrait of his
subject. There is, of course, a great deal of skipping backwards
and forwards through his life to get materials to prove his
possession of various virtues, but with the help of a well-writ-
ten little chronological sketch of the Bishop's career, which the
translator has thoughtfully supplied, it is not hard to follow.
And in other respects the book is easy reading. We are spared
the usual prosy disquisitions on the virtues. Instead, we find
aaecdotes, quotations from letters and diaries, everything in
fact which goes to show the presence of the virtues in concrete
form.
Most University professors issue a
CLASSICAL MORALISTS, list of <' required readings*' which
must be studied as a supplement
to the lectures. The idea is an excellent one. Students are
generally only too willing to take their views of systems at
second-hand. There is a certain fear of looking into original
sources, a fear which comes from inexperience, and which is
often dissipated by a half-hour's careful reading. The great
thinker is in many cases simpler and clearer than his commen-
tators. ''The half-gods go, when the gods arrive."
The main drawback to the system is the expense. When
the whole class need certain books, the resources of even the
best library are overtaxed. To supply the need. Dr. Benjamin
Rand, of Harvard, has compiled several works which present
the more distinctive views of eminent thinkers. The present
volume* treats of ethics. A brief introduction gives a rapid
survey of the teachings of the different schools on the funda-
mental points. In general, the selections are well made. There
is, however, a paucity of citations from Catholic authors. The
Fathers are passed over, except St. Augustine (who, by the
way, can hardly be said to belong to the ''medieval" period).
* Th€ Classical Moralists. Selections illostrating Ethics from Socrates to Martineaiu
Compiled by Benjamin Rand, Ph.D. Boston, New York, and Chicago: .Honghton Mifflin
'^'nnpany.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 105
Of the Schoolmen we find only Abelard and Aquinas. The
only other Catholic quoted is Father Malebranche. The author
says that ''in the medieval period it is difficult to present
ethics apart from the great body of theological doctrines, ex-
cept by means of a collection of isolated passages/' That this
is true concerning the work of many of our Catholic moralists,
both in the earlier and later periods, may not be denied. But
we think that the main difficulty is that Dr. Rand is unfa-
miliar with the vast field of Catholic ethical thought. If he
had consulted a competent guide in this matter, such as Dr.
Fox or Father Wing, he could get references to Catholic
authors who treat fundamental ethics exactly after the manner
of the philosophers whom he cites. We might venture to sug*
gest: Suarez, de Lugo, Lessius, and the Salamancus amongst
the post-Tridentine writers; modern systematizers such as
Meyer, Bouquillon, and Cathrein; and others, as Taparelli,
Rosmini, and Gutberlet. It is a pity that such a well- con-
ceived work is lacking in its statement of the ethical princi*
pies of a school which must be conceded to be, at least nu-
merically, the strongest in Christendom.
This book, the work of a Belgian
THE EUCHARISTIC TRI- Jesuit, has been written as an aid
DUUH. to priests in carrying out the Holy
Father's decree concerning the
Ettcharistic Triduum.* It covers, however, the whole ground
of the legislation on frequent Communion which has been is-
sued during this pontificate. Part I. contains translations of
the Roman documents which embody this legislation, and also
directions and practical hints for a successful triduum. Part II.,
which comprises most of the book, is called ''Subjects for In-
struction/' These "subjects" are really sermons, or rather
sermon- sketches, which suggests ample matter for treatment.
The general trend of all of them is to insist on the advantage
of daily frequentation of the Eucharistic Banquet. Part III.
describes various means of keeping up the good work inau-
gurated by the triduum, by means of the Eucharistic League,
the Apostleship of Prayer, the month of the Sacred Heart,
♦ Tk€ EucharisHe Triduum, am Aid to Priists in Pnaehing Frequint and Daily Commune
icn. According to tk€ Dtcrttsof Hu Holimss, Pius X. Translated from the French of P. Jules
Untelo, S. J., by F. M. de Zulueta, SJ. London ; R. V. T. Washboume ; New York : Ben.
siger Brothers.
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daily Mass, preaching, prayers, etc. It also offers further con-
siderations concerning frequent Communion <or children, work-
ingmen, and inmates of educational establishments. The bibli-
ography of works on devotion to the Blessed Sacrament will
be found helpful by many priests.
The publishers have showered up-
THE ROMAN CAMPA6NA. on- Professor Lanciani's latest vol-
ume * a wealth of clear and attrac-
tive illustrations and exceptional elaborateness of make-up.
Yet the volume is well worth all this rich setting, for it is a
gift book for which a scholar might well be grateful. Whether
in reconstructing the social life of antiquity or in explaining
the rise and decay of cities like Ostia, in great and in small
things. Professor Lanciani seems equally the master. Con-
fessing that he has omitted matters of interest because of lack
of space, he promises — should the present volume prove ac-
ceptable to the reader — that the subject will be continued in
another. We trust that he may be called upon to fulfill his
promise, for into his work the singular fascination of the
Campagna itself finds place, with its variety of scenery, its
fragrant antiquity, its quiet contentment, its eloquent memor-
ials of prehistoric scenes.
One of the occupations of the
ST. MELANIA. learned leisure to which his Emi-
nence Cardinal Rampolla retired
at the close^ of his diplomatic career was the critical study and
publication of documentary evidence concerning the life of a
noble Roman lady and saint of the fifth century, Santa Mela-
nia. It was the Cardinal's hope that these documents might
be used by some devout writer in the preparation of a biogra-
phy of the saint, which should be at the same time edifying
and strictly historical. In the present volume f the Cardinal's
wish has been fulfilled, as he himself testified, and the Countess
da Persico has produced a work which gives the modern
Italian lady a notable lesson by its vivid picture of a Christian
heroine who lived and triumphed in a time and amid tempta-
tions not altogether different from their own.
* Wandirings in th§ Roman Campagna, By Rudolfo Lanciani. Boston and New York :
Houghton Mifflin Company.
iSania Afelania Giuniorg, Di Elena da Persico. Torino : Libreria Sacro Cuore.
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I9IO.] New Books 107
The same distingaished authoress has recently published a
lecture * delivered by her at Brescia during a sort of Social Con-
gress, in September, 1908. It outlines the duty of Catholic
women in the present age, and was occasioned by the fact that
at Rome the Women's Congress had voted the elimination of
the Christian catechism from the schools of Italy.
Most of us, who have devoted the
MTTHOLOOT. most fruitful years of our youth
to the study of Latin and Greek
classics, will admit that the heathen mythology was always a
vague and confused world to us. And even now, when read-
ing Milton or Keats or Matthew Arnold, we have to turn to n
work of reference to make sure just what some mythological
allusion means. Mr. Hutchinson's workf will make the path
easier for those who tread in our footsteps. He has thrown
into the form of a story (one might say a novel) the account
of the gods of antiquity. The central figure in his tale is
Orpheus, but his story is made a centre around which cluster
the tales of all the elder gods. We have the* stories of Cronos
and Zeus, of Prometheus and of Deucalion, of Apollo, Perse-
phore, Cadmus, Bacchus, and the whole adventure of Orpheus
in the under- world to regain his lost Eurydice. The narrative
is written with power and dignity. It is easy to read and easy
to remember. And if one feels that he is too far away from
all that sort of thing to want to go over it again, he might
make a present of the book to some lad in college who feels
despairingly that the land of the ancient gods must surely be
bounded on all sides by Lethe's stream.
Lives of saints who serve as models
ST. GERARD MAIELLA. for particular classes have always
been of very special value; and
religious communities in particular have found that there is no
better way of forming the spirit of true piety in novices than
by holding up for their example the life of some saint who
has achieved perfection in their own state of life. St. Gerard
* La Quistiom FimminiU in Italia t U Dovtre Delia Dwna Caitolica, Di Elena da Per-
lico, Siena: Topografia Pontifida S. Bernardino.
* OrplUus With His LuU, By W. M. L. Hutchinson. New York : Longmans/ Green ft
Co.
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Maiella* has been selected by Rev. VassalU Philips as a model
for lay brothers. The offices of tailor, gardener, cook, sacris-
tan, infirmarian — in fact, all the positions which a lay brother
may be called on to hold — have been filled in turn by St.
Gerard Maiella; and, as the author says, in his concluding ex-
hortation: ''As the lay brothers go about their daily duties,
they may remember that what they do now he did once.*'
The present little work is a concise presentation of the data
found in the more exhaustive treatise by Father Tannoia, en-
titled The First Companions of St. Alphonsus. The narrative is
designed to illustrate the salient lesson in St. Gerard's career —
that sanctity can be obtained by a proper performance of the
simple duties of the common life.
The historian of the future will not
POLITICAL HISTORY. lack for data in narrating the
events of the present, unless some
incendiary Caliph Omar shall have the will and the power to
doom the libraries of the nation to the flames. This is the
third volume of Hon. Mr. Alexander's Political History of the
State of New York,f and it contains 561 generous pages. The
period of history traversed runs from the outbreak of the Civi
War down to Grover Cleveland's election as Governor in 1882.
It is the story of events that are in the memory of many, and
that still sound like ancient history to the younger generation
in this swiftly moving republic. It brings up the names of
Seymour, Greeley, Boss Tweed, Roscoe Conkling, Tilden, John
Kelly, Arthur, Cornell, Cleveland. It is an interesting story,
well told and well documented, and generally fair.
This latest work on Lourdes,t by
LOURDES. Canon Rousseil, reviews the later
history of the apparitions and the
life of Bernadette, outlines the character of the apparition, de-
scribes the festivities of the golden jubilee, and speaks at
length of the men principally concerned with the history of
the shrine: Abb6 Peyramale, Mgr. Laurence, Henri Lasserre,
* Life of St. Gerard MaieUa, Lay Brotfurofthe Congreiation of the Most Holy Redeemer ,
By Rev. O. R. Vassall-PhiUips. C.SS.R. London: Washbourne; New York: Benziger
Brothers.
t A Political History of the State of New York. By Dc Alva Stanwood Alexander, A.M..
LL.D. Vol. III. (i86i-i88a). New York : Henry Holt & Co.
X The Glories o/Lourdes. By Canon Rousseil. New York: Benziger Brothers.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 109
Mgr. Schoepfer and Dr. Boissarie. A letter from Abb6 Ber-
trin and a preface by Dn Boissarie confirm the scientific ac-
curacy of the facts presented. The volume has been universal-
ly admitted by the Catholic press of France to be the last
word, whether historical, poetical, or mystical, on the events
of the famous grotto. The author shows an abiding love for
our Lady of Lourdes and his testimony is a valuable addition
to Catholic apologetical literature.
Mgr. Mignot includes in this apol-
THE CHURCH AND CRITI- ogetic work on The Church and
CISH. Criticism • the fruit of ten years'
interest in modern religious con-
troversy. These investigations are a sequel and a supplement
to the Letters an Ecclesiastical Studies. The first and longest
deals with Sabatier's Sketch of a Philosophy of Religion. Mgr.
Mignot is justly proud of having discerned Sabatier*s errors
ten years before they were condemned by the Encyclical
Pascendi, despite the fact that he was the bishop ''whom cer-
tain publicists have since wished to represent as too indulgent
towards these novelties." In this study he deals with the
psychological basis of religion, revelation and miracles, proph-
ecy, Christ, and dogmas, and therein he shows how the Mod-
ernists, ''without denying Christ and His work, lower it to
human proportions.*' "What M. Sabatier's book lacks is not
keenness of analysis, or depth of thought, or variety of sur-
veys . . . what it lacks is Christianity." Space forbids
quotation from the articles on " Church and Science " and " The
Bible and Religions. " It is sufficient to note their fairness of
view, depth of conviction, and vigor of style.
Evolution has furnished the ene-
COMPARATIVE RELIGION, mies of Christianity with plentiful
objections; and of this numerous
brood probably none are more vital to-day than those begot-
ten by the science of comparative religion. It has been urged
by rationalists that doctrines common to Christianity and
other religions must have a common origin, and cannot be
more divine in one than in another. '
* VRilist it la CrUiqui. Par Mgr. Mignot, Acher^que d'Albi. Paris : Libraire Victor
Leooffre.
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I lo New Books [April,
Dr. Tisdall,* after examining the foundation for alleged re-
semblances, endeavors to show: ''(i) that if these doctrines
are almost universally held, then they cannot be devoid of
significance and of truth ; (2) that, this being so, they must be
deemed part of the divine education of the human race; (3)
that in the ethnic religions they have been so perverted and
distorted as to be productive of terrible evils; (4) whereas in
the form in which they are taught in Christianity they pro-
duce good results'' (p. vi.).
The author himself holds firmly to the divine origin of
Christianity and accounts for common beliefs by a primitive
supernatural revelation, of which these are fragments. He
seems willing to make concessions destructive of all real spe-
cific difference between Christianity and other religions.
Apart from this fact, however, and that he is occasionally
unjust to the Catholic Church (this is one of a series of An-
glican Church Handbooks), Dr. Tisdall has successfully accom-
plished his task, in as far as that is possible within the limits
of so small a book.
The biographer of this Dutch
ANNA VAN SCHURMAN. woman of the seventeenth cen-
tury f confesses that the name of
Anna van Schurman was quite unknown to her until she ran
across it in reading the life of Queen Christina of Sweden. Few
persons in our day, it is safe to say, had ever seen the name until
it was presented to them in the title of this book. This oblivion
is all the more remarkable when we consider that Anna van
Schurman's portrait hangs in many European galleries, and that
during her life she achieved wide fame as artist, student of
Oriental languages, and advocate of woman's rights; and was
a friend of the most distinguished persons of the day, including
Descartes, Gassendi, Richelieu, and Queen Christina. Her ca-
reer should possess interest also for the student of religious
history, as she finally relinquished art and studies and friends
to devote herself to the cause of Jean de Lebadie, ez- Jesuit,
ex-Jansenist, ex-Calvinist, and finally founder of a sort of
Quaker community. Much of the book is devoted to the re-
ligious controversies between the Calvinists and Arminians at
* CowiparaHve Riiiiion. By W. St. Clair Tisdall, D.D. New York and London:
Longmans, Green & Co.
t Anna van ScMurman, Artist, Scholar, Samt. By Una Birch. With Portraits. New
York, Bombay, and Calcutta : Longmans, Green & Co.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 1 1 1
that timei and to the vicissitudes of the freakish sect which
Anna van Schurman joined. The character, motives, and teach*
ings of de Labadie were impeached not only by the Jesuits,
but by adherents of organized religions in all the countries in
which his strange career was passed. But Anna was faithful to
him, and her devoted biographer will suffer no wonl against
his memory.
The book is strangely uninteresting. And the difficulty
seems to lie with the subject rather than with the biographer.
The learned Anna impresses us as a pious, priggish old maid,
whose long-suppressed capacities for emotion were finally
brought out under the spell of a fanatical preacher.
''Nothing,*' says Mr. Chesterton,
HEAVENLY HERETICS. '* more strangely indicates an enor-
By L. P. Powell. mous and silent evil of modern
society than the extraordinary use
which is made nowadays of the word 'orthodox/ In former
days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. • . • All
the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him
admit that he was heretical. But a few modern phrases have
made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh: 'I
suppose I am very heretical,* and looks round for applause.''
No better indication of this dangerous tendency could be found
than the collocation made by a Protestant clergyman* of the
adjective " heavenly '' with a noun that has been considered as
an opprobrium in the whole history of the Christian Church.
Not that Rev. Mr. Powell himself is tremendously heretical
Of Methodist upbringing, he is now, it would seem, a Broad
Church Episcopalian. He considers the separation of the Metho-
dist denomination from the Anglican fold as "the greatest
catastrophe in the last three centuries of the Christian Church '' ;
and his line of thought might easily be pursued to the conclu-
sion that the separations wHich took place in the century pre-
ceding the last three were a still greater catastrophe.
The book* consists of five lectures on leaders of religious
thought, mainly in America. These are: Jonathan Edwards,
John Wesley, William EUery Channing, Horace Bushnell, and
Phillips Brooks. The treatment is in the platform manner, easy,
* Heavenly Hereiia, By Lyman P. Powell. New York and London: O. P. Putnam's
Sons.
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112 NEW BOOKS [Aprils
current, descriptive. There is no very deep analysis of the
theological questions involved. At times these questions are
skimmed over with the offhand assuredness of a man who has not
bothered his mind with deep study of the tomes of theological
controversy. Popular lecturers should not know too much.
The author, or rather compiler, of
THE LIFE OF CHRIST, this volume • warns us that she
has not attempted anything orig-
inal in thought, and that she lays little claim even to origin-
ality of arrangement It may be added that her work is not
a harmony of the Gospels, such as that by Dr. Bruneau, S.S.^
but rather a sort of diatessaron, a reconstruction of the life
of Christ from the words of all four Evangelists. Sometimes
whole sections, such as the genealogies, are omitted. The re-
sult of her labors is the production of a very simple and easy
narrative of our Lord's life. Questions might be raised here
and there about the chronological order, etc., but scholarship
can easily become meticulous in criticising a work intended
for edification. The book is well printed, and there are a
number of fine illustrations, reproductions of famous paintings
of scenes in the life of Christ. Bishop Morris, of Little Rock»
in a preface which he contributes, rightly looks upon these
illustrations as incentives to Catholic children to read the textt
and thus overcome a rather general defect in their religious
knowledge.
A Life of Christ for Children (no author given) has been
sent to us by Longmans, Green & Co. The children of to-day
need not want for a life of Christ suited to their understand-
ing, nor teachers for helps and directions that will mfike their
path easier. If the number of these works, the ability and
the zeal manifested in their production, be a sign of growing
interest on the part of children and of teachers, we surely
have a coming generation of vigorous Catholics. The present
work tells in simple, chaste language the Gospel story of our
Lord's life. The simplicity of its presentation and the smooth-
ness of its telling will win the reader's attention and interest
at once.
• A Life of Christ Told in Words oftkt GosptL ArraDged by Marj Lape Fogg. Boston :
The Angel Guardian Press.
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i9ia] New Books i 13
By giving us these plays in their
THREE MODERN COHBDIBS. present form, Professor Morrison
has conferred a favor on the stu-
dent of Spanish. They will be especially useful to those seek-
ing a colloquial knowledge of the language, with its wealth of
idiom and proverb. These are bright and breezy comedies,*
which after some expurgation by the editor, are unexception-
able in tone, and well adapted for reading and acting l>y the
advanced pupils in Spanish classes, and they offer to the gen-
eral reader a pleasant change from the rhetorical and stiltfd
style of so many contemporary Spanish authors. The humor
of these farcical comedies is sometimes exaggerated, but it is
never wearisome. The plays are accompanied by a good vo-
cabulary, which saves reference to a dictionary, and profuse
notes.
This is a readable story f of the
FLOREHCB NIGHTINGALE, life of this great heroine of the
By Laura E. Richards. battlefield. It is an account writ-
ten for the young; feminine in
its style and point of view, but none the worse for that.
One point in the career of Florence Nightingale makes pleas-
ant reading for Catholics. She was mainly indebted for her
chance to carry out her benevolent plans in the Crimea to
Lord Hubert of Lea, and no less to his wife. Lady Hubert
of Lea, afterwards a convert to the Faith and the writer of
many volumes, and still actively interested in every good work
for faith and humanity.
This novel I deals with the strug-
THE REDEMPTION OF gle between Kenneth Gait's ambi-
EENNETH GALT. tion and his duty to repair the
wrong he has done the woman he
loves. Duty finally prevails. The characters are clear-cut and
as human as one would wish to find them. Among the many
good scenes may be mentioned Gait's first meeting with bis
own child, whom he does not know, and the gradual growth
of affection of each for the other« until finally the father crushes
his ambition in favor of his love for his own offspring.
•Tru CmmnUas iimUrmu. Edited by F. W. Morrison, M.A.. U. S. Naral Academy.
New York : Henry Holt ft Co.
iPhrtnci Ni^MHn^igU: a Story for Yommg Peoplt. By Laura E. Richards. New York
and London : D. Appleton ft Co.
X Tko RodompHon of Kommth Gait. A Novel. By Will N. Harben. New York and
London: Harper and Brothers.
VOU XCI.* 8
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1 14 NEW BOOKS [April,
Like all well-written mystery
PASSERS-BT. stories Mr. Partridge's latest novel,
Passers^By^^ has the power to hold
the reader's attention to the end. It is a readable story, which
is more than one can say of the majority of gaily dressed
novels that issue day after day from the press. The plot is a
succession of startling incidents^ and Mr. Partridge has provided
lots of excitement for his readers.
^ Madame Cecilia continues to merit the gratitude of Catho-
lics for presenting to them many helpful translations. However,
the title of her latest translation. Practical Devotion to the
Sacnd Hearty is somewhat misleading. The book really deals
with the way of meditation according to the Ignatian method.
It is of real, practical value, and the author's name is the best
recommendation for the thorough and scholarly treatment of
the matter. The book is issued by Benziger Brothers, New
York.
Father Eaton, who has given us a book of beautiful medita-
tions on the Psalms, publishes, through B. Herder, Night
Thoughts for the Sick. Father Eaton is always sympathetic,
always encouraging and consoling. His words will lighten the
burden of many hearts and will do miich to ease the pain of
those who suffer, either mentally or physically. It is a very
small volume, but it is a precious one.
Songs from the Operas for Alto, edited by H, E. Krehbiel,
is published by Oliver Ditson Company, Boston, The selections,
twenty-nine in number, cover practically the whole period of
operatic composition from LuUy to Gounod and Verdi, The
songs are translated into English.
Piano Compositions, 2 vols., Beethoven, edited by d'Albert,
come from the same publishers. The contents of the two
volumes comprise the masterpieces of Beethoven's piano music
annotated and fingered by one of the foremost Beethoven
players. The sonatas include the famous ** Pathetique," ** Moon-
light," '' Waldstein," and '* Appassionata."
• Passers'By. By Anthony Partridge. Boston : little Brown & Co.
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i9ia] New Books 115
A very handy and most useful book for priests is the
Clericus Devotus^^ just published by B. Herder, of St. Louis.
The volume contains prayers for private devotion; selections
from the Roman ritual most commonly used, and short medi-
tations from the medieval writers on the matter of the ritual.
The book is so small that it will conveniently fit the vest
pocket Clerics will find it a blessed companion. The exhor-
tation of Pius X. to the clerics of the world is reprinted at
the end of the volume.
This Book of Easter is a companion to The Book of ChrisU
mas, both published by The Macmillan Company. The pres-
ent volume is divided into three parts: ''Before the Dawn'';
" Easter Day " ; and ** Easter Hymns." The preface is written
by the Episcopal Bishop of Albany. The book contains nu-
merous illustrations, most of which are reprints from famous
paintings ; and all of which, save one, are appropriate. It is a
pleasure to see that the preface emphatically states, against the
scoffing critics of the day, the real resurrection of our Lord.
The selections are, as 9, rule, made with excellent literary
taste; but if one were to seek from them the waters of truth
he would, at times, be confounded as to what is refreshing and
what is poisonous. He might ask '' What is truth ? " and per-
haps die of thirst, as he debated the various statements made
here as to what Christianity is. But, taking the book in a
less serious way, we may say that it has many pleasing and
edifying selections. Yet even from the purely literary point of
view we think it will be somewhat of a disappointment to
many to see selections omitted which surely should have
been included; and to notice that spring and not Easter has
at times determined the choice of the compiler.
Funk & Wagnalls, of New York, have published, under
the editorship of Henry Cabot Lodge, a series in ten small
volumes of Ike Best of tke World's Classics. Selections from
the works of two hundred and twenty authors are here pre-
sented in very handy form. Senator Lodge has endeavored to
cover the whole world of literature— ancient and modern, do-
mestic and foreign. The work is arranged by countries, and
As a rule good judgment is shown.
* CUricus Devotus. Ad Usum Saardotum ac CUric^rum, St. Louis : B. Herder.
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Ii6 NEW BOOKS [April,
With Christ in PaUstine * is a small volume of four ad-
dresses from the pen of A. T. Schofield, M.D. The book is
tastefully presented and includes attractive illustrations of
places in Palestine. But Dr. Schofield makes the Holy Land
a stage on which he preaches. His preaching we cannot
praise, but must with regret condemn ; for while laudable in its
aims it is most pernicious in its methods and its results, since
it makes religion a futile thing of the emotions and strips re-
vealed, objective truth of all value.
M. Albert Dufourcq, the author of
THE DAWK OP CHRIS- the present work,t is a professor
TIANITT. at the University of Bordeaux, and
one of the most distinguished of
French Catholic savants of our day in the field of early Church
history, patrology^ and archaeology. His previous works on
the Gista Martyrum, in six volumes, some of which were
''crowned" by the French Academy; his two volumes on
St. Irenaeus, one in the collection La Pensie Chritienne^ the
other in the collection Les Saints ; his Passionaire OccidentaU
au VIL SiicUt have already placed him in the front rank
among Catholic Church historians.
The volume before us is the fourth of the first part of a
large work, to be completed in eight volumes, having for gen*
eral title VAvinir du Christianisme. It is the third edition,
entirely rewritten and much enlarged, of a work which was
originally published some five years ago, and which immediately
attracted the attention of scholars and apologists. In the pre-
vious volumes in this series the author has given a compara-
tive history of the pagan religions and Judaism down to the
age of Alexander the Great, and also the history of the founda-
tion of the Church and its progress down to the third century.
The fourth and fifth volumes bring the history down to the
eleventh century.
The volume at hand, the fourth of the series, deals espe-
cially with the relations between Christianity and the Empire.
It is divided into three long chapters of about equal length.
^ WUh Christ inPalisHm. By A. T. Schofield. M.D. New York: R. F. Fenno Com-
pany.
^VAvenir du Christianisme, Par Albert Dufourcq. Premiere partie: Li Passg
Cht/tiiM. Vol. IV. ffistoiri de r^iUsi du III,e au XU SiicU. Paris : Ubtairie Bloud et
Cie.
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I9IO,] NEW BOOKS 1 1 7
In the first the author discusses the relations between the
Church and the Empire in the Mediterranean countries, tbe
cruel persecutions under Septimius Severus, Valerean, and
Deciusy the Church in North Africa, the ''Peace of tbe
Church *' in the fourth century under Constantine and bis
successors, and the development of the constitution and inner
life of the Church. The second chapter deals with tbe devel-
opment of Christian dogma, the various theological and ex-
egetical schools, and tbe great Christian writers of the period.
In the third chapter the author discusses the relations between
the Church and the Byzantine Empire, that dismal tale of
jealousies, intrigues, quarrels, and treaties* which finally ended
in open rupture and the sundering of Eastern and Western
Christianity.
What impresses every reader of Dr. Dufourcq*s work is the
astounding erudition displayed not merely in the body of the
work, but in the array of critical notes and bibliographical
references. His grasp of the data is masterful, and his criti-
cism unprejudiced and serene. There is a sanity and a sure-
ness about his historical inferences that gives confidence in
the justness of his conclusions. The conclusions themselves
are in harmony with the positions of Catholic orthodoxy.
M. Alfred Roussel is professor of
ORIENTAL RELIGIONS. Sanskrit in the Catholic University
of Fribourg, Switzerland. Dur-
ing the past two years he has lectured on the Vedic religion
at his own University, and also at the Catholic Institute in
Paris. These lectures are now given to the public in book
form. The work* is not one of research, but rather aims to
present the general results of study in this field for tbe bene-
fit of those who are unfamiliar with them. M. Roussel de-
pends largely on the work of Oldenberg, as indeed do most
writers on this and kindred topics. His main aim is to give a
clear exposition of the religion, though at times be pauses to
compare or contrast it with Christian beliefs. There is a de-
mand at present for works such as this on account of the rise
of the study of Comparative Religions, a science which gives
promise of holding the central place in theological studies
during the coming generation.
* RiligUm Oriintalis: La Riliiion Vidique, Par Alfred Roussel. Paris : Pierre T^uL
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Il8 NEW BOOKS [April.
In Honor of the Holy Eucharist, by Abb6 Carr6 {Pour
V EucharistU. Par TAbb^ A. Carr^. Paris : Gabriel Beaucbesne
et Cie.) is a small, unpretentious volume, but eloquent of deep,
simple piety. Here and there we recognize the touch of the
poet inspired by his wondrous theme. It suggests many
thoughts and reflections useful for meditations.
This History of St. Francis Borgia {Histoire do Saint Fran*
pois do Borgia. Par Pierre Suau, S J. Paris t Gabriel Beauchesne
et Cie.) is the result of researches extending over many years
through precious, unedited works. St. Francis Boi^ia, be-
cause of his very name and family, his intimacy with Charles
Fifth, his life as courtier and statesman, the tragic events in
which he participated, his unquestionable sanctity and zeal^
captivates attention. The rich resources at the command of
the author has enabled him to reconstruct this intensely in-
teresting life and paint it in most striking colors. The book
ranks among the best works of hagiology.
The Book of the Little Ones {Le Pain des Petits^ Explication
Dialoguie du Catichism. 2 volumes. Par TAbb^ E. Duplessy.
Paris : P. T^qui) is an illustrated development of the Catechism,
presented, as the title indicates, in the novel form of dialogue
and dedicated to the lady catechists of France. Written to
interest children in the serious truths of religion, it is worthy
of special recommendation to teachers, to whom it cannot fail
to suggest useful and attractive methods of instruction. Its
first volume treats of the Apostles* Creed, and the second of
the Commandments, and in both the comparisons, etymologies,
and anecdotes seem well calculated to dilute agreeably for
young minds the strong food of doctrine, thus fulfilling its
happy mission of breaking bread to little ones.
A small volume, entitled Some Features of the Moral Phy*
siognomy of Jesus, by Maurice Meschler, S.J. (Paris : G. Beau-
chesne et Cie.) treats of our Lord's ascetic teachings. His
pedagogy. His relations with men in general, and His preach-
ing from a didactic and oratorical point of view.
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jf oteidn Ipetiobicals.
The Tablet (12 Feb.): ''The Archbishop of Canterbury Ex-
plains " the position of the Established Church in the face
of the recent judicial decisions in regard to marriages
with a deceased wife's sisten^— *' A Catholic Congress.'*
Under the Presidency of the Archbishop of Westminster
a permanent committee has been formed to arrange for
a National Catholic Congress. According to present
indications it will be held, this year, in Leeds.— —''A
Programme for Spanish Catholics." Cardinal Aquirre's
programme of Catholic federation and action for the
Catholics of Spain.-^^From our Roman Correspondent:
It is rumored that Cardinal Gasparri will be nominated
to succeed the late Cardinal Satolli as Prefect of the
Congregation of Studies. It is probable that the Con-
sistory will be held in March and that a considerable
number of Cardinals will be created in it.
(19 Feb.): Editorial on "Mr. Asquith's Position" and
the classic precedent for dealing with the Lords by the
creation of new Peers.— "A Way Round to Monop-
oly" shows that M. Briand is losing no time in making
good his threats against private schools in France.——
''Was Old England Roman Catholic?" treats of the
correspondence between Mr. Denton Cheney and the
Anglican Bishop of Bristol.— '' Consecration of West-
minster Cathedral." Elaborate ceremonies arranged for
this function in June next.— -The Roman Corres-
pondent notes a permanent report of the work done by
the Holy Father in the Calabrian earthquake.— »-" Mys-
tery, Miracle, and Morality Plays." A lecture by Mr.
Bertram Puckle on those three types of dramatic repre-
sentations.-'' Catholics and a Reformed House of
Lords." A reprint from The Observer discussing the ad-
visability of allowing Churchmen of every creed to hold
seats in the House of Lords.
(36 Feb.): "Is there a Crisis?" Editorial on the Po-
litical questions of England. " Catholics and Admin-
istrative Pressure." The necessity of a continual struggle
for the protection of the Catholic schools.— —" In-
cense." An article by Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J., in
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I30 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [April,
reference to the dispute on the use of incense in the
worship of the Church of England. ^'The Salcsians
and their Superior." The Roman Correspondent gives
a report of the demonstration in memory of Giordano
Bruno and also an account of the lecture of Abbot Gas-
quet, on the '• Revision of the Bible/' ^The *' Catholic
Union of Great Britain " is an account of the first half-
yearly meeting of the Union and a statement of its
views in regard to the Catholic Congress to be held
later in the year.
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Feb.): "The Rights and Priv-
ileges of Inferior Prelates," by the Rev. Patrick Mor-
riscoe. The Editor continues his discussion of ** May-
nooth in the British Parliament." In recent times the
leading statesmen have adopted a different attitude
towards the college, as was shown by the opposition
which Maynooth interests encountered in the debates
on Mr. BirreU's "University Bill." Under "Parlia-
mentary Ecclesiastical Legislation," Sir Henry Belling-
ham, Bart., points out the extent to which present-day
Anglican church-builders have departed from the ordin-
ances of the Reformers concerning the architecture and
decoration of churches. '* The Philosophy of Energy,"
a reply to Dr. McDonald, by Rev. P. Coffey. In
" Nationality and Religion," R. Barry O'Brien shows
what a potent factor the " sentiment of nationality " was
in deciding the outcome of the English Reformation.
—«" Catholic Ideals in Education," an address delivered
before the Catholic students of the Queens University,
Belfast, by Rev. James P. Glenaghan.
Le Correspondant (lo Feb.): ''Neutrality in the School." i.
''The Text-Books," by Mgn Mignot, who claims that
"the books given to children of from 8 to I3 years of
age are catechisms of naturalism and agnosticism." "We
do not demand the suppression of the public schools,
. . . but what we do demand is that God be not
treated as a negligible quantity and th^t our dogmas be
respected." 2. E. Lecanuet ascribes "The Origin of
Neutrality in the School," to the acquisition of power
by the Republican Party in 1877. "The Memoirs
of General Bertrand," by Eugene de Bude.-^— "The
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I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 121
Associations and Societies of Country People in Paris/'
by Comte Darn, deals with the important charitable or-
ganizations among the million and a half provincials
in Paris. "Frederick Chopin and His Work," by
M. D. Calvocoressi.
(25 Feb.): Ren^ Vallery-Radot gives an account of the
youth of the Duke of Numale. In an article entitled
"A Plot Against F^nelon," Henri Bremond maintains
that one of the Bishop's greatest foes was the convent
of Port Royal.^— The various benefits granted by Lis
Association et Sociitis de Provinciaux h Patis^ by way
of insurance and sick and accident benefits, are described
by the Count Daru. ^Firmin Roz endeavors to follow
the progress of American literature, to determine its
exact relation with the national life, to point out its
sources, and the exact period to which the various
authors belong. An anonymous correspondent writes
on French Military Aeronautics.
£tudis (5 Feb.): Apropos of the recent Congress of Arcbae-
ology, Jules Faiore indicates the work that was done,
sums up the conclusions that were reached, and enu-
merates the benefits that resulted.-^^M. d'Aspremont
describes the Christian social movement in Switzerland,
and in particular the workings of the Volksvenin, which
is the centre of all social activity from a Catholic stand-
point " A Baptism at Lyons in 1654," by Theodore
Malley.
(20 Feb.): Raoul Plus describes how St. Francis de
Sales directed the beautiful but austere soul of Ang^-
: lique Arnauld.— Andrd Bremond contributes a number
of antique epigrams,^— Recently a few writers have
been attacking Loriquet, the Jesuit historian of France.
In this issue Pierre Bliard joins issue with them.— —The
Christian social organizatian of Switzerland is described
by M. d'Aspremont.
La Rivue du Monde (15 Feb.): In an appendix to bis ^'Con-
ferences" on the French clergy, M. Sicard deals with
the clergy of the second order. The French clergy,
he declares, are second to none in zeal, yet, as educa*
tors and instructors, there is a lack of knowledge re-
sulting from the absence of stimulus in clerical studies.
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121 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Afuil,
''Catholic Liberalism/' says R. P. At, was begotten
of the fusion of Catholicism and Liberalism. He defines
it as the art of being heretical, while at the same time
enjoying all the merit and glory of orthodoxy.
(22 Feb.) : '' A small Corner of Holland/' by Yves d'Au-
bi^res.-^— "Around the World," political and literary
essays, by Arthur Savaite.— — '^ The Feminist Move-
ment" in Court, by Juste Niemand.—— Acquitting
MM. Joran and Sava^te of all the minor charges, the
court warned them to " be careful, that in the book in-
criminated, there appear naught to justify the charge
of immorality.''
Revue du Clergi Frangais (i Feb.): H. Les^tre closes his dis-
cussion of the " Biblical Commission."-^S. CI. Fillion
continues his history of ''The Stages of Rationalism in
Its Attacks Against tl\e Gospels and the Life of Jesus
Christ," and treats of the "Eclectic" school, embracing
nearly all modern rationalistic biblical scfaolarf.— »-E.
Bourgine discusses the question: "Has the Catholic
Religion any Influence Regarding Suicide ? "-^ A.
Boudinhon writes of " The Recent Acts of the Holy
See/'— *J. Aicard sketches briefly the life and works
of Fran9ois Copp^e.
(15 Fek): A. Villien, continuing his history of "The
Discipline of the Sacraments," concludes his account of
the cerempnies of baptism. J. Riviere brings to a
close his essay on the theological principles of St.
Augustine " Concerning the Harmony of the Evangel-
ists." In the "Chronicle of the Theological Move-
ment in France" F. Dubois reviews the following: "A
Commentary on St. Thomas' Summa Theologica** hy R.
P. Thomas Pegu^s, OP.; "Duns Scotus and the Catholic
Law of Thought at the University of Paris/' by R. P.
Deodat-Marie de Basly; "The Adoptive Maternity of
the Most Holy Virgin," by Augustin Sargent. A.
Giraud begins a "Chronicle of the Greco- Slavic
Churches." He gives particular attention to the churches
of Constantinople and Russia.
Revue Pratique a^ Apohgitique (i Feb.): J. Guibert, in an arti-
cle entitled " Purity^Is It Useful ? " shows that impur-
ity is inimical alike to the physical, intellectual, and moral
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19 10.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 1^3
well-being of the individual himself and to society in
general.— **^ The Right of Parents and Some Historical
Objections/' by N. Prunel.
(15 Feb.): ''The Educative Value of the Religious Sen-
timent/' by Ph. Ponsard.— The war upon the religious
idea in education is declared to be unjust, not alone from
the moralist's standpoint, but also in view of the scien-
tific conclusions of leading psychologists.
Annates de Phihsophu Chritienne (Feb.) Continuation of ''The
'Social Week' of Bordeaux/' by Testis. H. Bremond
this month considers "The Duplicity of F^nelon." M.
Tronson had called F^nelon's letters to Bossuet and his
subsequent action by the suggestive phrase "sinc^rit^s
successives/' and M. Bremond endeavors to answer this
and other charges of duplicity. M. Cav6ne, author of
The Cilebrated Miracle of Su Januarius at Naples, objects
to the spirit of raillery in which M. J. B. reviewed the
book in a previous issue.
La Revue des Sciences Ecclesiastiques et La Science Catholique
(Feb.): "The Divine Inspiration of the Book of Job/'
by Canon Chauvin. The writer endeavors to explain
some of the difficulties connected with the divine inspi-
ration of the said book, especially the passages of the
three friends, and cites numerous quotations from au-
thoritative authors, pro and ^^i».^— "The Laws of Na-
ture," by Canon Gombault. "God, Evil, and Man,"
by Rev. le Guichasua, treats of the supreme goodness
of God in promising a Redeemer; of the evil of dis-
obedience and the punishment to follow.-^^"The Rela-
tions Between the Church and State," by Rev. J. B.
Verdier.——" Studies on Sacred Botany," by Rev. E.
NoflFray. " The Struggle for Existence," by Rev. Paul
Michel, describes the struggle for existence and how
Divine Providence has endowed all animals with certain
powers for defence.
Rivm Thomiste (Jan.-Feb.): R. P. Pcrret, writing on the
"Authority of the Church and Liberty of Exegesis,"
distinguishes between the historical and integral senses
of Holy Scripture. By historical is meant that sense
yielded by the natural and obvious meaning of the
terms; and by integral, the sense intended by God and
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1 34 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [April,
hidden under the form of the letter— —H. Egerton, an
Anglican, discusses ''The Religious and Philosophic
Movement of the High Church/' Its starting point was
Romanticism, which created a new religious conscious-
ness and placed religious thought on a new basis; its
work and development are, as yet, incomplete.—'' The
Mystery of Redemption,*' the second of a series of
papers, by R. P. Hugon, undertakes to prove that the
theory of vicarious satisfaction is supported by Scripture,
and proper to historical Christianity ; the modern theories
of French and German liberal theologians rest on un-
warranted presumptions. R. P. Mandonnet continues
his examination of the Authentic Writings of St Thomas.
Six works, classified in the older catalogues with the
writings of St. Thomas, but omitted from the official
catalogue, are shown to have a strong claim to authen*
ticity.
La Civilta Cattolica (March) '' Halley's Comet and Pope Calix-
tus III.,'' reviews a work by Father Stein, S.J., wherein
it is claimed that the bull of June 29, 1546, ordering
prayers for the success of the Crusade, is the only foun-
dation for the assertion that prayers were commanded
because an approaching comet signified disaster. There
is no mention of a comet in this bull. ''The Propa-
gation of Modernism in Italy," draws attention to the
various forms of modernistic literature which are being
widely disseminated throughout the cities of Italy, and
sounds a note of warning.— —" Father Joseph Marchi,
S.J." This article briefly sketches the life and works of
one who has been called the "Father of Christian
Archaeology."— —" The Expiatory Sacrifice According
to Theosophy," is continued. Under the direction of
the learned Father A. d'AIes, of the Catholic Institute
of Paris, the first edition of the Dictionnaire ApologiHque
da la Foi Catholique has been completed. This is very
similar in its scope to our American Catholic Encyclopedia.
La Scuola Cattolica (Feb.) : " The Holy House of Loretto."
A. Mont^ endeavors to disprove Chevalier's statement
"that the Blessed Virgin's house in Nazareth had been
destroyed before the period (1291) assigned to its first
translation."-^— G. Poletto asks and answers the ques-
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X9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 12$
tion '^ Why Dante is Cosmopolitan ? *'— — An historical
and critical study of *' The Moral System of St Alpfaon-
8U8 de Liqaori'' is given by S. Mondino. He treats of
the origin and derelopment of Probabilism before St
Alphonsas* time by way of introduction. C. Gaffuri
writes on the ''New Discoveries Concerning Primitive
Man." These discoveries are further proofs ''that the
most ancient inhabitants of western Europe were real
men and not representatives of a form intermediate be-
tween the animal and actual man." Father Gigot's
book, Outlines of Niw Testament History^ has been trans-
lated into Italian under the title Compendia di Stotia del
Nuovo Testamento. It is reviewed in this number.
EspaOa y Amirica (i Feb.): P« M. Est^banez concludes his
" Political Crisis in England," with further reflections on
the socialistic and revolutionary features of Lloyd-
George's budget— "Last Year's Biological Progress"
in the study of heredity and the protozoa, with a de-
scription of the Darwin and Lamarck celebrations, by
P. A. J. Barreiro. "A Chapter in Historical Criti-
cism," by P. P. Rodriguez, deals mainly with the Council
of Elvira A. D. 300 and its canons.^— M. de Sabuz
contributes a "Description of the Province and City of
Mompds," beginning! with its physical geography.
"Theological Modernism and Traditional Theology," by
P. S. Garcia, gives the Catholic doctrine and defence of
the Holy Eucharist "Expedition of Jimenez de
Quesada to El Dorado," in 1537, by P. M. Rodrfguez
H., is concluded.
(15 Feb.) : P. B. Martfnez, continuing his articles on
"Race-Suicide," attributes the low birth-rate in most
French provinces to godless education.^—" The Modern
Biblical Critic," by Anacleto Oreg6n, discusses the work-
ing principles of advanced scriptural students.— »-" The
Botanical Expedition of Mutes," to Granada, is described
by P. L. M. Unamuno. P. Aurelio Martinez con-
siders Balmes' statement, in his "Letters to a Skeptic,"
that one is not bound to believe anything definite re-
garding hell, except its eternity.
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(Current Events.
The ordeal to which France has been
France. subjected by the long-continoed
floods, due to the oft* repeated
rises of the Seine and its tributaries, as well to the overflow
of the rivers in other parts, has had the good effect of elicit-
ing sympathy and substantial help from all parts of the world,
and of showing that suffering is one of the touches of nature
which makes all the world kin. The measures of relief taken
by the government, with the co-operation of the banks, mani-
fest also the existence of a generous willingness to come to
the relief of the numerous sufferers, not too often shown by
those engaged in business. The Chamber of Deputies on the
demand of the government voted some millions of francs for
the relief of the most urgent necessities. The Minister of
Finance has prepared a credit scheme for the reconstruction
of damaged buildings and the reclamation of cultivated land.
This scheme proposes the grant of loans free of interest, re-
payable within five years, to storekeepers and tradesmen.
Small farmers and proprietors are to share in the benefits. The
Bank of France and other banks are being called upon to co-
operate in raising no less a sum than eighty millions of francs
free of interest, and the readiness with which they have re-
sponded in a profitless undertaking furnishes good evidence of
their desire to benefit the public. The sanitary measures taken
to avoid epidemics of disease have been so successful that
Paris is said to be more healthy than it was before the floods
took place. The services rendered by the troops in the relief
of suffering called forth a special order of thanks. A National
Commission has been appointed to inquire into the causes of
the floods, and to consider ways and means for the prevention
of similar disasters, and for the mitigation of their effects. At
the head of this Commission has been placed the eminent en-
gineert 1^« Alfred Picard, the former Minister of Marine.
Yet another project has been presented to the Chamber for
the reorganization of the Navy. Twenty-eight battleships are
to be built, with cruisers, destroyers, and other vessels to cor-
respond. Adequate supplies are to be provided and no cor-
ruption allowed. The work is to be completed by 1919. The
^lan is considered moderate in its scope and is, in fact, more
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moderate than its immediate predecessor. The necessity of
carrying it out is recognized if France is to continue to be
numbered among naval powers.
One of the two Bills announced by the government for
the readjustment of education has been introduced into the
Chamber. It deals with primary instruction in private schools.
It gives the power to State school inspectors to demand copies
of all text-books, reading-books, and prize-books used in pri*
vate schools; and to the Minister of Education the power to
prohibit their use. A headmaster of a private school must in
future have a State certificate of fitness, an
authorized to open such a school he must
statement of his career since the age of twe
he is not a member of a religious order, furni
of the subjects proposed to teach, his class oi
of his staff, and an account of their careers.
State control is made more stringent. Such
is understood in France.
Two recent events should make the French
tate before passing measures tending to weal
of religious influences. The decline of the b
come so serious that the customary quotas for
of the strength of the army are not being
present rate of decline continues for twenty y(
military forces of the country will be dimini
35, GOO. In consequence of this it is propos
black troops for the Frenchmen now serving in
of the Germans have given expression to th
tion to being confronted by black battalion
pressed their determination not to tolerate
The Reporter of the Budget Committee hast
any intention of bringing negroes for service
The frauds of M. Duez form the second il
result of suppressing the influence of religioo
to be wondered at that the State which has i
of wholesale robbery should in its turn be th<
lar misconduct. M. Duez was one of the prii
of the property of the suppressed religious <
long time has been suspected of dishonesty,
quiry by various devices, but in the end has
to confess to a long series of defalcations,
volved is at least two millions of dollars an(
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128 Current Events [April,
A Committee of Investigation has been formed, at the head of
which is M. Combes.
After several years of incubation the Old-Age Pensions Bill
has at last been passed by the Senate, and it may now with
some degree of confidence be expected to become law before
the General Election. It will affect some seventeen millions
of Frenchmen and women. All wage- earners, with the excep-
tion of railway servants, minors, and some of the seafaring
population, come under the Bill, as well as the more needy
small landowners, tenant-farmers, and farm laborers. Obliga-
tory contributions are required on the part of each beneficiary.
The State also contributes a portion, as well as the employer.
As a rule contributions must have been made for thirty years,
and the lowest age at which the pension begins is 65. The
amount of the annual pension will, under the most favorable
circumstances, be about eighty dollars a year. With the frugal
habits of the French this will not be a despicable sum. Quite
a novel principle has been adopted in the Chamber in raising
the money for paying these pensions. The funds raised by
the taxation of the rich as an inheritance tax is to be specially
devoted for the payment of the pensions of the poor.
The foreign relations of France remain unchanged. Ger-
many has given good proof of her fidelity in the observance
of the Morocco agreement; for Mulai Hafid has at last ac-
cepted the terms of settlement demanded by France, a thing
he would not have done could he have found support else-
where. A loan is to be issued for the payment of creditors,
and for compensation for injuries done to foreigners.
''Take ten men and shut the
Oermany* Reichstag,'' a Conservative mem-
ber of that body, Herr von Olden-
burg, declared to be the right if not the duty of the King of
Prussia and German Emperor. This utterance naturally ex-
cited a great commotion, the more so as it was received with
applause from the Conservative benches and as the speaker is
a highly respected member of the Conservative party, more
honest perhaps than the rest, as he is said to be in the habit
of blurting out things which others keep to themselves. How
many others are keeping to themselves the sentiment thus
openly expressed we are, from the nature of the case, unable
to say. That Herr von Oldenburg was not called to order for
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I9IO.] Current Events 129
this public slight in the Reichstag, or requested to withdraw
from the house by the presiding ofGcer, showed that the latter
was not altogether out of sympathy with the speaker. It is not
generally believed, however, that it is the intention of the
Enperor to carry out the speaker's wish. The spokesman of
the Catholic party expressed his party's strong condemnation.
The attitude of the Emperor towards the possession of
real power by the country as a whole is better seen in the
proposals for the reform of the Prussian Franchise laid befoie
the Diet by the Chancellor. As at present constituted the
house represents almost exclusivefy the propertied classes.
The suffrage is almost fantastic — a studied effort not to do
what it professes to do. Efforts have been made for many
years to effect a change, and some time ago a promise was
made by the government that it would bring in a bill for the
purpose. The bill has at last been brought in, and has proved
a great disappointment to the advocates of a real representa*
tion of the people. The plutocratic character of the existing
franchise is indeed somewhat modified, education, professional
experience, meritorious activity in public life have been recog-
nized to possess a claim to exert political influence, but the
worst features of the old way have been retained — the three-
class system and open voting. To go into further details the
space at our disposal does not permit, although it would be
interesting to see how loathe are those who vouchsafe to rule
the Germans to place their confidence in the Getman people.
The bill was introduced into the Diet by the Chancellor in
a speech which has been criticized almost as severely as the
Bill itself. Germany was declared to be a century behind
England in political education and culture. Prussia was the
leading state of Germany, and must remain strong. It would
become weak and a source of weakness if power were taken
out of the hands of the Conservatives and given to the people
at large. Austria is not generally considered to be the home
of democratic ideas, but the speech of Herr von Bethmann
HoUweg met with severe condemnation in the press of that
city. The views of the Chancellor were declared to be obso-
lete in point of time, fallacious as arguments, and infelicitous
if not dangerous as contributions to current political thought.
The place claimed by the Chancellor for Prussia in the Ger-
man Empire as the predominant and formative power is re-
VOL. xci.— 9
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I30 Current Events [April,
seated by the other States and is considered as an evidence of
a strong particularist tendency on the part of Prussian states*
men, and as the indication of the existence of an atmosphere in
influential Prussian quarters that bodes no good to the German
Empire. The bill has been referred to a Committee, which has
made several changes. In what form it will pass is uncertain.
Dissatisfaction has been expressed by meetings in various
parts of ^the kingdom, and at some of these meetings blood
has been shed. A *' franchise walk '' was arranged in Berlin,
meetings having been prohibited, in which a vast multitude
took part, and which was as well ordered as any military dis^
play could have been. According to the Kreuz Zeiiung it has
opened the eyes of all who love peace and order to the capa-
bilities of a strong army trained in revolution by its masters.
''The Socialist commanders have only to give a signal and
the masses form up under their company leaders, asking neither
whither they are to go nor why, but obeying silently.'' All
the elections which have taken place of late show an increase
of the Socialist vote.
The loans which are now raised annually have already been
issued and on somewhat more rigorous conditions. For the
Empire and for Prussia they amount to about one hundred and
twenty millions of dollars. The foreign relations, so far as can
be seen, remain unchanged. The visit of Count Aehrenthal
is looked upon as a solemn reaffirmation of the close friendship
of Germany and Austria- Hungry. Benevolent interest is felt,
so it is said, in the attempt now being made to bring about
good relations between the Dual Monarchy and Russia. A
good sign of the better spirit which now animates the German
foreign office is the disapproval felt by the Pan* Germans. The
managing Committee of [this League declares that serious
anxiety is felt by the greater part of the press, and by the
majority of the citizens of the Empire about its foreign policy.
German interests it is declared are being neglected.
The long- promised Constitution for
Austria-Hungary . the annexed provinces, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, has at length been
promulgated, but, as it is necessary that it should be ratified
by the Hungarian Parliament, and affairs in Hungary are still
in their wonted state of suspended animation, when it will come
into force is not clear. The Constitution seems somewhat com*
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I9IO.] Current Events 131
plicated on account of the variegated nationalities of the in-
habitants. The statutes, however, on the whole are conceived
in a liberal spirit. The main provisions of the Austrian Con*
stitution are to be extended to the annexed province with re-
gard to equality before the law, freedom of personal movement,
the protection of individual liberty, the independence of judges,
freedom of conscience, autonomy of recognized religious com-
munities, the right of free expression of opinion, the abolition
of preventive censorship, the freedom of scientific investigation,
secrecy of postal and telegraphic communications, and the rights
of association and public meeting. The Diet is to consist of
72 elected and 20 ex-cfficio members, 15 of the latter being
dignitaries of the Mussulman, Serb, Orthodox, and Catholic
Croat religious communities. The 72 elective seats are allotted
according to religious denomination, the Serbs receiving 31, the
Mussulmans 24, and the Catholic Croats 16. One seat is re-
served for a representative of the Jews. The seats are divided
into categories; and here complications set in. The fran-
chise is universal on certain conditions being fulfilled, and,
in the first category, women possess the franchise, but must
exercise it by male deputy. From the legislative competence
of the Diet all joint Austro- Hungarian affairs, and questions
appertaining to the armed forces and the Customs arrangements
are excluded. In all other matters the Diet has a free hand.
But, and this is a far-reaching restriction, government matters
submitted to the Diet 'require the previous sanction of the
Austrian and Hungarian Cabinets. The assent of the two Cab-
inets is also necessary before Bills passed by the Diet can re-
ceive the sanction of the Crown.
By the death of Dr. Lueger Austria has lost one of its
great men and a powerful instrument in the formation of
opinion and the management of politics. Next to the Emperor
he was the most popular man in Austria. Since 1897 he has
been Burgomaster, and was the founder, in 1882, of a party of
which the programme was in his words: ''War against inter-
national capitalism as organized by the Jews, to whom it gives
incomparable power over the people; and, in communal af-
fairs, the abolition of the cumulative offices which permit in-
dividuals to manage public business for their private advan-
tage.'' Under the name of the Christian Socialist party this
association wielded a great and a purifying influence in Vienna
and throughout the country.
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132 Current Events [Aprils
Attempts are being made in Hungary to inaugurate a new,
and it is to be hoped, a better era in political affairs. An in^
fluential appeal has been issued calling upon all who have the
Country's good at heart to unite together in order to restore
the harmony between the King and the nation which has
been lost under the Coalition rigime^ a policy of productive
work and practical aims are declared to be the immediate ne-
cessities of the country, which is therefore called ''The National
Party of Work/' Count Stephen Tisza, who retired some little
time ago from active political life, has come forward in sup-
port of the new movement and of the government of Count
Khuen Hedervary. It will be supported, too, by many mem-
bers of the party once lead by Count Julius Andrassy. Hence
there is a prospect of good results. Baron Ranch, the would-
be absolute Ban, who has caused so much trouble in Croatia,
has been^ superseded. Count Aehrentbal still retains office as
Foreign Minister, but his errors of calculation are being wide-
ly criticized. The negotiations with Russia seem to be near
completion.
On the surface Russia seems to
Russia. be getting into a state of stable
equilibrium. The extreme forces
on either side are, doubtless, working behind the scenes for
their own ends; but for the time being they make no sign of
disturbing the tranquillity of the public. For the first time for
twenty-two years the Budget shows no deficit, and for the very
first time all the estimates have been laid before the Duma for
general debate. The principle of parliamentary control of the
Empire's finance has received this degree of recognition: although
its power to pass measures into law is too frequently thwarted
by the Upper House or by the Council of State.
The visit of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who in Russia is
styled the Tsar of the Bulgars, might give rise to the suspi-
cion that the government was contemplating action in the Bal-
kans, on behalf of the Slavs, were it not for the negotiations
which for some time have been going on with Austria- Hun-
gary, with a view to the removing of the misunderstandings
which have arisen; and for the formulation of a common pol-
icy on the part of the two Empires. These negotiations seem
to be on the point of coming to a conclusion, and it is ex-
pected that, as we have said before, the maintenance of the
resent arrangements will be secured. Peace, nothing but
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I9IO.] Current Events 133
peace, is on the lips of all the potentates, statesmen, and politi-
cians of Europe ; what is in their hearts is not so well known.
The measures which they promote, the ever* increasing arma*
ments, make it hard to believe that the utterance of the lips
manifest the purposes of the heart.
A deputation of the French Parliament has also been pay-
ing a visit to Russia, in order especially to show its sympathy
with the Russian Parliament By the Tsar it was received
with the utmost cordiality. The address he made to the mem-
bers of the deputation produced a profound impression, and
is looked upon as a spontaneous recognition of the relation-
ship between the representative institutions of the two coun-
tries, and of his determination to support the parliamentary
figinu in his own country, in which it still has many enemies
and would-be destroyers. This conduct of his Majesty either
Springs from or accounts for the measure of popularity which
he now enjoys. For years past his every step had to be
guarded; now he is able to drive about for hours in St. Peters-
burg without an escort. Strange to say, the French visitors
were not welcomed by all the parties of the J?uma, the Ex-
treme Right and the Extreme Left were united in resolving
to take no part in the reception. But by the general sense
of the Russian public, the visit is looked upon as a new ra-
tification of the Franco-Russian alliance.
The Duma, like all the Parliaments of the continent of Eu-
rope, is made up of a multiplicity of parties, or rather groups.
To counteract this tendency, which conduces to weakness and
inefficiency, three of these groups, the Extreme Right, Moderate
Right, and Nationalist, have formed a coalition to be called
the Pan- Russian Union. It comprises more than a third of
the Duma, and will in all likelihood be able to control legisla-
tion. The object of this coalition is not quite plain, and what
will be its result is still less clear. It may supersede the
Octobrists as a ministerial party, the latter not having proved
themselves of late so reliable as the government wished. Fears
are expressed that it may be used to promote a return to the
old order.
The necessity of having recourse
Greece. to the military in order to effect
reforms in both Turkey and Greece
shows to how low a depth these two states bad fallen, the
former under the rule of an absolute despot, the latter under
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1 54 Current Events [April,
the almost uncontrolled power of the people. For Greece is
in the enjoyment of a Constitution, with a King who has
scrupulously acted according to its provisions ; and as there is
no Second Chamber to revise the decisions of the house elected
directly by the people, no restrictions have been placed upon
its will except those of the Constitution, itself the creation
of the people. And yet the result has been that in face of
the great opportunity offered by the recent crisis in Turkey,
Greece has found itself reduced to such impotence as to be
utterly unable to take advantage of it, and has had moreover,
to take with meekness the affronts offered to it by the Turk-
ish government
The annexation of Crete has been a matter of more or less
acute agitation ever since the independence of Greece was
effected. Its inhabitants are all Greeks, even the Mussulmans,
for these represent the Christians who abandoned the faith on
the conquest of the island. Under the present arrangements
Greece is practically independent of Turkey, the only sign of
the Sultan's sovereignty being one solitary flag hoisted at
Canea. It is under the protection of Great Britain, Russia,
France, and Italy; its highest ruler is a commissioner nom-
inated by the King of Greece; it has its own Assembly,
with the power of making laws. If independence would
satisfy, the Cretans ought to be satisfied; independence,
however, is not their supreme desire, but union with Greece.
This union they declared on the 8th of October, 1908, on the
occasion of the annexation of the provinces of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and of Bulgaria's declaration of independence,
and ever since the laws have been made and the country ad-
ministered in the name of the King of Greece. The Powers
protecting Crete refused, however, to recognize the annexation.
This they did out of sympathy with the Young Turks; but it
is generally believed that a promise was given both to the
King of Greece and to the Cretans that, in a short time, the
annexation would be recognized. In making this promise,
however, the Powers reckoned without the Young Turks. By
no means would they listen to any such recognition. It was
contrary to the whole spirit of their movement. Their aims
were the maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman domin-
ions. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic declare that it is
the aim of the new order to regain parts of the Empire which
*"^^e been lost — Egypt, Tunis, even Algeria. In view of the
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i9ia] Current Events 135
. resolute attitude taken by Turkey, its government, and its
people, and with the object of averting the war against Greece
which Turkey was anxious to declare, the Powers have not
only not fulfilled their promise of recognizing the annexation,
but have intimated to the Cretans that should they do as they
have threatened, and elect members to the Greek Assembly,
strong measures will be taken: that is to say, the reoccupa-
tion of the island.
Ft is not surprising, in view of these events, in view of the
successful declaration of independence made by their hated
rivals the Bulgarians, and especially in view of their own in*
ability to accept the proffered union with Crete, that the
Greeks should have asked themselves whether there was a
remedy for their impotence, how it had arisen, and how it
was to be cured. Politicians and party leaders could not find
any means of salvation. In fact, it was they that were the
cause of the disease. It is not said that they were grossly
corrupt in the way in which we are acquainted with corrup-
tion. But they are in the unfortunate position of being some-
what small men who look upon themselves as the heirs of a
great name. Alexander was a Greek, the Byzantine Empire
was Greek; modern Greeks must, therefore, emulate their
predecessors and recover the position and place in the world
held by them. This fantastic ideal has prevented them from
attaining decent efficiency in the sphere allotted to them and
rendered it necessary for them to submit to the insults of the
weakest power in Europe. The call to reform was serious and
has made the politicians for the past six months submit to the
dictation of the Military League. After passing no end of
laws, the climax was reached when the League demanded the
convocation of a National Assembly to revise the Constitution
and demanded that this should be done in a manner not
sanctioned by the existing Constitution. The King at first re-
sisted this, but afterwards, as the less of two evils, he has
acquiesced. As soon as the King's proclamation is issued call-
ing together the National Assembly the League has promised
to dissolve itself. The people have for some time been getting
restive. Military rule, although it was tolerable for a time
when things were very bad, has become unbearable. Dissen-
sions, too, were breaking out within its own ranks.
Although a National Assembly is to be called, hopes are
entertained, promises, indeed, have been made, that it will not
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136 Current events [April,
proceed to an entire reconstitation of established institutions.
A programme has been drawn up of the changes to be made.
The fundamental features of the Constitution, including the
privileges of the Crown, are to remain untouched, but a very
large number of changes are proposed in the composition and
rules of the Chamber, the mode of election of Deputies, and
other matters. Among those is the proposal to restore the
Council of State. This was voted by the last National As*
sembly, but, in its zeal for the uncontrolled rule of the people,
abolished by the Chamber. The need of it has now been
demonstrated. Military and naval officers are to be disquali-
fied. Soldiers on service are not to be allowed even to vote.
The security of their tenure of office by public officials is to
be made greater.
These are some of the proposals that are thought to be
necessary in order to restore to respectable efficiency one of
the most democratic of States. It is another instance of the
old lesson that no form of government of itself secures the
well-being of the state, and that even self-government may
not succeed. It is to be borne in mind, however, that ill-
success in such cases is not so pernicious as that of the loathe-
some absolutism to which Turkey has for so long been sub-
jected.
It is still uncertain whether the
Turkey. Ottoman Empire will emerge from
the degradation in which it has
been so long involved. Those who at first were very hopeful
are beginning to have their doubts. The measure of freedom
to which it has attained is due to the army, and although it
has completed its work it is unwilling to relinquish control.
The equality which was proclaimed of all the various races
over whom the Turk has dominated for so long has been vio-
lated by the Young Turks. Instead of being willing to live
on equal terms with these races, they have been endeavoring
to turn them all into Ottomans and to abolish some of the
privileges which they have enjoyed ever since they were con-
quered. One of those was the use by each race of its own
language. One of the first things the Young Turks tried to
do was to establish schools in which the learning of the Turk-
ish language should be obligatory. Moreover, what may be
called a crusade against the Bulgarians who dwell in Mace-
donia has been undertaken, and that illegally. Under the pre«-
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.I9IO.] Current events 137
text of acting against brigands, political meetings have been
suppressed, and not a few Bulgarians executed. Ttiese provo-
cations liave gone so far tliat the army of King Ferdinand has
been mobilized, and it is possible that war may break out at
any time. For the Bulgarians are eager to try conclusions with
Turkey, feeling as confident of success in a war with their
former oppressors as the latter do in a war with Greece. The
Bulgarians wish, too, that the war may come at once, for, as
the Germans have undertaken to reorganize the Turkish Army,
its efficiency will every day become greater. The Powers^
however, seem to be doing all they can for the preservation
•of peace. The visit which King Ferdinand has paid to the Tsar
made it clear to him that this was the wish of Russia. The
long-talked^of rapprochemint of the latter power with Austria
is said to be bised upon the maintenance of the status quo in
the Balkans, and on the renunciation, on the part of the two
Powers, of any ambitious desire for aggrandizement in that
region. It is said that the two Powers are ready to foster a
confederation of the Balkan States, at the head of which Tur-
key would be placed. But it is well to be cautious and not
to believe too much that comes from official sources. It is,
however, still permissible to hope for the best The title of
the present Saltan to his throne is constitutional. It is to
constitutional authority that he owes all that he has. If the
Young Turks can be brought in their turn to respect the same
authority and to fulfill their first promise of securing equality
and freedom for all Ottoman subjects — Mussulman, Catholic,
Jew, Greeks and Armenian, nay, even for the Kurds — the vast
expanse covered by the Ottoman Empire may even yet be
restored to civilization. Signs are not wanting that this course
will be resumed.
Like almost every other country, financial difficulties place
obstacles in the way of reform. Sometimes, it must be said^
these difficulties stand in the way of their doing all the evil
which otherwise they would attempt Turkey's difficulties of
this kind have not, indeed, been removed, but somewhat di-
minished. The success of the loan which it issued some time
ago was not great, but the deposed Sultan, Abdul Hamid, has
turned over to the state the greater part of what he had ex-
torted from his subjects during his reign. No less a sum than
fifteen millions of Turkish pounds has been handed over. Of this
sum five millions are to be devoted to the construction of a navy.
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138 Current events [April
The first year of constittitionid
Persia. government in Persia is far ad-
vanced and no very remarkable
improvement has taken place in the state of the country. Dis-
tnrbances more or less serious have been taking place in var-
ious parts, by which all commerce is prevented. The govern-
ment is powerless, because it has no money and is not able to
raise any by taxation. The deposed Shah had had no time to
form a hoard. In fact, his grandfather, by his extortions, had
not left his successors the opportunity.
The Persians, while poor, are also proud, and for a time
were strongly opposed to seeking foreign aid. But the neces-
sity grew so urgent, that negotiations for a loan had to be
opened with Russia and Great Britain. The two powers, how-
ever, would not consent except upon conditions which in-
volved a certain control over the internal affairs of Persia-
conditions which have proved unacceptable to leading members
of the Cabinet, who have in consequence resigned. In this
they are supported by a considerable party in the Mejliss.
But, as there is no other means of securing the wherewithal,
except by the sale of the Crown Jewels, it is thought that the
opposition to the loan will not be successful. Meanwhile Russian
troops still hold possession of several places, and although the
number of these troops has been diminished the complete
withdrawal does not seem to be contemplated in the immedi-
ate future. There is, in fact, a widespread distrust felt through-
out Persia of Russia's intentions, nor are there wanting friends
of Persia in Great Britain who share this distrust. This cour
tinned occupation is looked upon as the first step to ultimate
absorption. Better things, however, are thought, or at least
hoped, by the friends of the Russo* English entente. All that
Russia has in view, these hold, is the maintenance of tranquil-
lity on the northern border.
The Persian Parliament, which goes by the name of the
Mejliss, is displaying great activity in various ways. It set to
work at first ^o regulate its own procedure, and then devoted
itself in a me^ odical way to the discussion of the bills sub-
mitted to it byi<^e Cabinet, referring them to appropriate com-
mittees for mire particular examination. No subject escapes
its attention" and the Ministers are called upon to render an
account of everything that happens. Whether or no it will be
able to regenerate the country remains to be seen.
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[R. HAROI^D BOI^CB, we confess, is not a writer who inspires
us with unhesitating confidence. We do not recognize in him
that distaste for exaggeration and sensationalism, that desire for
unbiased and accurate statement of facts, that cultivation of mind
and fullness of academic knowledge which are requisite to qualify
him acceptably for his chosen rSle — the guide into the spirit and
teaching of our American universities. Notwithstanding his one-
sided and, at times, distorted presentation of his subjecty his articles
in the Cosmopolitan have given a considerable amount of very im-
portant truth to the American public. They leave no excuse to any
intelligent man who does not perceive in many of our universities
the intellectual foes of Christianity— of all that has been accepted,
since apostolic times, as the doctrines of Christianity. Parents who
send their children to these institutions now know, if they are at all
desirous of knowing, the grave dangers to be encountered there, and
must accept the responsibility of their action.
w
fHII^B the presence and the spread of unbelief, of scepticism,
and of unchristian principles of morality in our universities is
a very old story, and has come to be regarded by us as an evil to be
expected ; few of us have as yet accustomed ourselves to the thought
that young women should be subjected to the same pernicious in-
fluences. Mr. Bolce's recent articles * will bring that fact home as
a surprise and a shock to many readers. Yet the evil is patent and
conditions make it inevitable. No cloistered intellectual training
for American women is possible. Sweep back the ocean tide with a
broom, and then it will be possible to keep the scepticism and in-
fidelity oi the universities from reaching if not invading the minds of
women in our secular institutions of learning. Many of the western
universities are co-educational ; in them, accordingly, women receive
the same instruction as men, and learn much of the same spirit.
In nearly all women's colleges they read the same books, maga-
zines, and papers; in many cases the women are taught by the
^ C^smofolUoHt February and March, 29x0.
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I40 WITH OUR READERS [April,
same professors as the men students of a neighboring university.
The one leaven is working in all secular colleges, whether for
men or women ; the one culture pervades them all ; and it is not a
culture that makes for Christian faith.
THESE influences are as omnipresent in our state and city seats
of higher education as in our private colleges and univer-
sities. A grave problem lies here, which is certain in time to
become the [subject of very serious consideration and discussion.
Neutrality in religious matters may be possible in a curriculum oi
elementary branches ; when it is carried into higher studies, it al-
most means the establishment of agnosticism as the state system of
philosophy. But in many of these schools neutrality is not ob-
served ; the teaching of psychology, for instance, is but a veiled
materialism. The instructors themselves are in many instances
tainted with the false ideas oi the day, and cannot help communicat-
ing something of them to their pupils. We have known, to give an
extreme instance, of one instructor in a state normal school who
taught ithat the resistance of temptation tended to make a weak
character ! It is in the ideas expressed and in the assumptions so
freely made that the real danger lurks ; yet Catholics are often un-
suspicious of these real sources of danger, and supersensitive to
points of history which will do no real harm. We Catholics assured-
ly have the right to see to it that our children be not subjected, in
our state colleges and normal schools, to influences tending to the
destruction of their faith. Yet they are so subjected, and this is
specially true of Catholic girls in the normal schools.
THESE revelations of Mr. Bolce can be read by a Catholic only
with a consciousness of outraged feelings, if not with a sense of
surprise and shock. As priests are appointed by God for the preser-
vation and spread of religious truth and worship, so women have
come to be regarded, at least in Christendom, as ordained by nature to
instill into each new generation faith and reverence towards God, be-
lief in religion which they had learned oi old, and a love of Christian
morality. Woman is the priestess of the Christian home, man hav-
ing too generally abdicated that royal priesthood of the domestic altar
which the first pope proclaimed as his rightful dignity. An irreli-
gious woman seems to us not only bad but a perversion of nature.
With what feelings, then, shall we regard a system of education that
tends to give us, and is in great measure already giving us, a race of
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i9ia] With our readers 141
women whose Irreligion ra]is:es from doubt and mild scepticism to
atheism and the scorn of Christianity ?
THE Father of the American Episcopate, the Right Reverend
Charles Walmesley, 0. 8. B., is to be honored by a memorial in
the Abbey Church at Downside, near Bath, England. Bishop Wal*
mesley was the consecrator of the Most Rev. John Carroll, the first
Archbishop of Baltimore, from whom is descended the vigorous hier-
archy of America. The body of Bishop Walmesley has lately been
transferred from the old Catholic Chapel in Bristol to the Abbey
Church of Downside, and the occasion has been considered a most
suitable one for the erection of a monument to his life and work.
The energy and the ability of Bishop Walmesley, ** the Old Won • ' as
he was called in a day when men of stalwart hearts were needed,
attracted an amount of public attention unusual in the eighteenth
century. He was educated at the Benedictine college in Douay
(since transferred to Downside Abbey). His scientific attainments
brought him at an early age into prominent notice. A gifted as-
tronomer and mathematician, he was consulted by the British Gov-
ernment on the reform of the calendar and the introduction of the
•* New Style." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
I/Ondon ; and the kindred societies of Paris, Berlin, and Bologna.
During the Gordon riots he was threatened by the mob ; his house
and library were destroyed by fire. When the action of the '' Catho-
lic Committee," in 1789, threatened tocompromise the English Cath-
olics Bishop Walmesley vigorously condemned the new oath intended
for Catholics. In 1790 he consecrated the Rev. Dr. John Carroll
Bishop of Baltimore. The Pontificals used on that occasion t)y
Bishop Walmesley are still preserved at Downside.
During his late visit to England Cardinal Gibbons went to
Downside Abbey, that he might visit the resting place of Bishop
Walmesley, and it is in great measure owing to the Cardinal's en-
thusiastic approval that the work of the memorial has been under-
taken. It is a monument which merits the interest and the support
of all American Catholics.
w
TE have received a number of letters asking us for the facts con-
cerning a story sent broadcast by the Episcopal Bishop of
Kansas City, Missouri, to the effect that he had received into the
Episcopalian Church a Catholic priest and an "entire" congre-
gation.
The facts in the case are these : some few months ago a man^
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142 WITH OUR READERS [April,
giving the name of the Reverend John Marcello, presented himself
to Bishop Hogan, of Kansas City, and requested permission to es-
tablish a mission for Italian Catholics. The man had no credentials
to show that he was a Catholic priest in good standing. When
questioned about such credentials he pleaded that he did not have
money enough to journey to Washington and secure them from the
Apostolic Delegate. A short while afterwards some of the Catholic
priests of Kansas City contributed the money necessary for his jour-
ney. Whether the man ever went to Washington or not is uncer-
tain ; but within a short time he was collecting funds in Kansas City
for the purpose of establishing a mission for Italian Catholics.
Bishop Hogan then took active measures against him ; announced
in the daily press that the man acted without his authorization and
was not a recognized priest*of the diocese. A few days afterwards
the Episcopal bishop announced that the Rev. John Marcello, a
Catholic priest who desired to be ** free from Rome," had been re-
ceived with his entire congregation into the Episcopalian Church.
The entire ''congregation" consisted of about six Italians who
never were, in any true sense of the word, practical Catholics.
The Reverend John Marcello is continuing his work under the
patronage of the Episcopalian Church and has taken for the name
of " his mission" that of St. John the Baptist. A Catholic Church
of that name has long been established in Kansas City. The pur-
pose, of course, is to deceive the simple Italian. Such methods
speak for theoiiselves.
ANEW society under the name of ''The Children's Universal
Crusade of Prayer " has been founded in I^ndon. The object
of the Society is to encourage children to pray for the advance and
preservation of Christian education, and to interest them in Catholic
schools, orphanages, and homes for the destitute. The work has
received the blessing of the Holy Father. The foundress of the
Society is Countess Clotilde de Hamel de Manin.
THE Christian Advocate presents statistics of the churches in the
United States for the present date, that is, three years later than
those given in the Census of 1906. " In the order of denominations
the Catholic Church stands first with 12,354,596 members (all Cath-
olics except young children not admitted to their First Communion,
or 85 per cent of the population)."
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I9IO.] WITH OUR READERS 143
THE Department of State requests Ths Cathoi^ic Wori«d to give
warning concerning certain bands of swindlers who operate in
various towns and cities of Spain and who write plausible and de-
ceitful letters to persons in the United States asking them to aid a
relative — generally a daughter.
READERS of Thb Cathowc Wori,d will learn with regret of the
death of one who was a frequent contributor to our pages — Mr.
Wilfrid Wilberforce. Mr. Wilberforce died at Ungfield Road, Wim-
bledon, England, on January 14. He was the son of Mr. Henry
William Wilberforce, who became a Catholic in 1850, by his wife.
Miss Mary Sargent, of I^avington, England . These names will recall
to our readers the attractive papers, **Four Celebrities — Brothers
by Marriage," which Mr. Wilberforce contributed to Thb Cathowc
WoRi«D, November, December, 1908, January, March, 1909, and
which were enthusiastically welcomed in America and England.
The Catholic world of letters has lost in Mr. Wilberforce an able
writer. He was a most devout Catholic ; and it is said of him that
to know him was to become his Mend.
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G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York:
Porfirio DioM—PrtsitUni of Mexic9. By Jos^ F. Godoj. Price $3 net. Tkt Rist of tk4
Medieval Church from tht Apostolic Agt to the Papacy at Its Height in the Thirteenth
Century, By Alexander C. Flick, Ph:D.
Tbb Macmillan Company, New York :
The Booh of Easter, With an Introduction by the Rt. Rev. W. C. Doane. Drawings t>y
G. W. Edwards. Price $1.35.
Longmans, Gkebn ft Co.. New York:
Social Relationshifs in the Li^ht of Christianity, By W. E. Cbadwick. D.D. Psychology
of Politics and Nistory, By the Rev. J. A. Dewe, M.A. Price $1.75.
D. Appleton & Co., New York :
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. VII. Greg-Infal.
American Book Company, New York:
Stories of American Discoverers Jor Little Americans. By Rose Lucia. Price 40 cents.
Bbnzigek Brothers, New York :
B, Mary of the Angels, A biography. By Rer. George O'Neill, S.J. Price 75 cents net
Man Mirroring His Maher, The Priest of God's Church. Edited by F. C. P. Price
75 cents net. Captain Ted. By Mary T. Waggaman. Price 60 cents. A Red-Handed
Saint, By Olive Katharine Parr.
W. J. WfliTE & Co., New York :
Tess of the Storm Country, By G. M. White. 111.
The John McBride Company, New York :
The Question of the Hour, By Joseph P. Conway.
American Tract Society, New York :
The Mash of Christian Science. By F. E. Marsten. Price $z.
R. F. Fenno a Co.. New York :
In the Shadow of God. By G. A. Jamieson. Price $x.
The Dolphin Press, Philadelphia :
The Life of St. Clare. Translated and edited from the earliest MSS. by Father Paschal
Robinson, O.F.M.
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston :
Enjlish Literature in Account With Religion. By Edward Morthner Chapman. Price
$3 net.
Angel Guardian Press, Boston :
A Life of Christ, Told in Words oj the Gospel, By Mary Lape Fogg.
Small, Maynard & Co., Boston:
The Scar, A Novel of the New South. By Warrington Dawson. Price $1.50.
Oliver Ditson Company, Boston:
Gregorian Requiem Mass. According to the Vatican Edition. Mass in B Plat. Mass in A*
Catholic Truth Society, London, England:
The Catholic Social Year Booh for igio. Price 6d net.
The Mission Book Company, Ltd., Toronto, Canada:
History of the Catholu Church in Western Canada Prom Lahe Superior to the Pacific (i6s^
1S95). By Rev. A. G. Morice, O.M.I. In a vols. Price $3.
B. HeEdbr, St. Louis, Mo. :
Theology of the Sacraments. By V. Rev. P. Pourrat, V.G. The Purfose oJ the Papacy.
Bv Bishop Vaughan. D.D. Price 45 cents net. Joan and Her Friends. By Evelyn
Mary Buckenham. Price 56 cents net. The Fortunes of PhUomenm. By Evelyn Mary
Buckenham. Price 50 cents net. First Communion of Children and Its Conditions.
Pamphlet.
Gabriel Beaucbesne bt Cib., Paris:
La Resurrection de Jesus, Par TAbb^ E. Mangenot. Price 3/r. 50.
F. Lethielleux, Paris :
Jeanne. Par Marie Lacroix. Price ifr.
Lbtouzey et An£, Paris:
Ce Qu* on Enseigne aux Enfants dans nos Ecoles Publiques. Par J. Bricout. Price 3 fr, 50.
PiCARD et Fils, Paris:
Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus en Prance (is^S-iTda). Vol I.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. MAY, 1910. No. 542.
H. G, WELLS.
BY W. E. CAMPBELU
^E do not want to go back to the golden age, nor
even to those silver ages of medieval splendor,
of moral and material beauty in many respects
so much more excellent than our own. We do
not want to go back to them, because we can-
not. We want to go forward ; but we cannot go forward with-
out a vision and all the persistency of courage and endurance
which true vision alone can give. Our vision of the future
must be related to all the facts of the present and to all the
values of the past. And coming to the vision of a future
society we must remember a truth too often forgotten, the fact
that in the very act of looking forward we help to create the
future of our vision. We cannot separate the dream from the
deed. Whatsoever we desire with persevering sincerity, that
indeed we actually tend to become. Doing and dreaming were
intentionally joined together in the nature of man, and should
never be forced asunder. Fruitless dreams are useless, but so
are deeds without inspiration. When two or three are tr^th-
ered together in the unity of strenuous desire, they ai
on the way to have their desire realized, their dream fu
Now the desire for social reform is the. soul of social r
but it is not its body. All this huge and multitudinous }
of material product and attainment is the body of soc
form. We do not want to do away with it; we only w
Copyright. 1910. The Missionary Society op St. Paul the Apostli
IN the State of New York.
VOL. XCI.— 10
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146 H. G. Wells [May,
get a reasonable soul into it. It is not a bad thing in itself,
it is the product of immense human thought and effort, but
at present it is a very disorderly product We want it prop-
erly informed, controlled, distributed. Its disorder is most
evident in the havoc which it undoubtedly plays with our in-
dividual and social life in all its grades, more especially at the
apex of human society and at its base. At present it would
seem as if man was very much at the mercy of his material
environment, much more so in fact than in any previous time
of which we have historical record. Of course, from the very
beginning there has always been a necessary relation between
man and his environment — a never-ceasing friction and inter-
play, struggle and opposition, alliance and enmity, give and
take, to and fro. Each man for himself must be master or
servant, lord or slave, husband or handmaid, lock or key, and
must, indeed, be somewhat of each as simultaneously or con-
secutively he determines or is determined by his material en-
vironment.
In pre-Christian times man was tremendously aware of the
power of his environment. He was still much more aware of
his powerlessness to cope with it at all intelligently. It as-
sumed to his imagination a much more complex, personal, and
menacing form than it does now, and he assumed to it a much
more superstitious attitude than he does at present. There
were all the powers of nature figured out to his imagination
as gods celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, each one of them to
be distinctly and variously obeyed, worshiped, and propitiated.
For the individual man of that age environment must have
been rather too much of a good thing for intimate acquain-
tance. We should, therefore, expect him to behave as a child
not yet old enough to be trusted with intelligent responsi-
bilities.
Then came the Christian idea of God and the Christian
idea of man; and finally the greatest of all Christian ideas,
that the Very God was Very Man. Now, indeed, it gradu-
ally became clear as noonday that man was meant to use and
conquer his environment. If God were with him, who or what
could be against him with any chance of ultimate success ?
The man who could co-operate with the grace and might of
his Creator God could no longer fear his environment, could
no longer stoop to a fear* stricken and servile obedience to
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 147
any lesser power. He might, of course, fear God with a ser-
vile fear instead of loving Him with a filial love; but once
endowed with, and persevering in, a resolute Christian faith he
could no longer fear any other thing or force however menac-
ing, he could only loathe or hate it And so we get the joy-
ous courage of martyrdom so characteristic and peculiar to
Christian asceticism. In these times man did not think much
of his material environment. ''The work of the Middle Ages
was the formation of character," says Professor Gwatkin. ** At
the end of the Middle Ages we see not only new nations and
new institutions, but new types of character and new moral
ideals.*' This age had, of course, its marked limitations, but
they were limitations rather on the material than on the per-
sonal side.
And now we come to our own times. It seems hardly nec-
essary to point out how tremendously we have swung away
from what I may call a Christian interest in the individual to
that other pole of interest in our material environment. Now-
adays we do tremendously over- emphasize the importance of
our material environment — the predominance of that environ-
ment over the mere individual — and we do tremendously mini-
mize the importance of the individual himself. Bacon floated
the idea, and it has since become a religion, that man is the
creature of material forces, and that if he would survive and
prosper he must first and before all other things learn an in-
telligent faith in and obedience to them. In the name and
power of this wholly material religion man went forth to con-
quer nature by studious obedience, and he has reaped a great
material reward; but at what a tremendous price? He has
forgotten his Creator, he has lost remembrance of the image
in which he was created, the manner of man he was meant to
be, his end, his place, his true dignity and function, both in
the natural and in the supernatural order. In the passionate
search and study of his immediate material environment, of
the things that after all form the least personal and least abid-
ing part of his life, man has forgotten himself in a very true
and tragic sense.
If this be in any sense true, it will not surprise us to find
that Mr. H. G. Wells has named his very first sociological
study Anticipations — *' Anticipations of the reaction of mechan-
ical and scientific progress upon human life and thought.'
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148 H. G. WELLS [May,
Bat in the end I think we shall find that he considerably
changes his point of view and begins to ''anticipate*' the
inverse process — the reaction of human life and thought upon
mechanical and scientific progress. In this, then, I find bis real
worth and promise, that he is giving his generation a gentle
lead towards a more spiritual conception of life. I propose,
therefore, to try and get at Mr. Wells' points of view, to see
as far as possible what they are and how they change, to ap-
preciate them and criticise them, and to add to them such
complementary considerations as I am able.*
'' Is there, it may be asked, any central thread in following
which the unity of history most plainly appears? Is there any
process in tracing which we can feel that we are floating down
the main stream of the world's onward movement? If there
be such a process, its study ought to help us to realize the
unity of history by connecting the development of the numer**
ous branches of the human family."
'* One such process is the gradual and constant increase in
man's power over nature, whereby he is emancipated more and
more from the conditions she imposes upon his life, yet is
brought into an always closer touch with her by the discovery
of new methods of using her gifts. Two other such processes
may be briefly examined. One goes on in the sphere of time,
and consists in the accumulation from age to age of the
strength, the knowledge, the culture of mankind as a whole.
The other goes on in space as well as time, and may be de-
scribed as the Contraction of the Worlds relatively to Man**
(James Bryce. Introduction to History of the World, English
translation, p. xliii.)
" Contraction of the World, relatively to Man "—it is with
this aspect of progress that Mr. Wells, first of all, concerns
himself. Improvements in methods of communication have
worked great changes in the old order of things. Upon the
problems of locomotion and transport depend the most momen-
tous issues of peace and war. What, then, are the relations
between the social order and the available means of transit?
First, there is the redistribution of population — the growth of
great cities has been one of the essential phenomena of the
* Apart from his novels, romances, and short stories, Mr. Wells has devoted six impor«
tant books to sociological questions. When referring to any one of them I propose, for
greater convenience, to use the following abbreviations : (A) AnHcipations (1901) ; (M) Afam-'
Mind in the Makings (1903) ; (U) A Modem Utopia (1905) ; (Am.) Tht Future in America (1906).
Worlds for Old {li^Z) ; (F) First and Last 7 kings (1908).
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I9IO,] H. G. WELLS 149
nineteenth century. We may take it as a general law that the
distribution of population in a country must always depend
directly upon the facilities for transport. In a farming country,
for instance, where there are no railways, towns would never
be more than from eight to fifteen miles apart; the distance
between them would never exceed, in fact, the convenience of
the farmer — such as would ''allow him to get himself and his
produce there and back and to do his business in comfortable
daylight And so it happens entirely as a multiple of horse and
foot strides^ that all the villages and towns of the world's coun-
tryside have been plotted out^*
Another factor in town distribution in a world without rail-
ways would be the seaport and navigable river, and it was always
in connection with some port or navigable river that the greater
towns of pre-railway days arose. Bruges, Venice, Corinth, and
London are examples of this. These towns never rise to a
population of more than a quarter of a million, except in Cbina^
where with its gigantic rivers and numerous canals we have
several cities over a million. Are there then any limits to the
growth of these huge cities? ''So far as we can judge, with-
out a close and uncongenial scrutiny of statistics, that daily
journey that has governed, and still to a very considerable
extent governs, the growth of cities, has bad, and will probably
always have, a maximum of two hours, one hour each way from
sleeping place to council chamber, counter, workroom, or office
stool. And taking this assumption as sound, we can state pre-
cisely the maximum area of various types of town. A pedes-
trian agglomeration such as we find in China, and such as most
European towns probably were before the nineteenth century,
would be swept entirely by a radius of four miles about the
business quarter and industrial centre. . . .**
" If, now, horseflesh is brought into the problem, an outer
radius of six or eight miles from the centre will define a
area in which the carriage folk may live and still be n
of the city.'' Then suddenly came the railway and the
ship. For a time neither of these affected intra- urban
at all. They simply tended to increase the general vol
trade, and thereupon ensued a gigantic rush of populati
the magic radius of the city. This is proved by the fi
in 1801 the density of population in the city of Lond
half as dense again as that of any district, even of the
slum districts, to-day. And thus we get what George
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ISO H. G. WELLS [May,
has fitly named the '' Whirlpool/' '' the very figure of the nine-
teenth century great city, attractive, tumultuous, and spinnitg
down to death.'*
But all these centripetal tendencies are beginning to change
their direction and become centrifugal; and now in all great
cities we see a thrust outward in every direction. ** Great towns
before this century presented rounded contours and grew as a
puff-ball swells; the modern great city looks like something
that has burst an intolerable envelope and splashed/' We see,
therefore, that the old carriage radius of eight miles has now
been increased to a railway radius of thirty miles, which gives
** an area of over 2,800 square miles, which is almost a quarter
that of Belgium." Given then the increased rates of transit
which must necessarily increase with every improvement in the
methods of locomotion, we can easily foresee how the intolera-
ble problems of over-crowded cities may soon meet with a final
and happy solution.
Of course, there are many other malignant factors conspir-
ing together against the consummation so much desired, but
my purpose just now is not to deal with these, but rather to
illustrate Mr. Wells' way of approach to these social problems
— it is, of course, the sociologist's approach. Nationalize the
railways, facilitate and cheapen all means of communication,
and what do we reach at last? ''Practically, by a process of
confluence, the whole of Great Britain south of the Highlands
seems destined to become one great urban region, laced alto-
gether not only by railway and telegraph, but by novel roads
and by a dense network of telephones, parcels delivery tubes,
and the like nervous and arterial connections" {A., p. 61).
This '''Contraction of the World, relatively to Man " affects
us, too, not merely with regard to trade and business, but also
with regard to our administration. In an article published as
an appendix to Mankind in the Making Mr. Wells has very
clearly demonstrated this fact. The great and rapidly increas-
ing development of facilities for locomotion has had and is still
having a tremendously disorganizing effect upon our ancient
and static communities — they no longer serve the administrative
purposes of the State. A radius of four or five miles marked
the maximum size of the old community. A radius of a hun-
dred miles will scarcely mark the maximum of the new com-
munity. It is clear, therefore, that until we have faced the
problem of reconstituting, enlarging, and decentralizing our
Digitized by VjOOQIC
i9ia] H. G. Wells 151
present administrative areas, all our attempts at dealing with
social areas will end in failure.
The fact that stands most evident about most of our pres-
ent administrative machines, whether we look at the more cen-
tralized and national or at the more localized and provincial,
is that they do not work satisfactorily, and this chiefly because
we cannot induce the right kind of people to man them. The
best administrative talent both in America and in England is
de localtMed. ''It is not that these people do not belong to a
community, but that they belong to a larger community of a
new type which (at present) administrators have failed to dis-
cover, and which our working theory of local government ig-
nores. • • • The many people who once slept and worked
and reared their children and worshiped and bought all in
one area, have overflowed their containing locality, and they
live in one area, they work in another, and they go to shop
in a third. And the only way in which you can localize them
again is to expand your areas to their scale.'' These excellent
people become, as it were, '' Outlanders'*; they have no time,
interest, freedom, or inducement to follow local politics, and
yet they are the only people really fit for local administration.
The places which they should fill now fall to the share of the
'' small *' people of the district ; tradesmen, builders, a solicitor,
and a doctor, each one of them with very short and very self-
interested views on local necessities. Not only do these most
capable people escape all local administrative offices, but, hav-
ing no interest and feeling no responsibilities for the local wel-
fare, strongly oppose all developments which might lead to
increased taxation.
On what lines, then, are these new and enlarged administra-
tive areas to be constructed ? Take, for instance, '' the Thames
valley and its tributaries and draw a line along its boundary
watershed, and then include with that Sussex and Surrey, acd
the east counties up to the Wash, you would overtake and an-
ticipate the delocalizing process completely. You would have
what has become, or is becoming rapidly, very rapidly, a new
urban region, a complete community of the new type, rich and
poor and all sorts and aspects of economic life together. I
would suggest that watersheds make excellent boundaries. Let
me remind you that railways, tramways, drain-pipes, water-pipes,
and highroads have this in common^-they will not climb over
a watershed if they can possibly avoid doing so, and that pop-
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152 H. G. WELLS [May,
ulation and schools aad poor tend always to distribute them-
selves in accordance with these other things. You get the
minimum of possible overlap — such overlap as the spreading
out of the great midland city to meet London must some day
cause — in this way. I would suggest that for the regulation
of sanitation, educatioui communicationsi industrial control, and
poor-relief, and for the taxation for these purposes, this area
should be one, governed by one body, elected by local con-
stituencies that would make its activities independent of imperial
politics. For any purpose of a more local sort this body might
delegate its powers to subordinate committees, consisting of
the members of local constituencies, together with another mem-
ber or so to safeguard the general interests.*'
'* I submit that such a mammoth municipality as this will
be, on the one hand, an enormously more efficient substitute
for your present little local government bodies, and, on the
other hand, will be able to take over the detailed machinery
of your overworked and too extensive central machinery, your
local government board, education department, and board of
trade. It will be great enough and fine enough ' to revive the
dying sentiment of local patriotism, and it will be a body that
will appeal to the ambition of the most energetic and capable
men in the community'* (if., p. 417).
Such, then, is our author's conception of a new administra-
tive machinery most suitable to modem conditions of life.
But though this machinery may be as perfect as possible, yet
that in itself is not a sufficient guarantee that we should, after
,all, get the right men to work it. There is little to choose
between England and America in this respect. In England
capacity is discouraged because honors and power go by pre-
scription ; in America it is misdirected because honors do not
exist and power goes by popular election and advertisement.
Is there no Urtium quidt ''What else can you have but in-
heritance and election, or some blend of the two, blending
their faults? Each system has its disadvantages, and the dis-
advantages of each may be minimized by education; in parti-
cular by keeping the culture and code of honor high in the
former case and by keeping your common schools efficient in
the latter. . . . The theory of monarchy is, no doubt, in-
ferior to the democratic theory in stimulus, but the latter fails
in qualitative effect much more than the former — is there no
alternative to hereditary government tempered by election, or
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i9ia] H. G. Wells 153
government by the ward politician and the polling booth?"
The matter has two aspects and presents itself as two ques*
tions: (i) Administration; (2) Honor and Privilege. In the
matter of administration it requires that every one growing up in
the State should be free at once to realize his social responsi-
bilities and his social opportunities. He should be taught to dis-
cern the kind of man alone eligible for state offices, not the noisi-
esty not the richest, or the most skillfully advertised, but the best.
In the other matter of honor and privilege, honor should
be entirely separated from notoriety. Every citizen should be
brought to understand that there are things more honorable
than getting either votes or money ; it requires that throughout
the whole range of life there should be the freest opportunity
for every single individual to accomplish the best that is in
him — the qualitative best.
The days have come when the most democratic- minded of
men. will acknowledge that the current methods of popular
election have very marked limitations, no matter what standard
of education the electors may have reached. The fact that
elections can only be worked as a choice between two selected
candidates, or groups of candidates, is the mechanical defect
of all electoral methods. In spite of all this, Mr. Wells be-
lieves that the democratic election system is still, on the whole,
better than a system of hereditary privilege. But is polling
necessary to the democratic idea f He thinks not *' There is a
way of choosing your public servants of all sorts and eflfectual-
ly controlling public affairs on perfectly sound democratic
principles, without ever having such a thing as an election, as
it is now understood, at all, a way which will permit of a de-
liberate choice between numerous candidates — a thing utterly
impossible under the current system — which will certainly raise
the average quality of our legislators, and be infinitely saner,
juster, and more deliberate than our present method. And,
moreover, it is a way that is typically the invention of the
English people, and which they use to-day in another precise*
ly parallel application, an application which they have elabor-
ately tested and developed through a period of at least seven
or eight hundred years, and which I must confess myself
amazed to think has not already been applied to our public
needs. This way is the Jury system. The jury system was de-
vised to meet almost exactly the same problem that faces us
to-day, the problem of how on the one hand to avoid put-
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IS4 H. G. WELLS [May,
ting a man's life or property into the hands of a ruler, a
privileged person, whose interest might be unsympathetic or
hostile, while on the other hand protecting him from the tu-
multuous judgments of a crowd — to save the accused from the
arbitrary will of king and noble without flinging him to the
mob. To-day it is exactly the problem over again that our
peoples have to solve, except that instead of one individual af-
fair we have now our general a£fairs to place under a parallel
system. As the community that had originally been small
enough and intimate enough to decide on the guilt or inno-
cence of its members grew to difficult proportions, there de-
veloped this system of selecting by lot a number of its com-
mon citizens who were sworn, who were then specially in-
structed and prepared, and who, in an atmosphere of solemnity
and responsibility, in absolute contrast with the uproar of a
public polling, considered the case and condemned or discharged
the accused. Let me point out that this method is so univer-
sally recognized as superior to the common election method^
that any one man who should propose to-day to take the fate
of a man accused of murder out of the hands of a jury and
place it in the hands of any British or American constituency
as one of the British universities, would be thought to be
carrying crankiness beyond the border line of sanity.''
''The necessity of either raising the quality of representa-
tive bodies or of replacing them, not only in administration
but in legislation, by bureaucracies of officials appointed by
elected or hereditary rulers, is one that presses on all thought-
ful men. • • . The necessity becomes more urgent every
day, as scientific and economic developments raise first one
affair and then another to the level of public or quasi-public
functions. In the last century, locomotion, lighting, heating,
education, forced themselves upon public control or public
management, and now with the development of Trusts a whole
host of businesses, that were once the affair of competing pri-
vate concerns, claim the same attention. Government by hust-
ings' bawling, newspaper clamor, and ward organization is more
perilous every day and more impotent, and unless we are pre-
pared to see a government de Jacto of rich business organizers
override the government d4 jure^ or relapse upon a practical
oligarchy of officials, an oligarchy that will artainfy decline in
efficiency in a generation or so, we must set ourselves most ear-
nestly to this problem of improving representative methods."
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I9ia] H. G. WELLS IS5
There is, no doubt, something to be said for Mr. Wells'
jury system ; bat it is very much to be feared that its tendency
would be right away from democratic conceptions of govern-
ment. So far, the only system which appears to combine a
sound qualitative efficiency with a sound democratic basis is
that of proportional representation. That it would destroy
party government, as. we know it at present, is true, and so
we find old-fashioned politicians heartily opposed to it; but it
would seem to be a more feasible system than Mr. Wells'; and
in England, at any rate, the time is ripening for its trial.
Having dealt with the question of administration, Mr.
Wells goes on to that of honors and privileges. We learn from
historical experience that these things once had real meaning
and purpose, but awarded as they are to-day they lose their
use and significance. In the United States titles are forbid-
den, but secretly admired ; in England they are awarded, but go
by prescription. ^' There are certain points in this question
that are too often overlooked. In the first place, honors and
titles need not be hereditary; in the second, they need not be
conferred by the political administration ; in the third, they are
not only*— as the French Legion of Honor shows — entirely com-
patible with, but they are necessary to the Republican idea.^*
According to Mr. Wells, the lowest grade of honor would
include — as the English knighthood included — all really capable
citizens, ** every man or woman who was qualified to do some-
thing or who had done something, as distinguished from the
man who had done nothing in the world, the mere common,
unenterprising, esurient man/' From this class, of course, would
be taken all candidates for higher honors. But what we should
have especially to encourage would be the decentralization of
all fountains of honor. This would be encouraged, of course, by
the decentralization of administration. Every man of genius or
capability would find it altogether worth while to be honored in
his own county or urban district as a stepping- stone to national
or even international dignities. All hereditary honors would, of
course, be abolished. ''Local legislative bodies might confer
rank on a limited number of men and women yearly; juries
drawn from each great profession might assemble periodically
to honor their really representative members." There would
still, of course, be scales of social value; but, whereas now
these social values are almost wholly determined by prescrip-
tive dignities^ then^they would be determined almost entirely
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IS6 H. G. WELLS [May,
by community service. The Second Chamber would then really
represent that efficient, stable, and experienced element in
political life which it now so obviously fails to do. It would
be far less party bound and far less mercenary than the
American Senate, and far more intelligent and capable than
the British House of Lords.
Great, indeed, have been the changes wrought in the outer
groupings of human society by the advent of machinery and
mechanical production, but far more interesting have been the
changes wrought upon the very substance of society itself.
Before the eighteenth century property consisted chiefly of
land and buildings — '' real estate.'* In addition, were the things
which went with it — live-stock, serfs, the instruments of labor,
ships, weapons, and such money for the purposes of exchange
as could be got from the Jews. All such ''property** had
actually to be held and administered by the owner; he was
immediately in connection with it and immediately responsible
for it, he was obliged to be '' on the spot,** and though of course
he had stewards and managers, he was always present to over-
see and overlook ; — responsible in the proper sense of the wo^d.
There was no ovvaership without responsibility, no possession
without use — property was a personal thing.
But mechanical production, vast, complex, and technical,
brought with it the Joint Stock Company, opening up quite
new and easy channels for the use of money ; it created a new
kind of property and a new kind of property- holder. ''The
peculiar novelty of this kind of property is easily defined.
Given a sufficient sentiment of public honesty, share prop$fty
is property that can be owned at any distance and that yields
its revenue without thought or care on the part of its proprietor ;
it is^ indeed^ an absolutely irresponsible property ^ a thing that no
old world property ever was. But, in spite of its widely di£fer-
ent nature, the laws of inheritance, that the social necessities
of the old order of things established, have been applied to
this new species of possession without remark. It is inde-
structible, imperishable wealth, subject only to the mutations
of value that economic changes bring about** (^., p. 72).
It might help us to realize the social significance of all
this profit sharing if I gave in parallel columns the working
expenses and profits in the cases of ten well-known joint
stock companies, representing, of course, hundreds of others.
The yearly working expenses of each company I shall place
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS IS7
under the column headed workers. This includes the brain-
work of managersi foremen, etc., as well as that of the ordin-
ary employees. The column headed sleepers will give us the
yearly dividends appropriated by the shareholders.
Workers.
Sleepers.*
A.,
£\oo,ooo
;^ 1 92,000
B.,
. £lO,OQO
;^76,000
c,
;fi39,cxx)
;fi39,ooo
D.,
;fl,000,000
;f636,ooo
E.,
;C20,000
;f52,000
F.,
. ;^S0O.00O
;^5S6.0OO
G..
. ;^I ,000,000
;^2,684,ooo
H..
. A6,ooo
;^i47,ooo
I.,
;f70.000
;f70,000
J..
;fl,ISS.OOO
;f864,ooo
Akin to this kind of property holder is the ground land-
lord, in whose case also the having and holding of property
has no correlative side of responsible being and doing.
The men of this class, then, constitute the most difficult
factor in modern life, whether we consider it from the economic
or from the moral side. ''Previously in the world's history,
saving a few quite exceptional aspects, the possession and re-
tention of property was conditional upon activities of some
sort, honest or dishonest, work, force, or fraud. But the
shareholding ingredient of our new society, so far as its share-
holding goes, has no need of strength or wisdom. The share-
holder owns the world de jure^ by the common recognition of
the rights of property; and the incumbency of knowledge,
management, and toil fall entirely to others. He toils not,
neither does he spin; he is mechanically released from the
penalty of the fall, he reaps in a still sinful world all the
practical benefits of a millenium — without any of its moral
limitations'' {A., 74).
But though this class of shareholder is without much col-
lective intelligence or organization, it yet quite automatically
determines the quality and quantity of our national supply and
demand. In order the more clearly to show this I must make
a distinction between need and demand. Take, first of all, a
• See Riches andPovtrty, L, G. Chiozza Money, pp. 85-90.
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158 H. G. WELLS [May,
very simple case by way of lUastration. In a poor family
there is a great difference between need and demand. The
family needs bread and batter, but the father demands beer
and betting. The need is rational, the demand is brutal; but
for all that the demand is satisfied and the family is starved
Apply this to our national affairs. The shareholder, as dis-
tinguished from the working capitalist, demands all sorts of
things irrationally, selfishly, unintelligently, and in order to
satisfy his demand, the real life-needs of the nation must go
unsatisfied. It is mainly because of the shareholder that the
quality and quantity of our national production are so un-
suited to our national needs. I will give three instances to
enforce my contention.
(i) Cotton Goods. More than half a million are employed
in England in this great staple industry; and they produce
ninety million pounds' worth of cotton goods per annum.
Seventy • two million pounds' worth of cotton goods are sent
abroad; leaving for home consumption only eighteen million
pounds' worth. The lowest estimate at which we can put the
national need for cotton goods, supposing that such goods
were divided equally, is forty million pounds' worth. This
leaves the nation minus her necessary cotton goods to the
value of twenty^two million pounds. We can understand from
these facts that a linen pocket handkerchief is considered by
many English people an almost unnecessary mark of refine-
ment.
(2) Woolen Goods. The national need for woolen goods,
calculated at the minimum, is estimated at a hundred million
pounds per annum. Now the nation only produces sixty -five
million pounds' worth of woolen goods in a year. Of this
quantity twenty^three million pounds' worth are sent abroad,
leaving for home consumption forty ^ two million pounds' worth.
The need for woolen goods must, therefore, go unsatisfied to
the extent of fifty-eight million pounds' worth.
(3) Boots. Or, lastly, let us turn to boots. The Mayor of
Leicester complains that there is a great slump in boots, that
his city is becoming a sort of national sepulchre for surplus
boots. There is no demand for them, he says; and unless
something be done to stimulate this demand Leicester will
lose her staple trade and the factories be shut down. Yet I
am assured that the nation is needing boots to the extent of
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 159
fifty million pairs. Evidently the Leicester boots must be
shockingly misfitted to John Bull's dainty feet, or else there
must have been some great error in distribution.*
Demand, then, is not the same as need, and demand will
always be non- representative until it includes need. The fact
that it does not include need is mainly due to the share-
holding class — to the poor and superfluous quality of their
demands. The weakest point in our shareholding system is
" its failure to secure the application of our national capital^ as fast
as it is accumulated^ to the provision of our national needs in the
order oj their urgency.^* We need more schoolmasters ; and the
shareholder demands more jockeys. We need more recreation
grounds for children; and he demands more race courses and
motordromes. • • • We need more tailors, bakers, masons, car-
penters ; he demands more coachmen, footmen, chauffeurs, and
gamekeepers. In fine, what we most of all need is producers
and what he most of all demands is parasites.f Surely, as Mr.
Wells has somewhere said, '' Economic conditions are made
and compact of the human will."
This shareholding element seems, at present, to be a neces-
sary back* eddy in our civilization; and it will endure so long
as our present experimental state of society obtains. It is a
class, too, which, above all others, appropriates and exploits
all sorts and conditions of faculty, from the meanest to the
most effective, by the low and fruitless quality of its demands,
these demands being almost wholly unchecked by any ne-
cessity of labor, responsibility, custom, local usage, or attach-
ment. " Within the limits of the law (a member of this class)
may do as the imagination of his heart directs. Now such an
imperfect creature as man, a creature urged by such imperi-
ous passions, so weak in imagination, and controlled by so
weak a reason, receives such absolute freedom as this only at
infinite peril. To a great number of these people in the second
and third generation this freedom will mean vice, the subver-
sion of passion to inconsequent pleasures.'' Here, indeed, we
have an economic, an intellectual, a moral problem that must
be faced most steadily and completely — far more completely
than Mr. Wells has as yet attempted to do. I shall, there-
fore, deal with it in my next paper.
• See Pf ogress and Povtrty, L. G. Chiozza Money, pp. X3X-X33.
t After Bernard Shaw, Tlu A#w Agt, January 25, 1908.
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THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER
BY JEANIE DRAKE.
II.
E Sunday morning in July, as bis daughter came
down to him, dressed in some pretty, inex-
pensive summer stuff, rosy asters in the simple
hatt ** confectionned** by herself, so she said, and
her eyes and cheeks glowing in anticipation of a
f6te, the drum major exclaimed: ''You look beautiful, my
child."
"You and I are one, and to praise oneself is vanity,"
answered Madeleine with a joyous laugh. Then she retied his
cravat, put a flower in his button-hole, and brushed some im-
perceptible dust from his coat, winding up the entire perform-
ance with a kiss.
The day's contemplated pleasure was of Olmsted's arrange-
ment. He had called a few times lately with Arnold, and he
had sometimes read a book at her request ''for the sake of
her English," and sometimes Arnold had sung. It was during
the last visit that Olmsted had found occasion to mention
casually to Monsieur Deluce that a friend of his, owning a
country place on the river, was now abroad, and that he had
been invited to go there at any time ; and " perhaps Monsieur
and Mademoiselle would enjoy a day among the rose-gardens."
Arnold wished that he had originated this excursion, seeing
how Madeleine's eyes danced at the idea.
A week ago this talk had been held, and the night before
Arnold had said to Olmsted abruptly, and in this very room,
thinking they were out of Madeleine's hearing : " I may as
well tell you that I intend to ask Mademoiselle Deluce to be
my wife. You need not look like that, I have fully made up
my mind. You are displaying " — suspiciously — "a more than
common share of worldly wisdom. Perhaps" — slowly — "you,
yourself — "
" Stop I " cried the other with sudden fire ; then more gently :
I beg your pardon, but you should not think things unfriendly
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I9IO.] THE Drum Major* s Daughter i6i
of me. To my mind a mesalliance is almost always a mistake ;
bat if yott, in spite of a hundred objections, have fully decided
then— I wish you good luck 1 ''
Arnold felt as though he were already a fortunate lover,
springing up the steps this Sunday morning and meeting
Madeleine's bright smile. Olmsted came in more leisurely, and
in time to hear his friend's compliment met with laughing re-
proof.
Fifteen minutes then and they were being driven through
the city and suburbs and whirled along the smooth boulevard,
and Olmsted was already repaid for his slight trouble, by
seeing his guests' enjoyment of the unwonted pleasure of easy,
swift motion through the fresh morning air. In a short while
they were entering the broad avenue leading to his friend's
house.
''You will like to go in and rest now," he suggested, get-
ting out and helping the others.
'' No, no " ; said Madeleine eagerly. '' May we not go first
into the gardens?"
''Just where you like, but do not expect to find rare or
choice blossoms. My friend has a fancy for old-fashioned
things. Notice these tall, closely- dipt box and yew hedges;
see the flowers in the garden-patches — sun-flowers, hollyhocks,
cocks' combs, mignonettes, wall- flowers, and those enormous,
old-time roses."
"But they are beautiful and so fragrant," she said, smell-
ing daintily at a huge one Arnold gave her. "The hedges
look like that picture, 'The Labyrinth,' where the two lovers
are in despair, for they are on opposite sides of the tall hedge
and cannot reach each other. It is all like a picture," she
rejoiced, " like something out of the Spectator that you read
to me. / will play Sacharissa or Dorinda " — letting her light
gown trail and pacing with pretended stateliness between the
green rows-— "and Papa is Ser Rojaire — art thou not Ser Ro-
jaire ? " taking his arm and keeping step.
"I am whatever you like," said the old man indulgently,
looking down^t the charming head which just touched his
shoulder. It seemed that this day under the blue sky was
making him forget for a while the very existence of Germany.
" How many grand old trees," she went on, " and look at
that queer, crooked, gnarled one, and is not that a swing?"
VOL. XCI.— II
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1 62 THE DRUM Major's daughter [May,
And she harried joyously on, utterly forgetting Dorinda's
dignity. Tlie swing was in a grove of tall trees, some of
which seemed to whisper to each other as the breeze from the
river swayed their tops to and fro ; while others bent low over
their shadows in a near-by pond. A sort of chair was sus-
pended securely between two of the largest.
Madeleine girlishly seated herself and Arnold, leaning against
a trunk, sent her backward and forward through the air.
'' He looks bonny enough,'' thought Olmsted, '' among the
boughs there, to carry o£f the Princess — though she is dis-
guised as a beggar-maid. Well, if it must be, let his mother
rave— there is reason enough why I should not interfere — and
she might be glad to have her son do so well."
After a while the swing grew wearisome. *' Shall we not
go in now for some refreshment?'' asked Olmsted.
" What a pity to go in ! "
''Then we will manage better," he said. And presently,
under his directions, two servants brought out a low table and
some rustic chairs, and the luncheon was ready. With easy,
bright talk, and a thousand allusions to music, art, and litera-
ture, it went merrily; and Arnold wondered when he could
hear such talk among his mother's set, so few of them other
than narrowly self-contented and artificial. After a while be
proposed that he should take Madeleine across the pond to
gather some water-lilies.
She consented gaily, and they rowed away in the small
skiff tied at the foot of the steps.
Monsieur Deluce and Olmsted, having lighted their cigars,
strolled up and down the walks. The old drum major was in
a softened mood this sunny afternoon, and instead of fighting
his battles o'er he talked rather of his early childhood near
Nancy; of the dear old grandmother, with her spare, erect
figure and flying knitting-needles, and of the little brothers
and cousins that played with him and all their simple farm
life, and kindly, honest ways. "And all are dead and gone,"
he mused ; " the ends of the good God are His own. Only
Madeleine and I left — and she so young and I so oldl " After
some time Olmsted went back to the grove for the cigar-case
which he had left there on the grass. Madeleine was seated
in the swing again, and she was alone. " What have you done
with Van Twiller, Mademoiselle?" he asked.
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19 lO.] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER 1 63
She did not answer this, but said with a little effort: ''It
seems that the air has grown suddenly very heavy and op-
pressive."
''It has become snltry. I see some very dark clouds, and
there is thunder muttering. We are somewhat far from the
house in case of a quick downpour, but there is a shelter.
Let me show you a grotto, where it is deliciously cool/' She
rose slowly, dropping some water-lilies to the ground and
leaving them there.
" Your father," said he, making talk against her lack of re-
sponsiveness, "looks wonderfully well and bright to-day. He
is remarkably strong for his years."
"Yes;" she assented. Then, forgetting her usual reserve
with him: "Ah, Monsieur, he is not always strong. He
breaks down often, and then he grieves ; but I — I grieve even
more. His work is heavy; to march miles sometimes and
move the great baton for hours, that is not play. He is to
march on Tuesday, the Fourth, and I wish it was over. He
is not deaf, happily, but sometimes he becomes confused with
the crowds and the shouting ; and, then, something might hap-
pen. I fear for him every day — the carriages and the autos— -
if he should grow dizzy. Hy heart is lighter when I stand in
our doorway and see him coming."
" I can imagine," said Olmsted gently, looking down at the
young, wistful face. "But you have faith in the good God,
Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, yes" ; she answered, raising large eyes, full of reverence.
They reached the grotto, which was merely a large hole
blasted out of an immense rock, bounding one end of the
garden, with space for three or four persons perhaps; and
with a rough sort of bench, likewise hewn out of the rock.
A sudden, loud clap of thunder startled them.
" I hope," said Olmsted, " that you are not afraid of a
thunder-storm; it was imprudent to bring you so far from the
house, but I did not imagine that the storm-cloud was so
near. We must stay here now, for you would be drenched
in attempting to return."
Thunder peals sounded louder and nearer, a great rush of
wind came roaring and tearing through the garden, bending
the tops of the stout old trees, and filling the air with dust
and leaves. "There comes the rain now," he said, drawing
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l64 THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER [May,
in his head. The first pattering of big drops falling grew into
a downpour faster and faster, until it became a perfect deluge.
Olmsted, looking anxiously at his companion, saw her shiver.
" I am not afraid/' she answered to his look, '' I never fear
a storm; it is only— I am anxious for the others. Do you
think they are surely safe?''
"They were near the house and will have made for shel*
ten" As he spoke a fearful flash of lightning blinded diem
and a volley crashed overhead. "That has struck some-
where/' said the girl with a sob. But die last terrific peal
seemed to be the storm's farewell, for it now retreated sul-
lenly, with low muttering, up the hills on the farther side of
the river. They hurried towards the house. Monsieur Deluce
awaited them on the veranda and said that Arnold had already
started homeward, "leaving for you, my child, many polite ex-
cuses for abrupt departure; but he was so very wet and
chilled and he thought it wiser to hasten."
In a little while the carriage came and they too departed
cityward. A very subdued party, notwithstanding that the
dark clouds were now away in the distance and myriads of
sparkling raindrops everywhere reflected the splendor of the
setting sun. Olmsted was very silent, so also was Madeleine,
but the drum major, still cheerful, bore the burden of the
conversation.
When they arrived home Olmsted was just extending his
hand to assist Madeleine when her foot stumbled and she
would have fallen had he not caught her and placed her gently
and safely on the ground. She shrank back from him in an
instant and grew very pale.
" Good-bye I " he cried abruptly— cutting short Monsieur
Deluce's thanks and re*entering the carriage — "I, too, must
change this damp coat."
As he was borne homeward he thought: "What have I
done to excite such a feeling of repulsion ? How have I con-
trived that a girl should look as if she would rather fall than
accept my aid?"
When he entered the writing- room from a late breakfast
next morning Arnold was already there.
"If you have finished your tasks, Olmsted," he began,
without further preface, "why cannot we start Westward at
once — to-morrow? The heat here grows intolerable."
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I9I0.J THE DRUM MAJOItS DAUGHTER 165
" It is scarcely warmer to-day than yesterday/' said Olm-
sted; then his glance at Arnold softened as he noticed a sort
of restless, jaded expression on the handsome, boyish face.
''What's the matter, lad?" he asked.
Arnold turned and looked out of the window for a few
seconds. "Not much/' he said presently, forcing a laugh,
''only — it's all of no use. Our wise hesitation and weighing
of the matter were quite wasted, you see. I spoke to her
when we were out in the boat yesterday, and she would only
listen under protest. Her father and her music, she said — that
was all her world ; though, being so gentle, she added, of
course, some kindly things about gratitude — gratitude 1 But"
—and Arnold's voice grew unsteady — " she could never, never
feel as I would have her."
Olmsted laid his hand gently on his friend's shoulder,
which meant a great deal from him. " A woman's ' no ' is not
always final," he suggested.
" Hers is, I fancy," said Arnold — then, turning and straight-
ening himself up, he continued \ " I will write to her from
the West; the answer to that I will accept once for alL
Meantime, camping and hunting and roughing it will be best."
" I wish I could go with you, but my plan is upset by a
business letter requiring my presence in Canada some time
this month. After that is settled, I'm afraid it will be too late
to join you, and Lmay as well cleave to my scribbling here."
Next day was the "Glorious Fourth," and Arnold left on
the early train. Olmsted kept to bis work, but afterwards^
growing restless, put away books and papers and strolled
down to his literary club. Past the windows marched the
staffs and bands and troops of the parade, but it attracted little
of Olmsted's attention. Later an alarm of fire was sounded
and he heard some one say that it was quite near. The troops
kept on and he noticed that the Seventh was the next regi-
ment coming, its band ahead, and the tall, well-known figure
of its drum major in front. A sudden commotion down a side-
street and a violent rush and trampling of horses' feet. " Clear
the way ! " and mounted policemen were pushing the crowd
right and left. The band of the Seventh stopped short, but its
drum major seemed to become all at once confused and un-
certain, though a policeman spoke directly to him. He turned
first to one side, then to the other, and finally took a step in
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166 THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER [May
the wrong direction. A thundering, smoking, roaring monster
of a fire-engine came on, with its dashing horses wildly ex-
cited. It whirled across the path of the procession with light-
ning speed and was gone. ^' Good heavens I '' shouted Olmsted,
seeing the prostrate form around which the crowd clustered.
In a moment he was out on the street with a sickening dread
upon him. He made a path for himself and stood beside
Monsieur Deluce lying in the dust, his white hair dabbled with
blood, his shako and his baton broken and crushed at his side.
An ambulance had already arrived. The surgeon made a rapid
examination of the injuries ; then he turned to Olmsted : " Are
you a relation ? '' he asked.
''An intimate friend,'' was the answer.
''Has he a family?''
" One daughter only."
" Bring her, without delay, to the Fortieth Street Hospital.'*
Olmsted hailed a passing cab. "This is yours" — showing
the driver a coin — "if you get me to Wilder Street in fifteen
minutes." He alighted at his destination, telling the man to
wait. " May God teach me how to tell her I " he kept saying
to himself, as he entered.
She came down, dressed all in white, with a passion-flower
which he had gathered for her yesterday in her belt. "I am
in full dress," she told him, "as you see, for Papa likes me to
be very fine when he comes in, and it is to-day a holiday, as
you know. He will be so tired marching in the sun, I fear.
You do not mind the dark room ? It is for coolness." She
had talked on to hide a little surprise at this early call; but
marking his silence, for he could not immediately speak, she
stopped short. Her eyes, more accustomed now to the shaded
room, perceived something strange in his look. " What is it ?
What is it ? " she cried. Then : " Oh, my dear, beloved father "
—as one to whom a terrible presentment has come home at
last — " is it — ^is it ? " she cried, drawing close to Olmsted.
"No, no"; he answered, " but he is hurt — badly hurt; and
you must come to him at once."
"I will be with you in a moment," and she glided from the
room with no sign of either the wail or swoon he had dreaded*
In another moment the girl stood beside him in hat and long
dark wrap covering her gown.
"Like lightning," Olmsted privately instructed the driven
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I9IO.] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER l6r
While they went he told her in a few words of the manner of
the accident, and tried as he could to prepare her for what he
had seen in the surgeon's face. She listened as though not
hearing, and her eyes kept their wide, strained look. At the
hospital she was out of the carriage before he could assist her.
He followed quickly, and an attendant to whom he spoke, said
they might go in at once — '*the doctors had finished.'' It
chanced that no other accident had as yet been brought in that
day and the old drum major lay there in the ward alone, save
for an attendant* His daughter threw off her wrap advancing,
and sank on her knees beside him, kissing the pale hand, hard-
ly whiter than her lips. His other arm was bandaged as well
as his head, but Olmsted was glad, for her sake, to see his
face quite undisfigured and even serene. "Love," she said
with heart-breaking appeal, " surely you will not leave me I "
" A soldier must obey commands, my little one," he an-
swered, smiling faintly, and essaying to stroke the dark head
close to his cheek* ''The Great Captain calls, and Sergeant
Deluce, of the Army of France, answers. I am old and rought
but He will forgive that I care not to leave you« my little
flower— but a brave girl, too—"
" If I am brave it is you who have taught me ; oh, my dear — "
''How long?" Olmsted asked the surgeon aside.
"An hour, perhaps," he answered briefly.
"Then there is something she would wish." He hurried
down the corridor. Soon he was back with a grave, elderly
man in priestly dress. "WiU you. Father, give me a few
moments with him afterwards ? " he asked. The priest nodded,
and after his ministration, called Olmsted, waiting outside.
Alone with the dying man, Olmsted said, speaking very
distinctly: "Monsieur Deluce, you still, perhaps, in spite of
our Lord's consolations, are oppressed with some fears for the
daughter left alone so young?" A motion of the eyelids an-
swered him. " Listen to me, then," he continued very slowly*
" Whatever may be, or wherever she may go, or whatever career
she may choose, I promise you that she may rely upon my help
when needed, and that I will always stand between her and
harm — as though I were yourself — so help me God 1 "
Monsieur Deluce looked at him fixedly with those dark
eyes, so like his daughter's. Then he said: "I believe and
trust you entirely." He then called for his daughter. When
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I68 THE DRUM MAJOItS DAUGHTER [Hay,
she came in he said simply: *'I wished to say good-night, my
darling." He seemed to doze for awhile; and then, suddenly,
he raised himself slightly on the unbandaged arm : ** A mai^
eamandes I " he called, and then was qnite still.
For a few days after the faneral Madeleine remained in
seclusion, seeing no one, though many tokens of sympathy
came to the fair young teacher from pupils and others. Then
she took up the burden of life and work again.
It was, perhaps, a week after this that Olmsted, having ar*
ranged everything for his departure for Canada the next day,
came in the afternoon to see her.
He found Madeleine, who had just come in, gazing absently
from the window. Her heavy black street gown made her ap-
pear slighter and younger than ever. She turned and, seeing
who it was, gave him her hand, which he held for a moment*
*' I could not thank you before,'' she said, ^* but you must
believe that I have deeply felt your kindness. I can never fdr«
get that you— not of the faith— remembered Pire Boucher;
when I, so stricken—''
''Do not even speak of it," he interrupted her gently*
There was silence for a few seconds, broken by the rustling
of a paper which Olmsted drew from his pocket. *'I re-
ceived a telegram to-day from Van Twiller, in answer to one
of mine. He begs me to give you his most heartfelt sym-
pathy." Then Olmsted seemed to nerve himself and began
again: ''Mademoiselle, I do not know what he may write,
but I can guess, for he spoke to me before he left; and the
fact of your being now so young— alone in this great city-—
may embolden him, as it does me, to say what would other-
wise appear cruelly ill-timed."
She gave him full attention now, and this young girl's gaze
seemed almost to disconcert a man noted for his self-possession.
Still he continued : " He told me of a — failure. But when he
speaks again— do not think me presumptuous — will you not
consider a little ? You do not know how difficult and wearing
a task it is for a woman— a girl— to struggle, single- handed, for
existence in a place like this. Van Twiller is a fine, manly
fellow. I think, perhaps, your father might be glad — "
Her lip quivered, but she spoke quite calmly : " Monsieur,
I overheard something you said to your friend once in this
very room. I could not help hearing it. You were wiser then."
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I9IO.] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER 169
'' I hope it was not that which led yoa to answer him as you
did. Yott could not hold him responsible for another's views."
''Not at all. The money he may have — the position he
may hold — would never influence me. My answer was what
it was — simply because I did not think of him in that way —
and never will."
'' Then " — his manner freeing itself from its trace of constraint
— '' I may tell you that my pleading for him was through loyalty
alone. As regards my earlier warning to him to avoid such
attachment— which you heard — ^it was not so much of class dis-
tinction I thought, but rather of the individual. Van Twiller
is at heart greatly influenced by his mother and really at home
only in her circle. I thought rather of your happiness than of
his; though I was bound to do him full justice." He fingered
a sheet of music which was : " Du bist wie eine Blume " — a
drooping white rose-bud now I Laying it aside after a mo-
ment, he resumed, in an even, quiet tone : '' It was hard enough
to plead for him, God knows, for yon see, I love you myself,
and have loved you with all my strength from the first moment
I saw you."
Surprise made her white cheek a shade paler. She rose, it
teemed involuntarily, shrank back with a pang, and stood lean-
ing heavily against the chair-back.
'' There must be some mistake," she said in a sort of whis-
per, *' you should not speak to me so— and now*^
"I know," he answered hastily, ''that if the rest were ill-
timed, this must appear sheer brutality, when you are so sad
and suffering so keenly. But I entreat you again to remember
the circumstances; and — and I must leave you to-morrow.
Yon do not care for me now, I know, but you might some
day; and, oh, Madeleine 1 " — with indescribable tenderness—" as
your husband I could be very patient and wait for your love."
" You forget," she said, still very low, " that I have heard
you say, that 'a mesalliance was almost always a mistake.'"
"In this case," he replied quietly, "the honor would be
conferred on me. I am but a hard-worked writer. And my
few relatives could hardly be prouder of an ancient pedigree
than I should " — and he lowered his voice — " of the virtues of
your dear and noble father."
The allusion was more than she could bear just now. Lean-
ing back in her chair, tears forced their way through her slen-
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170 THE DRUM Major's daughter [May,
der fingers. ''Leave me/' she said, ''you must go — I cannot
have you near me — I must not speak more with you now— '^
Full of remorse, he touched with his lips the hand hanging
at her side. Then he went out slowly from the house.
October came, clear and cool and bright. Richard Olmsted
had returned from Canada. Tired with the work of the morn-
ing he had sauntered out and entered the Park.
But once outside, he smiled to himself. He walked along
a wooded path at a leisurely pace. He was so restless and dis-
quieted that the throng annoyed him« and he presently turned
into a narrow side-path, that he might be free to indulge his
own thoughts — and his thoughts were of Madeleine.
He had written to her several times during his three months'
absence, claiming the right of a friend at least to place himself
at her service always, and assuring her that it was her father's
wish that in any emergency she should depend upon his advice
or help. He told himself that he expected no answer to these,
and none came. In later letters he enclosed merely his address
at the time of writing. He had called at Madeleine's home
immediately on his return, but she was out at work with her
classes. Admitted by the storekeeper downstairs, who knew
him well, he waited a while in Madeleine's sitting room* It
wore to him a forlorn and deserted look. Olmsted mechani-
cally took up the song : " Du bist wie eine Blume," which
was lying on top of the other music. He opened it idly and
a card fell out. It was the envelope of one of his letters and
across it in her handwriting was the verse :
"Si le roi m'avait donn^
Paris sa grande ville,
Et s'il me fallut quitter
L'amour de ma vie,
Je dirats au roi, Henri,
Reprenez votre Paris I
J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gu^
J'aime mieux ma mie."
And on the other side was pencilled, very faintly, the title
of Blondel's song: "Oh, Richard, oh, Mon Roil" He put
this in his pocket; it might mean everything— or nothing.
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I9I0.] THE DRUM MAJOR'S DAUGHTER 171
Now he sauntered along this quiet pathway, scattering with
his stick the heaps of many-colored leaves fallen and falling
from the trees, so absorbed that presently he smiled in scorn
of his own preoccupation. ''What kind of work can a fellow
do after he becomes a monomaniac ? " he said half aloud. Then
his heart gave a great bound, for he saw under a beech, in a
secluded corner, the figure of a young girl reminding him of
Madeleine. ''What nonsense!'' he said to himself, " as if there
were not hundreds of women slender and graceful and dressed
in mourning''; but again that peculiar poise of head and neck,
it was strangely like hers.
He crossed the grass with rapid, noiseless footfalls. Sitting
idly, her veil thrown back, watching a child at play, Madeleine
had not seen him come, and when now he stood so unexpect-
edly before her, she was on her feet in an instant : " Oh, Rich-
ard!" Then, recovering herself, "I am so glad to see you
back, Mr. Olmsted," she murmured.
"And I am glad," he answered boldly, "{that you know
my first name — have even so perhaps thought of me — so writ-
ten of me for yourself ? " He drew from his pocket the scrib-
bled envelope.
She glanced at it, attempted a denial, and stood before him
mute, her dark lashes shading the crimson rose which burned
{n her cheek.
"Why, then, did you repel me so the last time we met?"
" It was so soon — so very soon after he left me," she fal-
tered, " I was afraid that my father— even in heaven — might
feel hurt."
"Tell me, Madeleine," he pleaded with tender imperative-
ness, holding both her hands, "why did you go out from the
room one night that I sang?"
" It was because," she answered slowly, but very steadfastly,
raising her eyes to his, "it was befcause God had given me
love for you even then; and I thought you so far, far away,
that your tones thrilled me with pain."
Then he put his arm about her protectingly, and said
"Your father will surely know now, and be content."
(the end.)
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CATHOLICS AND BOOKS.
BY LOUIS O'DONOVAN. S.T.L.
II.
III.— BOOR-LOVERS OP OLD.
names are more illustrious in the realm of
>ok8« learning, and wisdom than that of Origen
le Adamantine. And if, as. Andrew Lang wrote
TAe Library f ** selling books is nearly as bad as
sing friends, than which life has no worse
sorrow/' how touching must have been the sight of this truly
great scholar of old Egypt selling all his books, relating to
profane learning, to one who daily supplied him with but a
few pence, sufficient, yet requisite, to provide him subsistence
for several years. One of Origen's fellow- students in the Chris*
tian school at Alexandria, under St. Pantenus, and his successor,
St. Clement, was more favored by fortune. For having become
bishop of Jerusalem, St. Alexander was able to collect ''a
great library, consisting of the writings and letters of eminent
men, which subsisted when Eusebus wrote.''*
One of the most successful book-gatherers of the East was
St. Pamphilus, a priest who was martyred A. D. 309. He was
rich, of honorable parentage, and was born at Berytus, a city
famous for its schools. Having grown proficient in profane
sciences, he later settled at Cssarea in Palestine. There, ** at
his private expense, he collected a great library, which he be-
stowed on the church of that city. St. Isidore of Seville reck-
oaed that it contained nearly thirty thousand volumes. Al«
most all the works of the ancients were found in it. The
saint established there also a public school of sacred literature,
and to his labors the Church was indebted for a more correct
edition of the holy Bible, which, with infinite care, he tran-
scribed himself, many copies whereof he distributed gratis." f
Into this same Holy Land some years later came another
* Butler, LiviSt March x8. t Butler, Opus citatum, June x.
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1910.] Catholics and Books 173
passionate and constant lover of Tki Book, St Jerome. It had
been St. Jerome's greatest pleasure at Rome to collect a good
library and to read all the best authors; in this such was his
passion that it made him sometimes forget to eat or drink.
Cicero and Plautus were his chief delights. *'He purchased
a great many books, copied several, and procured many to be
transcribed by his friends."* When he went to the East he
'' carried nothing with him but his library and a sum of money
to bear the charges of his journey." f
That the Church authorities at Rome early originated li-
braries follows from the record of the second synod of Rome,
under Pope Sylvester, when ''The Roman Church kept nota-
ries who wrote out carefully the deeds of the different mar-
tyrs." t This work was continued by Pope Julius and Pope
Damasus. Then, too, Dyptichs were common in churches.
Probably one of the largest and richest libraries of the entire
history of the Church was that of the Church of St Sophia,
at Constantinople, thought to have been begun by Constan-
tino, '' augmented by Theodosius Junior ... in whose
times there were no less than 100,000 books in it, and 120,000
in the reign of Basiliscus and Zeno, when both the building
and its furniture were all unhappily consumed."^
Two centuries later Pope Gregory gave St. Augustine ''a
small library, which was kept in his monastery at Canterbury.
Of it there still remains a book of the Gospels in the Bodlein
Library, and another in that of Corpus Christi in Cambridge.
The other books were PsalUrs^ the PastotaU^ the Passionarium
Sanctorum^ and the like." ||
In A. D. 147 1 died that friend of all Catholic households,
Thomas k Kempis. His portrait represents him sitting in the
open air, while on the pages of a volume at his feet are in-
scribed the words: ''I have sought rest everywhere and have
never found it unless in a little nook with a little book."^
Despite the love of books being general if not universal
among the saints, yet there are indeed exceptions among the
specially favored friends of God: the chosen few. And we
must believe them sincere when they declare that they did
* Butler, Opui citatum, September 30. t Loco Citato,
X Lomeier, De Bibliotkicis, Ultrajecti, 1680. page I2Z.
$ Bingham, Anti^uitatts, Book VIII., chap. vii.
H Butler, Opus citatum, March la.
IT Life, by Cruise, in Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, p. so.
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174 Catholics and Books [May,
not feel the need of books. Had not the inspired penman
sung: ''Oi making many books there is no end; and much
study is an affliction of the flesh?''* Is it not true that the
Blessed Master — Eternal Wisdom — the Word of God incarnate
— Himself neither wrote anything that we know of, save in
the sand, with his finger?
It is also true that a certain number of our Lord's great-
est followers seemed to be above the use of books. St An-
thony of Egypt, for example, when a certain philosopher asked
him how he could spend his time in solitude, without the
pleasure of reading books, replied that nature was his great
book, and amply supplied the want of others.f
Not only was this true of that anchorite under the clear,
brilliant sky of Egypt, but St Bernard also tells us: *' Believe
me, upon my own experience, you would find more in the
woods than in the books: the forests and rocks will teach you
what you cannot learn of the greatest masters."! The cruci-
fix served for his book, said St Philip Beniti, the thirteenth
century Italian Servite.
So, too, St. Francis of Assisi was illuminated with a light
and wisdom not taught in books. And no wonder that he
should be able to declare that the Passion of Christ was his
perpetual book, and that he never desired to open any other
but the history of it in the Gospels, though he were to live
to the end of the world.
One day, in the same thirteenth century, St Thomas
Aquinas, the famous theologian, went to visit St. Bonaven-
ture, and asked him from what books he had learned his
sacred science. St Bonaventure, pointing to his crucifix before
him, replied: ''This is the source of all my knowledge, I study
only Jesus Christ, and Htm crucified."^ St Ignatius Loyola
also professed that '' Everything served him for a book, where-
in he read the divine perfections, and by that means raised
his mind to his creator." || And we read of the very beauti-
ful soul, St. Teresa, that, ''When she once grieved that her
Spanish pious books were taken from her, our Lord said to
her: 'Let not this trouble thee; I will give thee a living
book.'"ir
♦ Eccles., xii. 13. f Butler, Opus ciiatttm, January 17.
i Idem of us, August 20. $ Idem opus, July 14.
Idem opus, July 31. ^ Idem opus, October 15.
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1 910.] Catholics and Books 175
And yet but tew can reach these dizzy heights. The majority
are climbing up the lower steps of the holy mount, and can-
not see what the greatest saints see, but are glad to have any
one tell them the road, to use any chart, any book, that will
help them on their way through the briars and forests that
obscure their path and retard their celestial mission. And
why should one not love and use good books ? The examples
of almost all great and virtuous men, pagan and Christian,
lead us to do so. ''The second century Roman Emperor and
philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, called it the greatest favor that
he had received in his whole life from the gods, that he had
read the Enchiridion of Epictetus. In this book admirable
rules for the conduct of life are laid down, extensively applied,
and enforced by striking examples; yet in his work too great
a freedom is given to the most unbridled of human passions
and many essential defects occur."*
Many beautiful and touching, as well as profitable, scenes
occurred when, of old, monks visited brother monks for
counsel and advice in Christian perfection. Who would not
give much gold to speak with the gentle St. Francis and
hear his conversations with his brothers ? The more learned
and recondite would sacrifice much to attend the lectures
of the angelic Dominican, St Thomas Aquinas. The reli-
gious and pious would crave to be taken out of this low,
earthly atmosphere by that heavenly nun, St. Teresa. And
still these cravings can all be satisfied by selecting such reading,
by using such books, as St. Francis' Little Flowers; St. Thomas'
Sum of Theology; or Golden Chain; or St. Teresa's Auto^
biography ; or other writings.
That books can be made to appeal not only to those ma^
ture in age, but also to the young, if emulation be stirred in
such scholars, is shown by a pretty story told of the wise
Alfred the Great of England when he was still a child. ''His
mother one day showed him and his brother a fine book in
Saxon verse, promising to give it him who should first read
and understand it. Alfred was only beginning to learn to
read, but, running straight to his master, he did not rest till
he not only read it, but got it by heart." f
When St. Thomas Aquinas was imprisoned by bis mother,
lest he be a religious, "his sisters took him some books.
* IcUm opust September 4. Idem oputt October 28.
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176 Catholics and Books [May,
What were they ? A Bible, Aristotle's Logic, and the works of
the Master of the Sentences/'* And the Pope to whom we
are indebted for the most accurate edition of St Thomas'
works, Pius V., called '^ Constant devotion and study the double
breast from which religious persons draw spiritual nourishment
which maintains in them the love of God and the contempt of
the worid/'t
During the sixteenth century, in Spain, lived St. Paschal
Baylon. And though he was too poor to go to school, yet
** the pious child carried a book with him into the fields where
he watched the sheep, and desired those that he met to teach
him the letters; and thus in a short time, being yet very
young, he learned to read. This advantage he made use of
only to improve his soul in devotion and piety; books of
amusement he never would look into."|
It is recorded of the learned compiler of the Livi$ of th$
Saints^ the Reverend Alban Butler, that: *' Every instant that
he did not dedicate to the government of his college, he em-^
ployed in study; and, when obliged to go abroad, he would
read as he walked along the streets. I have seen him with a
book under each arm/' writes Mr. Charles Butler, ^ ** and a third
in his hands ; and have been told that, traveling on horseback,
he fell a- reading, giving the horse his full liberty."
Crossing now to our own land, it cannot but be of interest
to note a few events in connection with books in America.
And, first of all, books were written, or translations into the
various Indian tongues made, in more than one case by the
zealous missionaries to these benighted people.
While neither prepared nor desirous to speak in detail of
the various books published in their own languages for our
native Americans, we may gather some ideas from a few facts.
For the Mexican Indians Father Pareja published two cate-
chisms as early as 1612; one ^' confesonario " during 1612 and
1613; one grammar in 1614; one other catechism in 1627;
besides treatises on purgatory, heaven, hell, and the rosary. ||
A century later, in 17 18, Father John le Boulenger drew
up a '^ grammar and dictionary with a very full catechism and
prayers," in the Kaskaskia Indian tongue.
* Butler, opus citatum, March 7. f Idem opus. May 5.
X Idtm opus. May 15. $ Introductory to the Lives of ike Saints,
II Shea, History 0/ the CatholU Church in the United States. Vol. I., p. 157.
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I9IO.] Catholics and Books 177
At Conn River Head, Newfoundland, to-day, a small tribe
of one hundred and twenty Micmac Indians have books with
the Mass written in their tongue^ printed in Germany, which
they chant after their humdrum, monotonous manner.
As to early Catholic American books in the English lan-
guage in Maryland, the public library at Annapolis '^ was com-
menced about 1697, with books presented by King Wil-
Uam III."*
That the need of books was felt by the early colonists, we
learn from the words of a priest of the times, Father Molyneux,
Superior of the priests of Maryland, who declared: ''I be-
lieve a library of great consequence." f To supply the need
''The Jesuit Fathers really had circulating libraries at their
missions and encouraged the reading of good books." | Father
Atwood, in a letter to England, ordered a list of standard
books for one of his flock. The order included the Rheims
Tistanuni^ Parson's Three Convetsions, Catholic Scriptufist, Touch"
stone of the Reformed Gospel^ and the whole ** Manual with Mass
in Latin and English."^ And yet the future Archbishop, Rev.
John Carroll, wrote that ** among the poorer sort (of Maryland
Catholics) many could not read, or, if they could, were desti-
tute of books, which, if to be had at all, must come from
England ; and in England the laws were excessively rigid against
printing or vending Catholic books." ||
Had things changed, or was it by extraordinary efl'orts
that only a few decades later, when Father Flaget departed
from Vincennes to return to Baltimore, he left ** a well selected
library for the use of his successors " ? ^
However, a beginning was made, and Catholic books were
for the first time printed, not anonymously, as in England, but
openly. Apparently the first book thus issued was a prayer-
book entitled A Manual of Catholic Prayers^ Philadelphia.
Printed for subscribers. By Robert Bell, Bookseller, in Third
Street, MDCCLXXIV!**
Those curious to know about early publications can find them
given by Rev. Joseph Finotti, in his Bibliographia Catholica
Americana.
• Campbell's Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll. f Id. opus.
% Shea, opus ciiahim. Vol. I., p. 405. $ Shea, loco citato,
I Shea, History of Church in United States. Vol. II., p. 49, and in Brent's Archbishop
OirroU, p. 64.
^^\it9^opMscUatum\ Vol. II., p. 486. ^ /d. Op. Vol. II.. p. 139.
VOL. XCI — 12
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178 Catholics and Books [May,
la this connection one item of interest to every Catholic is
the fact that our American Catechism was adopted by Bishop
Carroll from that used in England.* A successor of Bishop
CarroirSf the fertile and prolific apologist. Bishop England of
Charleston, published a Missal in English. He also established
a book publishing society and a Catholic paper, the United
States Catholic Miscellany, f
In 1844 Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, ''began a circulat-
lag library.'' I This was doubtless done in accordance with
the decree of the First Provincial Council of Baltimore, urging
the establishment of a society for the diffusion of Catholic books.
The Fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore commended the
recently established tract societies intended to popularize the
position of the Church on religious topics. To-day almost every
one may read. If Ruskin's words in the ''Kings' Treasures''
are true of books in general, that " no book is worth anything
which is not worth much ; nor is it serviceable, until it has
been read and re-read and loved, and loved again, ahd marked,
80 that you can refer to the pages you want in it " ; surely
they are truer still of holy books of faith and virtue.
In "Queens' Gardens " again Ruskin writes: "The best ro-
mance becomes dangerous if, by excitement, it renders the
ordinary course of life uninteresting, and increases the morbid
thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in which they shall
never be called upon to act." A century and a quarter ago,
when Rev. Dr. Carroll, the future Archbishop of Baltimore, was
sending to Rome a report of the condition of religion in Mary-
land, one evil that he noted was the too *common reading of
romances and novels. If Ruskin's counsel is true of good books,
what care should be taken to avoid positively bad onesl
In or about the year 18 10, Archbishop Carroll and the
other bishops held a conference in Baltimore, and agreed that
pastors of souls "should warn the faithful not to read any
books in which the integrity of their faith or the purity of
their morals could easily be corrupted ; and especially that they
should not indiscriminately read those love stories which they
call novels." %
* Shea. Catholic Chnrch in the UnUed StaUs. VoL III., p. 96.
t Shea, Idem opus. Vol. III., p. 3i5-Z7.
% Opus citatum. Vol. IV., p. 70.
$ See Vols. I. and II. Plenary Councils of Baltimore, No. 9.
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I9IO.] Catholics and Books 179
Again the Second Plenary Cotincil warned against bad books,
and as earnestly encouraged worthy ones. If, then, many
books are positively to be avoided, what books, on the other
hand, should be in every Catholic's library ? That is a difficult
question to answer universally, as aims and methods and needs
and means differ for different individuals. Yet well-meant
counsel is generally helpful. Where one intends to make a
considerable collection of rare or expensive books he '^ should
acquire such books as Lowndes' Bibliography ^ Brunet's Manual^
and as many priced catalogues as he can secure."* Recently
one of our great daily papers declared that the Bible is printed
in 49s different languages, and each year 14,000,000 copies of
the Bible in English are sold. This shows that The Book is
•till loved and popular: the more so when we are told that
each year there are 2,500 new novels published in the United
States, while their average sale is about 500 copies each.
Rightly, then, the Bible is well in its position, not only in
the hearts, but also on the tables and book-shelves of the people.
No theme can ever become so important as that which forms
the subject-matter of Th$ Book ; nor can any author hope to
equal those writers who had eternal truth revealed to them, and
who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
Next after this collection of the Law and Prophets in the
Old Testament, and the Apostles and their associates in the
New Testament, altogether forming our Bible ; after this book,
par excellence^ naturally come the various commentaries on the
Bible, and other writings by the great Fathers and Doctors of
the Church. These have been gathered into two vast collec-
tions, the one of the Greek writers, in one hundred and sixty
ponderous tomes, called the Greek Patrology; the other of the
Latin writers, in two hundred and twenty tomes, called the
Latin Patrology; both edited under the general supervision
of a priest, Abb^ Migne, about the middle of the nineteenth
century. Various translations of certain of these Fathers have
been published in English.
Nor should we fancy that these two great collections con-
tain only commentaries on Scripture. They treat of almost
every topic that could interest the serious Christian in one
way or another.
And who has not heard, even if he has not read, some-
* Andrew Lang, Tht Idbraty, Chap. ii.
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l8o CATHOLICS AND BOOKS [May,
thing of that deep, sweet, altogether lovely soal, St. Augus-
tine ? In his wonderfully frank, even humiliating Book of Con*
fessions one sees how truly great its author must have been, to
lay bare to all mankind both his secret sins and his most
cherished hopes. This same great Doctor wrote that monu-
ment of philosophy and religion, the City of God.
A work more easily produced, that should be well-read in
every Catholic's study, is the Lives of the Saints^ in one form
or another, with its forceful and appealing object-lessons of
Christian benignity and refinement of character.
What each should do is to have a few favorites, at least,
among truly good books, and read them often and meditative-
ly. Imitate St. Francis de Sales, who carried Father Lawrence
Scupoli's Spiritual Combat in his pocket fifteen years, and read
something in it each day. It is said that this work ran through
nearly fifty editions before the death of the author.
Great and popular as is the Spiritual Combat^ yet one other
surpasses it, of which it is said: ^'The Imitation of Christ, by
Thomas k Kempis, is the most excellent book that ever came
from the hand of man — the Holy Scriptures being of divine
origin, and the Spiritual Combat may be called its key or in-
troduction." •
Of course this is not the place to mention books on the
natural sciences, etc., but only those more or less bearing on
or connected with religion.
In philosophy, dressed in a popular garb, may be recom-
mended Cardinal Gibbons* Christian Heritage ; Father Hecker's
Qtiestions of th^ Soul/ Father Aveling's writings, Schanz's
Christian Apology; Thein's Anthropology: Shanahan's John
Fiske on the Idea of God ; and the whole Stony hurst series by
the Jesuit Fathers.
In sociology there are the writings of Sir Thomas More,
Father Cathrein, Rev. Dr. Kerby, and Rev. John Ryan's A
Living Wage. On doctrinal subjects one would do well to
have Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, learned, concise,
and inexpensive. Then there is Berington and Kirk's Faith
of Catholics, though once out of print now edited anew;
Bossuet's Variations; Archbishop Spalding's numerous lec-
tures and essays ; Brownson's various writings ; Chateaubriand's
Genius of Christianity ; the three great English Cardinals, Wise-
* Introduction to SpiriHuU Combat.
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19IO.] Catholics and books i8i
man, ManniDg, and Newmaiii who have written so well on such
a vast field of subjects ; and Cardinal Gibbon's Faith of Our
Fathers. Perhaps no better treatises on the Sacred Scriptures
can be more easily procured than those of Father Gigot.
Certainly the writer knows of no more happy combination of
erudition and style on the life of Christ than that of Abb^
Fouard. Also his lives of St Peter, St. Paul, and St. John.
For an account of the catacombs, Northcote and Brown-
lowe's work combines happily the popular and scholarly. Fa-
ther O'Brien's small volume on the Mass is a jewel. Bishop
Hefele on the Councils of the Church is dry, yet authoritative
and solid. Only the first six Councils are translated from the
German into English. Pastor's History of the Popes is a strong,
plain statement of facts on the subject of the great rulers of
the Church in the late Middle Ages, and beginning of modern
times. Digby's Mores Catholici is a storehouse of facts for
churchmen. Montalembert's monumental Monks of the West,
as well as his Life of St. Elizdbeth ; with Bishop Hefele's
Life of Cardinal Ximinez and of Queen Isabella the Catholic^
should be charming reading for cultured Catholics. So, too,
Martin Rule's Life and Times of St. Anselm, is a fascinating
work for pious scholars. The History of the German People^ by
Mgr. Joannes Janssen, is detailed and hard reading, but full of
data. Bellesheim's History of the Church in Scotland is still
the authority on that subject. Joyce on Ireland is readable
and learned. For England, there is first, of course, Bede's
Ecclesiastical History ; and Rev. Dr. Lingard's Anglo-Saxon
Church, a delightful little work ; and the History of England, by
the same author. Then, too, a very readable and reliable history
of the Church in England is that of Father Flanagan. For a
history of painting perhaps Vasari is still most popular. For
the literary history of the Middle Ages Father Berington is
erudite, though now out of print. As to American history,
in part or in general, there are Brownson, McSherry, Scharf,
and Father Russell, the last three from Maryland, and John
Gilmary Shea's monumental History of the Church in the United
States. For general histories Bossuet and Fathers Vuibert
and Fredet are all good in their particular way, and Cardinal
Hergenroether and Dr. Alzog for general Church histories. On
education F^nelon's Christian Counsels, Cardinal Newman's Idea
of a University, and the works of Bishop J. L. Spalding are
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1 8a Catholics and books [May.
well-known and strong books. For introduction to literatnre
Brother Azarias, Father Jenkins, and Father Coppens should
be recommended.
Among Catholic fiction writers whose works are popular
perhaps the following are the best: Consciencei Crawford^
Dorsey, Reid, Finn, Keon's Dion and the Sibyls^ Manzoni's
The Betrothed, Newman's Caltista, and Loss and Gain, Wise-
man's Fabiola, and the works of Sienkiewicz, Father Sheehan,
Mrs. Ward, Katharine Tynan, Miss Sadlier, Henry Harland,
Rene Bazin, and Charles Warren Stoddard.
Many more names might be added to the list, if our readers
had sufficient means and time at their disposal. There will,
of course, be disagreement as to the merits of those mentioned.
But to most these hundred or so volumes should be servicable
and pleasant.
Catholics who are capable should realize what a vast, fer-
tile field for good seed is the broad prairie land of the press.
Catholics who are able to, should write, for, what is written
remains. But pecuniary remuneration should not be the mo-
tive, else the vast majority will never reach their aim. Although '
Archbishop Kenrick, of Baltimore, was indeed erudite, and
'' although he had for more than thirty years been a writer
of Catholic books, he had in all that time made only two hun-
dred dollars by all his labors." *
Nor is the field much more lucrative to-day, if we may
believe a recent writer in one of our prominent and conserva^
tive prints, for he stated that : '* The field of letters is by no
means one in which there is fairness and impartiality. It is
one that is to-day, with the exception of the ministry, the
poorest in material reward, and the most difficult in which to
gain a footing.'' f
* Caikidral Records, Riordan, Baltimore, X906. p. 75.
t Guy Carleton Lee in BaUimon Smm,
(THE END.)
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MAMICHEE.
BY MARY AUSTIN.
I.
*' He prayeth best, who loveth best.*'
^HE was jttst the most sympathetic, tender '* Little
Mother'' in the worlds with a heart large enough
to take in every one of her numerous family, no
matter how bad, wicked, or ugly the new child
might be. One and all soon fell under the
charm of the little coolie girl, whose quaint Dutch name^
'' Mamichee," or ** Little Mother," so truly expressed her life
and character. Heaven alone knows from whom she got her
loving heart, most certainly not from her own experience of
mother-love, or mother- care, for she had worse than none.
*' Thrown away," the term so commonly used in Cape
Town, and so expressive of those unfortunate children aban-
doned by their unnatural parents, was true enough of poor
^^Mamichee." She was left in the Cape Town Female Prison,
usually called the '* Tronk," by her worthless mother, and when
her time expired — at seven years old — the poor mite had no
home but the prison.
For, some twenty years ago, there was no other shelter
for unhappy little children, unless some friends came forward
and offered them a home while the mothers were ^Moing
time."
Mamichee had no such friend. There were not many
coolies in the Cape; and with no one is the feeling of caste
or race more strong than with the colored population.
Picture to yourselves a quaint old parlor in semi»darkness,
and intolerably hot in spite of large open ventilators, a party
of six or seven English and Irish ladies trying to keep awake
by the aid of iced lemonade instead of orthodox tea. Very
little conversation was going on, when the door was suddenly
opened and a grinning, black- faced orphan announced:
*' Missis, the white Baas to see the missis."
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1 84 MAMICHEE [May,
''The missis/' for once, was not very well pleased to see
the ''white Baas/' even though in this instance it was onr
good friend the magistrate, Mr. R . She felt she had been
caught in rather an infra dig. attitude. However, he was
\^xy well pleased to find us resting, and apologized very much
for breaking in upon our slumbers.
"The truth is, ladies, that I want you to do something
charitable at once. Though I know you will say you have
not even room for a fly more in the 'ark/ you must take in
at once a poor little coolie girl who is left in the Tronk. It
is a shame for such a nice little thing to be brought up in a
prison.''
There could be but one answer to this appeal, though
most true it was that the Industrial Home, or, as it was called,
" The Ark for Waifs and Strays," was as full as full could be,
almost impossible to shut down the lid and let all shake into
their places.
I must not go into details about Cape Town of long ago,
when English, Dutch, Afrikanders, and innumerable other
races, somehow managed to live alongside of each other in
harmony; and I will only explain that the "Ladies" were a
party of Englishwomen living in a queer old Dutch house, in
a still queerer old street, rejoicing in the appropriate name of
"Keroom" or Turn-round-the-Corner Street.
We were brought together by our good Father and Bishop,
Dr. C , to help in the arduous task of endeavoring to civ-
ilize the cosmopolitan society. We were young, we were am-
bitious, and we were very much in earnest to lead noble lives
and to do some good in our generation.
The Home was so conveniently near to our own house as
to make it advisable to secure it for our purpose. There were
many large rooms which could be utilized for dormitories, a
good garden, and so near the beautiful oak avenue oi Govern-
ment House that the children could be turned out to play
there with little trouble. But, and this was a very consider-
able but^ for many years it had been the abode of twelve or
more distinct families of Malays, and those followers of the
Prophet had left their traces behind them.
The children were of every nationality and every shade of
color, from pure European type to the very blackest of
Africa's black diamonds. These we separated into two classes ;
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19 lO.] MAMICHEE 185
the very roughest and blackest belonged to the '^ kitchen pot "
black ; there were others much fairer and smoother, more gen-
teel altogether, and these were the '^ tea-kettle" family. It
was impossible sometimes to distinguish the '^ kitchen pot"
black except for the glitter of the eye and the gleam of the
very white ivories in the wide mouth.
But I have strayed from Mamichee, and must now hasten
on to say that we quickly agreed that one of us should go
that evening and rescue the Little Mother.
Since I was Captain of the Ark, it was decreed that I
should go. The prison matron was quite pleased when I ex-
plained the object of my rather late visit. I followed her into
the large room set apart for female prisoners. About twenty
or thirty were squatting about: it was their free or idle hour.
Some were asleep on the earth floor, some smoking; tongues
were going; and, you may be sure, some were quarreling. In
the centre of the bare, cheerless place sat a huge, forbidding-
looking black woman, a heavy scowl on her face; either a
*' tantrum " was coming on or just going ofif. And sitting on
her lap was the sweetest, prettiest little coolie girl. Her slender,
olive- colored fingers were stroking and caressing the bad, ugly
face, and her soft voice whispering: ''Poor, poor!" These
were the first words I ever heard our sweet Little Mother
say, and they were also the text, the key-note of her life —
compassion.
''There, ma'am,'' said the matron, "that is how it always
is. No one but Mamichee can manage Johanna."
However hard may be the heart, there is a soft spot some*
where, and this woman, who was the terror of all around her,
and who was in for life — she was a murderess — had utterly
fallen under the spell of the tender, innocent little coolie. I
really felt it almost sinful to take Mamichee away from these
poor, unhappy women ; it was like destroying their one chance ;
but, then, we had to consider the child, and though tears fell
fast as she said " good*bye," they all generously agreed. " Yes,
take her, missis; we are not good for her."
Mamichee was not long in packing up her possessions, for
she literally had nothing but the clothes she stood up in — an old
cotton petticoat and a worn tie-behind pinafore ; yes, there was
on$ thing more, her much-loved though headless treasure, an old
rag doll. She hugged it to her breast with one hand, while she
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i86 Mamichee [May»
clang to my skirts with the other, and trudged on with noe
as if she bad known me all |her life. No hat or son-bonnet
protected her shapely little black head, so well set on her long
neck. A quaint yet graceful little figurci the active little bare
legs and feet trotted along very contentedly; no misgiving
crossed her mind.
And when the doors of St. Michael's Home were opened
to receive the new little '* wreckling/' a smile of delight spread
itself over the sweet little face ; she felt she was indeed entering
her first happy home. She was our only little coolie girl, and
her graceful Indian physique stood out in clearly defined lines ;
her complexion was a pale, clear olive; the sensitive little
mouth, with its thin lips, very different from the blubber, wide-
projecting, true African type. It was not so much that she
was a pretty child, but that grace and refinement marked every
movement and feature.
I think the first days in the Home most have been a kind
of fairy life to the poor child, whose little feet had already
trodden very hard paths. The daily swim in the fresh, cold
bath, the clean new clothes, especially the Sunday uniform^
with its smart pink frock and white pinafore, were as delightful
in her eyes as a young woman's first ball-dress is in hers.
But the crowning joy of all, the treasure beyond price, was
the red cotton pocket-handkerchief, adorned with a donkey oi
a church and some lines of poetry. Bliss could not go beyond
that which was in Mamichee's eyes, when this precious gift
completed her toilet. She never lost sight of this wonderful
thing. Every evening it was washed and carefully folded and
put under the bolster, to be mangled and dried by her own
little body.
Mamichee was a born nurse, as the saying is. T do not
know if she could have passed an examination and gained a
certificate, but I do know there could have been no better or
happier being than Mamichee as nurse to some sick child.
Then, indeed, the handkerchief was in full play; tears were
dried, aching heads were bathed and bound op in its wet folds,
wounds tied up, and even '' winter feet," the special torture
of the barefooted tribes, were comforted and consoled by Mami-
chee*s handkerchief ; some special virtue went out of the don-
key variety; yoo never knew where you would meet with it
next.
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I9ia] MAMICHEE 187
The next great event in Mamichee's life was her baptism.
We thought the name of the tender St. Monica a very appro-
priate one) for the little motherly being, who indeed did not
confine her consolafions merely to physical woes, but was very
earnest in striving to console and comfort the deeper wounds
of the soul. Indeed, the day of tribulation and punishment was
a sort of field-day for Mamichee. The next great episode was
the keeping of her birthday, quite an imaginary epoch in her
life. So we decided St Monica's day should also be her birth-
day.
Four or five years passed in busy but uneventful routine.
There were the usual variations of bright and cloudy days which
mark all lives, so we will only say that as time went on ''the
Little Mother" increased in stature and goodness, in favor with
God and her neighbors.
She was a happy, simple little girl, not without minor faults;
perhaps she was a little indolent ; certainly she was not clever,
according to school ideas ; it was never her proud lot on prize-
day to go up to be crowned by the good Bishop with the
wreath of roses, as a mark of talent or proficiency, whatever
this last word may mean. But there was a universal chorus of
assent when Mamichee was elected '' Mother '' of the big family*
One evening, when I was alone in my room, Mamichee
knocked and asked if she might come in; permission being
given, she joined me at the open window. I was star-gaxing
with a very sore heart, for our fgood and noble founder had
gone to his eternal rest. In him we had lost our father and
friend.
The grand starry vault of heaven, studded with those mys-
terious brilliant witnesses of so many of earth's sorrows and
desolations, was a consolation to me. Mamichee's poetical
temperament answered to my unspoken thought.
'' Mother,'' she said — for once using the softer name — '' Moth-
er, is it not true that when a very holy saint dies God puts a
new star into the sky ? See, there is the Bishop's star ; it was
never there before. See how beautiful it is 1 "
And the little hand pointed to a great glowing light, some
far-off world shedding long rays of golden fire in an empty
space of the vast vault of heaven. Whether this was a new
star or no, the rays of glory lightened my weary soul, and the
words rose to my lips-
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I88 MAMICHEE [May,
** Who are these like stars appearing ?
These before God's Throne who stand ? "
And my heart was comforted.
I have spoken of her attachment to her earthly treasure,
the red pictured handkerchief. The spiritual treasure, the Pearl
of great Pricei that spoke to her soul, was the crucifix given
to her on her baptism.
It was beautiful to watch unseen her devotion and reverence,
when, the last thing before sleep and the first act of the morn,
the kneeling child tenderly lifted the image of the Crucified
and kissed the pierced Feet. Then out would come her earthly
treasure to wipe those Feet, while her loving voice murmured :
*' Poor, poor Jesus ! "
II.
<* Ban, Ban, Cal, Caliban,
Get a new master, be a new man/'^T^U TimftsU
There is always a ^'buf in the lot of all mortals. And
poor Mamichee found it One day there was an arrival which
filled even the most stolid heart with amazement.
** Is it human, or is it a demon ? '' burst from my lips when
I was called upon to say whether the '^ark" could find space
for a most extraordinary inmate. In the entrance hall various
groups of '' Ladies " were standing in attitudes of astonishment,
and our kind Saperior was hesitating as to her answer to the
new applicant.
We were all looking at a most truly pitiable and repulsive
object. Her name was '' Eva," surely a cruel irony that gave
the name of the ''fair mother of all living'' to the hideous
black being now before ujs. We hesitated whether to call her
a child or an old wrinkled woman of eighty.
She was crouching in a sitting posture, her keen, bright
eyes gleaming at us like some hunted animal taken in a trap;
and when our Superior tried to lift her, she sank again into a
heap. The respectable woman who had brought her to us
said that the poor thing could not stand, her bones were all
soft. The pitiable story was this — Eva had been found one
evening crawling about Bishop's Court, and the violent barking
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19IO.] MAMICHEE 189
of the dogs attracted attention to her. Good Dr. G ^ had
taken her in, and inquiries were made; some native women
who lived on the property came forward and said they knew
who she was, and that a wandering, very degraded bush tribe
had been about, and had gone some twelve years ago, leaving
a child ^'thrown away." This miserable being had crawled
about since then, living like and with the animals; she some-
times appeared in the huts, and she had been baptized '' Eva.''
How she had managed to exist all this time was a mystery;
my own belief is that she was so hideous that even wild beasts
and birds were afraid of her.
Her chest was emaciated to a fearful degree, and so were
her legs and arms; the latter were so long and wrinkled, that
when she was made to stand, the long withered fingers, armed
with formidable talons, touched the ground. But her poor
body was swollen and misshapen. Her head and face were
shaped, like a cocoa-nut. Her head was covered with thick
black wool, growing down to the eyes, which were small and
keen, with a most malicious expression; unlike the usual flat,
squat nose, a huge parrot-Jike beak took its place, and the
thin-lipped, cruel-looking mouth stretched from ear to ear. On
the top of each ear, as if to add the final touch to the univer-
sal horror, rose a sharp small horn, a real horny growth. No
hideous gargoyle, no demon of Dora's most fantastic creatiout
rould surpass the living reality that confronted us. Baboon
like, yet human. Demoniacal, yet a living soul. Marvelous
mystery i
It was quite impossible for the first few weeks to put Eva
with the other children, so unearthly and repulsive were her
habits, and so savage her outcries on the least provocation;
besides, the poor creature was almost a cripple from neglect.
It was one of those wonderful instincts given even to the
lower creation that made Eva crave for lime or earth; she
sought a natural remedy; just as the hen eagerly swallows
lime or mortar in order to harden the shell of her eggs so did
nature prompt Eva to devour the same thing. The doctor
told us to supply her with all bone- making material, and after
about six weeks of proper treatment she was able to stand and
walk. It was xurious, but there was certainly an attraction
between our refined and delicate head nurse and this poor
outcast of humanity. Such a contrast the pair made I
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I90 MAMICHEE [May,
One Sunday afternoon our Superior came in looking quite
elated.
'' Now/' said she, ** own that I am right. You all declared
that I was only wasting my time with Eva, and that she would
never be any better. Here is the proof that she is becoming
civilized. She actually refused to eat a lettuce I gave her, un-
less it was washed; only a few days ago she would just as
soon have eaten a mouthful of dirt as a ripe orange 1 She
can go to the other children to-morrow. I am rewarded for
my trouble.'' We were all overcome by this extraordinary
progress. And no more objections were made to Eva taking
her place under the shadow of the wings of the great Arch-
angel and being enrolled as a St Michael's child.
But the subdued hush that fell on the noisy groups in the
playground, and the look of fear on some of the children's
faces when I introduced Eva on the morrow, was a sure and
certain proof that there was still much to be desired. For
once, even Mamichee forgot her usual duty of coming forward,
in her capacity as '' Little Mother," to welcome and console
the stranger.
I called her, but she was not to be found for some time;
and when she did appear, and I had put Eva into her care,
the poor child actually shivered and turned perfectly white,
her fawn-like eyes dilated with fear; and she looked like a
child struck with a mortal terror. There was a marked antag«»
onism from the very first between the two children. Mamichee
could not conceal her fear. Eva did not try to conceal her
hatred and ill-will. With the advent of Eva our Little Mother
ceased to be a happy child.
What a mystery is human nature! Here between two
children, not so very far apart in outward circumstances, al-
ready a great gulf was fixed. The divine breath that had
breathed on Mamichee so that she became a 'Miving soul,''
seemed in Eva's case utterly wanting.
Troubles, quarrels, wickedness, all seemed to spring into
activity with Eva's arrival. We stood almost appalled by such
an outbreak; and yet it was difficult to convict the imp of
any very decided evil-doing.
She was clever in a sort of way, ''as slim as a slow," as
the black people say, meaning hereby '' as sly as a snake."
Nothing seemed to soften her heart ; she was full of spite, espe-
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I9IO.] MAMICHEE 191
daily against poor Mamichee, who seemed as fearfully fasct«-
nated by the glitter of those evil eyes as is some poor bird by
the crael serpent.
Often when an interesting book was being read aloud, during
the work lesson, the silence would be broken by a sharp scream
from some unfortunate child sitting somewhere near Eva, and
when the schoolmistress would investigate, with a stern rebuke
for the disturbance, the sobbing urchin would tell how Eva had
pinched her black and blue. Eva, meanwhile, with a leer,
would deny the accusation, and would point out that it was
impossible, for she sat ever so far from the victim. True, but
Eva could quickly pass her long arms behind four or five
children and fasten her formidable nails on some far-off victim.
Her special delight was to seize on ^amichee and hold her in
tome dark comer. Even if she did no bodily harm, she
managed to completely terrify her, so that the poor Little
Mother would weep and wail even in her sleep.
It was our custom, when the heat of the long summer day
was a little over, to take most of the children for a walk from
about 7 to 9 p. M. We often went to a beautiful pine- wood
not far from Cape Town. I do not know if it is still there,
but in those days it was an ideal spot To be deprived of
this walk was one of the most severe punishments in the
Home.
Eva had been unbearable all one hot day; every kind of
naughtiness and spite at last brought upon her the verdict she
richly deserved — to be left behind when the others started for
the much- prized walk. She did not howl or cry when the
happy children started, but she favored me with a most dia*
bolical glance as I followed my children.
It was almost dark by the time we were back. The fore-
most children ran eagerly into the large play-room, but recoiled
with a sort of shock. ^* What is the matter, children ? " I said,
** why don't you go in quietly ? *' A sobbing sort of cry arose,
and voices called out: ''O ma'am t don't go in, ma'am t it's
Eva ; she is wishing you dead, ma'am t "
Mamichee clung to me, crying as if her heart would break.
The children, meantime, were wildly excited, some pushing in
to see the show, while those who had seen it, came running
back to implore me not to go in. The busy ant-hill was in
commotion. I must just explain that '' wishing one dead" is
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192 Mamichee [May,
a peculiar and potent rite belonging to some tribes, and espe-
cially practised among Malays. It is done in this way:
The offended party wishes to revenge himself for some in-
jury, real or imaginary. The revenge consists of a little erec-
tion of any kind of rubbish, and is supposed to represent the
victim's grave. Then the person who is wishing you dead
goes round and round the grave in solemn procession, and
with waving arms and mystic charms curses the object of his
revenge. The spell is supposed to end in the sudden death
or slow, lingering torments of the unhappy victim. This spell
is very ancient, supposed to be very powerful, and therefore
much to be dreaded. It was in this way Eva was venting her
vengeance on me.
The children almost held their breath with awe when, after
scolding them for being so silly, they saw me walk quietly
into the room. I am quite sure they expected either to see
me drop down dead or fall into convulsions. Poor Mamichee
was nothing but a fountain of tears.
There in the gloom of evening was Miss Eva, as nature
made her, her uniform thrown to the winds, marching solemnly
round and round a little heap of stones and sticks — my grave
— her long, misshapen arms waving in time to some weird,
crooning notes, while she wove the mystic spell that was to
compass my death.
I felt very much inclined to laugh, but I preserved my
gravity; with a gesture of contempt I kicked away the erec-
tion, and in a stern verse ordered Eva off to bed. The dis-
turbance was quelled and order once more reigned. But, as
the discomfited Eva sneaked off to her bed, I noticed that she
passed close to the still trembling Mamichee, and in a low
voice said something that deepened the poor child's misery.
What it was I never found out.
About three weeks afterwards the blow fell on Mamichee.
It was about school-time when a knock was heard at the front
door and Mamichee was told to open the door. She went,
but she never came back. Wondering why she did not return,
we called her. No answer. Search was made everywhere
she was still missing when bed^time came. Everything was
done that could be done ; but all in vain. No trace or sign of
Mamichee was to be found.
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I9IO.] Mamichee 193
Time went on ; with a sort of dull acquiescence we bore the
loss of the dear '' Little Mother."
One very hot day, about a month after our loss, a very
hideous old black woman called and told us she had come for
Eva. She declared herselt to be Eva's grandmother and that
the tribe had sent her to buy her back 1 They wanted her, the
woman said, and Eva they would have. Eva, with a hideous
leer, declared she would go. We could not detain her, for we
had no legal power over her. Besides, we all had a sickening
impression that the rumor amongst the children was true, and
that Eva had had a hand in poor Mamichee's mysterious fate.
It was as if an evil spirit departed when Eva left, and if
joy and merriment did not return to St. Michael's Home for a
very long time, at least peace once more took up her abode
with us.
III.
'* Out of the Depthi.'*
For a time I had to leave South Africa. Some years after
my return there fell upon the poor country the curse of a
fearful drought; and that time is still known as the famine
year. The rivers ran dry; every green thing perished; and
the whole land was pirched and fruitless. The people died of
thirst; the beasts fell exhausted in the streets.
One morning as we went to early service at the Cathedral,
we came across one of these poor dying beasts, the only con-
solation being the thought that soon the poor animal would
cease to suffer. We were somewhat late, and, instead of tak-
ing the usual route, made for a short cut. On the edge of a
deep crevice or hole we saw the evil bird (vulture or aas-
vogel, as it is usually called in these parts) gloating over the
last moments of, as we supposed, some poor beast. As we
passed my heart gave a great thump, for I was almost sure
I saw something unusual lying amongst the stones at the bot-
tom of the hole.
"Stop, stop," I cried, clutching my friend's arm. "I am
sure that something strange is there. I saw the flutter of
rags.''
VOL XCI.^13
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194 Mamichee [May,
<< No such thing/' said she, ^' it is only either an ox or a
horse« poor thing; do come on, for we are late.*'
However, I persuaded her to look closer ; the aasvogel did
not even take the trouble to move, but turned its hideous head
and long bare neck to gaze at us. We did look; and, sure
enough, lying prone amid the stones, was a human being t
A faint flatter of the poor rags told us there was still life.
We called loudly to some black boys who were on their way
to their work, and we made them scare away the aasvogel
and clamber down the steep sides of the fissure.
With many gutteral exclamations they re*appeared, carry-
ing carefully the poor wasted form of a young girl. Some
foreboding made me cry out: "It's Mamichee, Mamichee 1"
as the poor object was held out to me. And so it was. Wasted
to a fearful degree, with only an old rag on, we found it difficult
to bslieve that this was our long*lost, sweet "Little Mother";
but, as if to confirm my words, out of one skeleton hand dropped
two undeniable proofs of her identity, a crucifix and a morsel
of ragged handkerchief. Yes, out of the very valley of the
shadow of death our child came home to us.
It did not take long to carry our fragile burden to the
Home, and with tearful eyes our amazing story was heard.
Needless to say with what loving care our poor Mamichee
was tended. She remained quite unconscious, and our kind
doctor said this might continue for many hours, nay, even
days. All we could hope for was that when the stimulants
had done their work, she would revive and regain conscious-
ness ; but the doctor held out little hope of ultimate recovery.
She was too far gone, he said. Her poor little body was
covered with the marks of many a cruel beating, and even
scars of burns were plainly visible upon it.
Mamichee was not left for a minute ; some one was always
watching for the eagerly desired moment of returning con-^
sciousness. For three days the little sufferer slept the sleep
of utter exhaustion ; save for a faint moan, when we moistened
her lips with brandy and milk, she never stirred; at last one
afternoon the soft, dark eyes unclosed, there was a deep sigh,
and a smile broke over the wasted face.
For a minute she seemed restless, and her thin hand
searched for something; one of us thought of her beloved
crucifix and gave it to her. She raised it to her mouth with
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I9IO.] MAMICHEE 195
difficalty, the smile grew deeper^ and with a loving kiss to the
Sacred Feet, the words so familiar of old fell from her lips:
**Poor, poor."
Mamichee all the world over, too, in the way she tried to
wipe my fast* falling tears away, her sweet look of compassion
as she said : '' Poor, poor Mother/' Most precious to as all
were the short intervals of reviving strength, and bit by bit
her sorrowful tale was told. She suffered chiefly from extreme
weakness and thirst; and nothing did she enjoy more than the
spoonful of big glittering hailstones which were carefully
caught and brought to refresh the parched throat.
<< Mamichee eating diamonds," she would say, with a feeble
laugh.
At length our patience was rewarded, though even now we
had to be very careful; the slightest over-strain brought back
the long, deadly fainting fits. She was so happy to be with
her ''dear White Ladies'' again; this was her old pet name
for us.
She was too feeble in the daytime to say much, but we
gathered more of her cruel sufferings and terrors from the
words dropped in her painful night-wandering talk. Then the
fever of delirium revealed much. It seems that as she opened
the door of the Keroom Street Home a thick shawl was
thrown over her head; she was muffled in its folds, gagged,
and carried off. It was all done in an instant; she could not
cry out When she awoke from a drugged sleep it w.as to
find herself hundreds of miles away, in the heart of the most
uncivilized regions of darkest Africa, and in the hands of one
of the most degraded heathen bush tribes. It was the same
tribe from which Eva came; and Mamichee was their pris-
oner. From the first she was cruelly treated and suffered
much; but far worse days were to come. For soon afterwards
Eva arrived; she was greeted with horrid yells of welcome,
and a terrible orgie was held in her honor.
Mamichee had to witness the disgusting scene — raw flesh
was eaten; and, more revolting still, blood formed the drink.
Mamichee, trembling with fear, was dragged forward, given
over to Eva to be her slave, and she was free to work her
evil will of spite upon the poor child.
She endeavored to force the loathsome draught of fresh
blood upon the shrinking Mamichee, who, however, managed
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196 MAMICHEE [May,
to resist it Her clothes were torn from her, but she found
an old petticoat, and refused to be, as Eva was, covered with
hideous stripes of red and white paint. '' I am a Christian," was
the answer to all the attempts to make her practise the revolt-
ing savage customs and habits.
'' Mother, they wanted to make me be like them; but I
said : ' No ; I am a Christian. I will not drink blood ; I will not
kiss the snake-devil.' Eva did« ma'am." But she could not
bear the horror of speaking even of what she had witnessed.
It was in the silence of the night that the terrified child
would cry out: ''Take the snake-devil away. Oh, Eva, do
not put the snake-devil on my face. I pray to God, to the
poor Jesus, not to the snake-devil." Then she would wake,
trembling from head to foot, and the only way to calm her
was to give her her beloved crucifix.
We asked her one day how she managed to keep it. Her
answer was: ''Mother, when they were eating or fighting or
drunk, I slipped away and made holes in a safe place, and
wrapped my poor Jesus in a big leaf or the bit of handker-
chief and buried Him ; and when night came I could creep
out, and I took Him up and said my prayers and was happy.
Mother."
"And these marks on your body, my darling?" I asked
hsr one day.
" That's Eva, Mother. When I would not do like she did,
and pray to the devil or be wicked, she used to tie me tight
with strings of aloe, and burn and beat me with prickly thorns/'
And yet with many a tear and sigh did the " Little Mother"
speak of " poor Eva." Poor, indeed 1
The same year that saw us in such trouble in the Free
State also brought its terrible lesson of the wrath of God to
many a heathen tribe. Small-pox, that awful scourge to all
black races, fell heavily on the part of Africa where the bushmen
lived. Eva's tribe was nearly 'decimated by it. They fell in
hundreds, and the few who were left wandered far and wide in
search of water and food. Eva was one of the first to perish.
From various sources Mamichee heard that the "White
Ladies" had come not so very far away, and had medicines
good for sickness.
Then came a ray of hope. She took advantage of the dis-
persion of the tribe; she hid herself in the bush; and she
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I9IO.] MAMICHEE 197
managed every evening to get farther and farther away frcm
her persecutors.
How she survived and was not devoured by wild beasts is
known to God alone and His holy aogels. She would say to
me : ** Mother, I looked every night for the Bishop's star, and
for the one you told me was the Southern Cross; and they
showed me where the White Ladies lived/'
Then came the end. Her strength was utterly spent, and
just as she came in sight of Bloemfontein, and could hear the
White Ladies' church bell, she fell into a deep ^'sluit/' and
clasping her crucifix felt she was dying. A great longing to
be able to see us all again, even for a moment, come over
her.
Out of the deep she cried unto her Lord, and He brought
her out of her distress *' unto the haven where she would be.**
The heavens were all alight with glory, the most beautiful
lambent flames, coming and going every instant; it seemed as
if the Golden Gates were opening very wide to receive the sweet
Little Mother whose gentle life was ebbing fast away.
We held our breath, it was almost more than human nature
could bear, the exceeding glory and beauty, for the whole In-
firmary was lighted with a dazzling flood of golden light. Our
sweet Mamichee opened wide once more those eyes, which we
never thought to see unclose in this world again. Her trem-
bling fingers found her crucifix. With one supreme effort she
raised it to her dying lips; and the old familiar words, fell
for the last time upon our listening ears: '^ Poor, poor Jesus t "
as her last kiss was given to the Pierced Feet.
Farewell, Sweet Mamichee, the Southern Cross shines bright,
high over your quiet grave.
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PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM.
BY JOHN J. BURKE, C.S.P.
I HE question of social reform, so widely agitated
to-day, is essentially connected with the question
of publicity. Every department of life, every de-
tail of contemporary history, every minute par-
ticular, even with regard to private, personal
matters, and private and personal motives, are to-day the sub-
jects of publicity. Publicity means the publication, the making
known in some sort of public way — in a way that is accessible
to all men or the great majority of men — of particular data
concerning an individual, an institution, or a nation. This data
may be true or false. For the present we will suppose that it
is always true, and we will define publicity as a making known,
in a way accessible to all, of certain truths, certain actual con-
ditions, habits, aets, with regard to an individual or an insti-
tution, a state or a nation.
The greatest agency in publicity to-day is the press; and
by the press we mean the printed word which includes the
book, the quarterly, the monthly, the weekly, and the daily
newspaper. Whatever other agencies of publicity there may
be — and such agencies are almost innumerable — the curious
gossiper, the ordinary talk and conversation of the individual,
private social committees of this kind and of that, legislative
inquiries, city, state, and national investigations and reports —
whatever other agencies there may be, the press, and in par-
ticular the daily newspaper, is the most efficacious organ of
publicity that we possess.
The daily press gives to the individual the food for nourish-
ment, the flesh and bone, the soul and the heart, we might
say, that make him the kind of social being that he is. Morn-
ing and evening, and some days quite oftener, the newspaper
goes to him with word of what the world is doing and think-
ing and aicntng at. True, it reflects various schools of opinion,
and in this respect the reader will be influenced by the edi-
torial page or the manner in which news items are presented
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igio.] Publicity and Social Reform 199
by his own particular newspaper. But, apart from all else, the
press is the great world-wide, trumpet- voiced organ of publicity^
There is no human activity of any kind which it does not re-
port Everything, without exception, is grist to its mill. It
has its representatives in every part of the globe. It has de-^
stroyed privacy. Nothing is sacred to it, at least as far as the
sacredness of silence is concerned. It is the creator of publicity.
Of necessity, almost, it must run into license; and oftentimes
abuse its power. But it has been an immense power for good.
Every movement, every society, every school, must to* day have
its printed organ.
And yet this very power of the press, at times the creator
and always the index of publicity, must itself be governed by
the laws of effective publicity — if it is to achieve good. For
publicity in itself is merely publicity. It simply means the
making known of certain conditions concerning individuals or
institutions. And as we are to treat of publicity as an agent
of social reform, we must lay down the conditions essential
for publicity if it is to be an effective agent in social reform,
in the bettering of social conditions, in the cute of social
evils, in the offering to larger and larger groups of the better
opportunities of life.
The publication broadcast of evil, unjust, illegal conditions
is in itself sterile. Having done this, we have not by this
alone advanced one step towards the removal of evil condi-
tions or towards social reform of any kind. Members of a
political organization may know for years of the corruption^
the vice, the moral degradation, which said political organiza-
tion encourages and promotes, and never utter a word in pro-
test. Extend this membership to thousands — yea, to hundreds
of thousands— the knowledge of evil conditions, the publicity
may be there, and yet social reform is never thought of;
rather the abuses and the evils are allowed to increase. How
many thousands of our citizens know well to-day the needs of
our crowded city districts; the needs of mothers and fathers
and children ; the needs of the hungry ; the unemployed ; the
crippled; the homeless and the physically and the morally
helpless; know all these things, and yet do nothing? Pub-
licity has made them known, and publicity can go no further.
Not only is this true, but publicity may, in some ways,
and in very effective ways, be the enemy instead of the agent.
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200 PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM [May,
of social reform. How often, when you plead with one who
has been dishonest in business, do you receive the answer:
'' Oh, well« every one does it. We've all got to do it, else we
would never get along." Uncover the sins of well-known
men, of such as were esteemed leading patriots and statesmen,
of legislators ; and, in many cases, they who read the exposures
will learn to look less fearfully upon evil, and in their own
dishonest course console themselves with the thought that
they have such famous companions. Uncover the depredations,
the conscienceless piracy of a number of great corporations;
tell the crowd that the traffic manager of a great railway, in
reply to the question : ** Why did you violate the law of the
United States?'' answered: ''For business reasons," and there
will be many who will conclude that business is a more im-
portant thing than the law of the country. Uncover ruthlessly
the story of debauchery, of license, and of murder; picture the
criminal as a hero; and such publicity will make of many
moral and physical wrecks, the worst enemies of social reform.
The great corruptionists of the business and political world
whom publicity has exposed have, through this very publicity,
won many imitators. Murderers have been made murderers,
because they were taught by the organs of publicity how
murder was committed. ''Rtffles" has had his real children,
who, after his manner, became thieves. The publicity given to
the easy way in which marriage may be dissolved has broken
up many families; and alluring pictures of ease, of pleasure,
of indulgence, have won many captives. *
The first essential requirement of publicity as an effective
agent in social reform is that the data given to the public
must be true. The individual and the corporate body resent
nothing more rigorously and more justly than a lie. It is the
first claim of all of us that we be presented to others as we
really are; that our claims, our purposes, our doctrines, should
be truthfully stated. And this is a natural right belonging to
every one. The American spirit of fair play champions no
spirit so loyally as it does this right of every man and every .
institution.
And as it is a right, so is there a corresponding responsi-
bility upon the part of every individual and of every corpor-
ate body — even of the newspapers — to see to it that in their
statements they tell the truth; that they make themselves
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I9IO.] PUBLICITY AKD SOCIAL REFOEM 201
certain, with evidence morally certain, at least, tfaat ir bat they
publish is the truth. The crusade against vivisection has
oftentimes been responsible for many exaggerations, fahehoods,
and misrepresentations, and has at times really injured the
fight against unnecessary cruelty to animals. How idle it is
for a particular newspaper to champion the cause of anti-vivi-
section simply because this same paper has been restrained
from publishing certain medical advertisements by a medical
society ? If we resort to lies, then social reform is out of the
question, for whatever we may achieve for the moment will
ultimately be of no avail. The unsparing justice of time will
exact payment either from us or from our children.
Secondly, publicity to be effective must be organized ; and
it will be effective according to the measure of organized effort
4>ehind it. An individual may have knowledge of serious social
evils, of evils that cry to heaven for vengeance. He may
shout the evils from the housetops and his voice may fall as
ineffectively as snowflakes upon a warm pavement. A small
social body may be championing a most worthy cause, but
unless it can, through organized methods and means, make the
evils known, it can never achieve success. On the other hand,
a newspaper or a magazine, because it is organized, not only
in the sense that it has a large circulation, but also in the
sense that it has organized brains back of it, can appeal in a
way that will attract the attention and excite the interest of
the public.
It is known that The Jungle^ by Upton Sinclair, led event-
ually to the national Meat Inspection Bill. It is not generally
known that the contents of that book appeared first in the
columns of a Socialist paper in Chicago, and that the pub-
licity there had no effect. The disclosures were still-born.
The book was brought to publishers in New York, who put
two investigators on the task of verifying the statements. The
book was published, but still its disclosures had but little
effect. Later it was brought to the attention of ex-President
Roosevelt. He sent two investigators to Chicago, and in a
short while the revelations aroused the country.
The terrible condition under iiihich the men and women
and children lived in Painter's Row, Pittsburg, were exposed
by The Survey ^ the organ of the Charities Organization So-
ciety. But the expoi^ had no effect. Conditions remained
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the same until a weekly journal of large circulation published
an account of these conditions — and in a short while Painter's
Row was altered for the better.
The long hours of the steel workers^that every one of
five had to work twelve hours a day for seven days of the
week — were known for a long while. Not until a writer of
note exposed the outrageous wrong in a monthly magazine
was justice done to these laborers.
Brains are more essential to effective organization than
money. And the reason that so many campaigns of publicity
in a good cause fail is because they are not intelligently con-
ducted or because they are opposed by campaigns of publicity
in aa evil and tyrannical cause with shrewd organizers behind
them — organizers and champions that know how to present
specious arguments, and how to color as they wish the pres*
entation of facts or of so-called facts. Worthy publicity must,
then, be shrewd and tactful, must employ, as far as is legiti-
mate, the wise ways of this world, must be organized in lead-
ers, in money, in followers, in centres of distribution; and in
so far as it is thus organized will it achieve success. The
National Civic Federation, for example, has just begun to
found branches in every State of the Union for the adoption
of uniform laws with regard to matters of social reform.
Publicity must not alone concern itself with the truth, it
must not alone be well organized in its measures, its agencies,
in the manner in which data is presented to the public; but
it must be unbiased, or, at least, it must come from sources
that are not prejudiced, that are not working for an ulterior
purpose. We do not say that it is not the duty of a society
or a social body to expose the very evils which such a society
was organized to correct. It is not ineffective for a labor or-
ganization to expose the injustices of anti»labor legislation.
But publicity is most effective when the evidence is presented
strictly and frankly as evidence, when it is put out dispassion-
ately, coldly, to tell its own attractive or repulsive story.
Too much of the ''stuff'' presented to us to-day is exagger-
ated, and exaggerated for a sinister purpose. The newspaper
controlled and owned by the capitalist will exaggerate the dis-
astrous consequences and the terrible rioting with bloodshed
and murder of a railway strike. Newspapers that claim to
represent the laboring man will exaggerate and misrepresent
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i9ia] Publicity and Social reform 203
the men and the ways of capitaL Socialist papers will con-
ceal the good work of many present^^day institutions and paint
in extravagant colors what the future is to be. All who are
guilty of these things, in so far as they may be guilty, are the
enemies, not the agents, of social reform. And it is true,
indeed, that we have, by our extravagance, overstepped our-
selves. We have overstepped ourselves in our impatience, in
our zeal for a party cause. It is known to every one versed
at all in the newspaper business that there are a number of
news agencies throughout the country that can be subsidized
to manufacture whatever news is desired, to '' write op " ac-
cording to order.
During the coal strike some years ago the reporter of a
great Eastern daily was warned by the head of his paper to
write up the news in such a way as not to injure Mr. Smith,
who was a director in one of the roads that carried coal and
also a stockholder in that particular newspaper* A similar
message was sent to the editor of another daily by its owner
after a railway accident that was caused by the company's
carelessness and that resulted in the loss of many lives.
"Don't write anything that will injure Mr. Jones'' — ^Jones was
a director of the railway and a stockholder in the paper. If
we are true members of the democracy, we will be emphatic;
we will be angry, but we will sin not; we will keep at the
good cause day by day and lay bare the multiform evils that
to-day cry for reform ; but in our work we will be honest, fair,
impartial, willing to take what we give; and if the desired suc-
cess does not come to us in a day, we will be willing to com-
mit our cause to truth and to justice, for in their hands are
we ever safe. He that lies for the sake of a cause is the worst
enemy any cause can have.
Take a publicity that embraces these characteristics — pub-
licity that is truthful, organized, unbiased ; subject to it almost
any evil condition of society, and that cdndition will be reme-
died. It may not be cured radically and absolutely, but it
will be cured in the sense that no one will publicly stand
sponsor for it. It will, in most cases, give way to a corre-
spondingly good social reform.
Publicity in itself is ineffective. But publicity works on
the souls and hearts and minds of people. These are the
springs that it excites to action. And the jouls and hearts
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204 PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM [May,
and minds of the people— and by the people we understand
the intelligent, thoughtful, responsible portion of the com-
munity — ^are radically and naturally good and not evil.
The root of effective publicity is planted deep. It shows
itself only in action. It is tremendously delicate and sensitive.
But its strength is essentially the strength and the only strength
of the individual both in himself and as a member of society.
Its growth is something like the upbringing of a child, for into
a child's growth and make-up a thousand agencies enter that
we scarce know of. The slightest wind from this quarter or
that quarter affects him. The root lies down deep in the
spiritual nature of man. It is his soul. The soul makes the
man and the souls of men make society. Upon the soul of
man publicity plays. The men who to-day are advocating
principles that will sap the individual of all moral and all
spiritual worth, are the worst enemies of mankind. Degrade
the community; tell the growing youth and the growing girl
that they can feed upon nothing but the husks of fruitless
materialism; tell them that this world is all the world that
they will have; tell them that there is no difference between
virtue and vice; and immediately you drive them back to sav-
agery, where the only law is self and the survival of the fittest.
On the question of publicity we must deal with human nature.
Men can never be angels when we deny the existence of the
angelic world. Neither can we falsify history and cut this pres-
ent generation off from its fathers. We cannot deny social con-
tinuity any more than we can deny the mothers who bore us.
The present power of publicity, the reason why it has achieved
the reforms it has, is because it worked upon souls and hearts
that had a sense of moral righteousness, that knew good from
evil — the sons and daughters of a race that has been civilized
by Christianity. And the agency that will ever rob human
hearts and human souls of that religious sense, of that moral
sense, that will deny it to the children of our race, are the
enemies of human kind. They are greater tyrants than the slave-
drivers of old, because with their merciless whips of materialism
and anarchy they are seeking to drive the human race back to
that primeval gloom of ignorance and of savagery.
To quote from Bryce's American Commonwealth : " In the
formation of public opinion the ethical principle must not be
overlooked. Moral responsibility is not outside the sphere of
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19IO.] PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM 205
politics. Let free peoples hold fast, theoi to the great truth:
that communities are responsible ; that without unspotted purity
and public faith; without sacred public principle, fidelityi and
honor, no political government can give dignity to political
society/*
Publicity is effective because the public body of men and
women to whom the real facts have been presented, the public
body educated, intelligent, moral — as the public body as a
whole is to-day — will rouse itself and demand the reform of a
publicly known social evil.
. To-day, organized, employed with great intellectual skill,
publicity is very powerful. All political and social endeavor
rests upon it. It dictates the platforms of political parties; it
frames legislation; it creates legislators. Under its seething
condemnation no man can live with comfort in the community
whose public opinion is against him. It makes and unmakes
governments. Its power is becoming more and more apparent
and government itself is calling upon it to furnish the evidence
that is government's own salvation against the dishonesty,
the corruption, the secret lawlessness of great powers. Yet
the truth remains that, like all other powers, publicity also
may overstep itself. For, indeed, when we come to consider
what it has effected in the last five years, we are tempted to
believe that in itself it is a panacea for all social evils.
One of the greatest benefits and examples of publicity was
the appointment, in 1903, of a Commissioner of Corporations.
To this Commissioner, who was under the supervision of the
Bureau of Commerce and Labor, was granted the same power
with regard to corporations as was given to the Interstate
Commerce Commission over its particular field. We say the
most beneficial example of publicity, because first : the appoint-
ment of such a commissioner was the result of public agitation
for years previous ; and, secondly : because the work of that
Bureau has made public a mass of information concerning the
conduct and management of corporations that has led to wide-
spread knowledge of their methods; led in time to the suc-
cessful demand for public control of them — a demand that is
meeting with more effective success every day and that won
its greatest success in the recent Corporation Publicity Act.
And the worth of publicity, apart from what remedial
legislation it may effect, may be judged from the words of the
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Gommissioner of Corporations who, in his report of 1906,
said : " The work of the Bureau during the past year presents
very strikingly the power of efficient publicity for the correc-
tion of corporate abuses wholly apart from the penal or reme-
dial processes of the court."
Publicity has exposed the piratical and conscienceless meth-
ods of some great corporations. In 1905 it affected an inves-
tigation of the methods of Life Insurance Companies, and led
to radical changes for the better in the state laws governing
their conduct and their obligations. To-day publicity is reveal-
ing the sins of Fire Insurance Companies, and will eventually
achieve a like reform in this field also.
Publicity has made known to the people the social evils of
great monopolies and caused them to give way more and more
before public control. In this city of New York the fight for
eighty-cent gas was distinctively a fight of publicity.
Five years ago public exposure was made of the evils of
patent medicine and of what are called ** canned goods." The
result of such publicity was the national '' Pure Food Law,"
because of which the people now know what they eat and drink.
The public campaign against tuberculosis has, by mere publicity,
done more than all the medical fraternity ever did to turn
back the tide of this dread disease.
Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles, of the United States Marine
Hospital Service, discovered the hook-worm seven or eight
years ago, perhaps more. He knew the symptoms of its vic-
tims, and how to cure them. He tried to get his superiors to
take some action or to allow him to. Nothing happened. A
discovery that held hope for two million sick slumbered for
lack of publicity. The Country Life Commission was appointed
by President Roosevelt. Mr. Walter Page, a North Carolinian
by birth, and editor of the Worla^s Work, was a member of
the Commission. He was, and is also, a member of Mr. Rocke-
feller's General Education Board. The Country Life Commis-
sion took Dr. Stiles on its trip South. The World's Work pub-
lished the first comprehensive article on the subject. It was
a dramatization, as it were, of Dr. Stiles statistical and terri-
bly convincing account. This article was the opening wedge.
Dr. Stiles secured an audience with Mr. Rockefeller, and the
latter, seeing the facts, established a $10,000,000 foundation
devoted to the hook-worm's destruction and to an active health
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campaign in every Southern state. All this might just as well
have been done eight years ago. The situation existed. Dr.
Stiles had made his discovery. He knew the people were
sick and he knew how to cure them. Nothing was done until
effective publicity turned the wheel.
The work of the Committee of Fifty did much good work
in making public the evils of intemperance, and of the saloon
evil. A weekly journal is now carrying on a campaign for a
worthy liquor law, and such a law has, we believe, been already
adopted in Iowa.
The loan shark, the usurious villain who lives on the wreck-
age of homes, has long been a great social evil in every large
community. Publicity campaigns have been waged against this
evil in Baltimore, Boston, Omaha, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, De-
troit, and New York, and have met with much success. The
public exposure of this evil gave rise to the National Asso«
elation of Remedial Loan Companies, whose whole campaign
is, in turn, built upon publicity.
To take one city as an example, and to show what may
be accomplished there in the way of social reform by the power
of publicity, I would select Pittsburg and the work of the
Charities Organizition publication — Ihe Survey. The Survey
was backed by only $35,cxx), and a small band of energetic
men. But The Survey took hold. Its trained investigators re-
vealed many phases of the life and the living conditions of the
wage -earners, racial, social, industrial. The publicity of The Sur^
vey has secured the founding of many classes for the education
of immigrants, and at such hours as the immigrants may attend.
The Survey secured the appointment of the Pittsburg Civic
Commission. One of the most noteworthy acts of the Commis-
sion is its championship of a recent bond issue of $7,cxx),ooo
to be devoted to the improvement of the waterway system,
parks, playgrounds, bridges, sewer, tuberculosis hospitals, etc.,
etc. Its work stopped the ravages of typhoid fever in Pitts-
burg and the high rate of typhoid fever dropped to almost
normal in 1908. It secured for Pittsburg an independent Health
Department; it has reformed tenement house inspection and
wiped out some of the worst shacks of Pittsburg. It has re-
vealed the neglect of law on the part of the traction compa-
nies. It has reorganized the juvenile court work and reformed
the juvenile reformatory.
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2o8 Publicity and Social reform [May,
This saccessfal publicity work of The Survey has led to the
establishment of '' Surveys ** in other cities.
Example upon example might be enumerated^ did space
permit, to show the tremendous power of publicity-^irom the
attempt of a few earnest citizens, lovers of social welfare, to
do away with a disreputable saloon in this corner of a large
city, to the reform of great national abuses.
Publicity has by no means succeeded in securing all — yea,
it has not succeeded in securing half the legislation that it has
demanded. But it has perhaps done better than this. It has,
through its agitation, aroused the people to a sense of their
power; to a sense of their personal duty as citizens of the
democracy; it has deepened the sense of human brotherhood
and has shown and is showing more emphatically every day
that our brother's welfare is our own welfare. And the vie*
tories that it has attained are but happy prophecies of the
greater ones it has yet to achieve.
Its greatest agency is the press and the need, therefore, of
a conscientious, upright press — a press that cannot be won, or
swayed, or influenced by money is more apparent than ever.
And more apparent than ever is the blessing that we enjoy of
the liberty of the press — a liberty that surely often runs into
license, but a liberty that the moral sense of the community
will guard and preserve and keep from anarchy.
That liberty must be kept within ;the bounds of law, for
law is, in turn, the safeguard of liberty, and without law liberty
would ^bo impossible. Any agency that would destroy the
liberty of the press is, therefore, a deadly enemy of the de-
mocracy. It is an enemy of the best interests of a people.
There is such a power at work to-day, and it is working strenu-
ously to inculcate its doctrines and to increase its adherents.
That power is extreme, radical Socialism. By Socialism we
mean that body of doctrine which champions a complete social-
istic and communistic state. At the \:r^^iry. of the well-
being of a republic lies liberty of thoug/.t a;.i of discussion
concerning all matters relating to the politic i. life of the
republic. We must have individual initiar'/r 4i .1 the^ right
to push individual initiative. The great vic^- .Vo: publicity
have been won by the voice of the few that ' >p:aji:d to the
many, and the power of the many to make th' si.A^ and the
nation hear and answer their demands. That po %er n.-jst ever
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I9IO.] PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM 209
flourish. As we have the right to make legislators, so must
we have the right to unmake them. The voice of the few
raised in a righteous cause must never be hushed.
Under a Socialistic State liberty of the press would be
dead. In order to be brief in supporting this charge, we will
but say that while the champions of radical Socialism are
amazingly free in giving their opinion on all other questions
under and above the sun, they are, as a rule, unanimously
silent on the important and urgent question of what would be-
come of a free press under a Socialistic state. The reasons
why a free press would be an impossibility under the rule of
such a State are, we think, obvious enough. Socialistic writers
who have ventured to write on the matter, admit the impossi-
bility.
H. G. Wells says: "It is still open to the anti- Socialist to
allege that Socialism may incidentally destroy itself by choking
the channels oi its own thinking and the Socialist has still to
reply in vague, general terms.''*
Mermeix writes: "The press under a Socialist government
could publish nothing beyond the official dispatches which were
forwarded to it by the Society. The government would rule
the public mind.^'t
And Karl Kautsky admits that "Papers as well as books
would be under the censorship. The people would read noth-
ing except by permission of the government."!
From these quotations it will be evident that we are in no
way unjust to extreme Socialism when we charge it with being
the deadly enemy of popular government.
The foundation stone of popular government is the indi-
vidual. The virtue of publicity is that it gives to the indi-
vidual the facts of every case: the arguments pro and con.
It is for the individual to sit as a judge. Upon him rests the
welfare of his country. The popular ballot is the government.
More and more is this truth becoming apparent not alone to
the social student but to the man in the street.
Publicity with its power has taught us this — that we as
citizens of our country should take an intelligent interest in
public affairs; we should realize that such a seemingly far* off
*N«w Worlds fir Old, p. 293,
t Quoted from TJU New Socialism, by Jane T. Stoddart, p. X5X.
% Idim., p. 153.
VOL. XCI.— 14
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210 PUBLICITY AND SOCIAL REFORM [May,
thing as the tariff effects our pocket-book; that under the
present woolen duties, for example, the clothes of the work-
ingman are costing from 35 to 50 per cent more than they ought
to cost Whether it is profitable for him that they should cost
so much he must decide for himself in his use of the ballot.
The illegal monopoly, the forced labor of women and children,
the campaign for better homes, for a more equal distribution
of the opportunities of life, for the suppression of tuberculosis
—all these things should be known by him. He should real-
ize that his yote is the effective power to remedy them. He
sits as a judge, and not only as a judge but as an ezecutiye
also. In all the measures of life there is a moral purpose.
And if he sits not as a moral, upright, honest, pure judge^
then popular government is a failure.
It is eternally true that publicity would bear but evil fruit
unless it worked upon a power that directed it to good. Its
ultimate appeal is to human nature and to human nature in
the great majority, the great crowd. At the very basis, then,
of all popular effort for good and for progress is the doctrine
that in human nature there is a power that makes for good
rather than for evil.
Tell the growing boy that he is good-for-nothing and, as
a rule, he will be good-for-nothing. Tell the community— the
nation — that all its people are evil, that their tendencies are
to evil rather than to good, and they will lose faith in their
power of betterment and of reform. Preach the doctrine that
human nature is radically and intrinsically evil, and publicity
will produce no good, for publicity works on human nature.
Present the doctrine that there is no such thing as sin — that
evil is simply a mistake ; that the good man and the bad man
will eventually share the same fate before the eternal God—
and any such thing as reform and progress or social better-
ment will be an absolute impossibility.
The seeds of publicity would then fall upon a rock and a
rock never grows the living grain, nor bears the good fruit.
Through the ages and to-day the Catholic Church states the
fundamental doctrine against those who have denied it — that
human nature is not essentially bad ; that man's tendency is to
good rather than to evil — and when we look at it deeply
enough and honestly enough we will find that if we believe in
the fruits of publicity we must believe also in the potential
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power of human nature to achieve goodness through the di-
vine help and guidance of Almighty God. That man> whatever
sins he may be guilty of, will, if an evil condition — of dis-
honesty, of injustice, of tyranny, of slavery — be presented to
him ; if he finds a shameless traffic in girls, or a denial to men
of the right to a living wage; or to his children of the right
to education — that man, in the face of the evil, will rise, with
a heart made strong by the teachings and the love of the In*
camate God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and fight for goodness
and justice and purity.
We have an abundance of power in our hands. If we are
too indifferent to use it; if we sit back at our ease, selfishly
satisfied because things go well with ourselves; if we leave it
to others to monopolize the cry of humanity's welfare; then
they who so monopolize it, who night and day cry it from
the housetops, even though their principles be wrong, even
though in the name of humanity they will eventually draw
down humanity to ruin and to chaos, they will, for ^e present^
lead the community, and in the eyes of the coipmunity be
heroes and leaders.
As we have the power and the right principles so must we
be ever alive; alive to every social evil and every social wrong;
alive to the evil that exists next door to our home; that
flourishes on the very street where we live; alive to the evils
that are affecting our social circles; our city, our state, and
our nation. And if we be so alive we, who have the power
and the principles to guide us, will not only rob the enemy
of glory, yea, we will be the greatest of victors, because we
will win that enemy to our own standard and make them what
we wish them to be : loyal disciples of Christ and of His Church ;
and energetic, faithful citizens of the democracy of America.
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THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM.
BY MARIE MANNING.
T seemed when people wanted anything very much,
and there was a strong probability that they
were not going to get it, the thing to do was
to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint —
barefoot if need be — and "vow'' things to him,
like building a cathedral in his honor, or presenting him with
a new tomb.
Of course, when one was only "seven goin' on eight,''
these things might be a little difficult to manage by reason of
one's pocket money being only five cents a week. But the
saint about whom Theodora had been reading— one Thomas
k Becket by name — seemed to be a person of very catholic
taste and open to conviction along lines of argument within
reach of the humblest means. Thus he seemed to grant a
great many favors to people who walked barefoot to Canter-
bury. Theodora was quite willing to walk barefoot anywhere
— the weather was still comfortably warm — it would make a
beautiful "vow"; in fact, she would have liked to start im-
mediately.
The favor Theodora was seeking was all but a lost cause-
she was going to be sent to boarding-school. Thus would end
her reign as: "Lady of the House"; which sovereignty, with
attendant privileges and perquisites, had lasted since the death
of her grandmother some six months before. Things called
"prospectuses" were in her father's desk upstairs, and Aunt
Winship was having made shiny black alpaca dresses that she
was to wear at this hateful reformatory with the primmest of
little white aprons. It will readily be seen how pressing was
the business of the pilgrimage — if this calamity was to be
averted.
Like most great discoveries, Theodora happened on the ac-
count of these wonder-working pilgrimages quite by chance.
She had wandered into the shabby old library — a very haven
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I9IO.] THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM 213
for the unappreciated — and decided to indulge in a little well-
earned melancholy. Musty smelling brown books climbed tier
on tier to the ceilingi except where there were gaps in the
shelves like teeth missing from a comb. There was an old
desk in the corner — an ever-welling fountain of mystery and
delight — alleged to have a secret drawer.
This morning, for the hundredth time, she stood in front
of the desk repeating a really imposing, if ineffectual, rhyme,
beginning :
"Hickory, Hickory stick-
Point out the treasure quick — ''
when her attention was arrested by a bar of light that streamed
through a broken slat of the shutter and pointed a golden
finger at a certain book on the 3helf standing out a little from
its fellows. Theodora, who lived in a world peopled with
fairies who transacted a vast amount of business entirely by
signs and omens, saw in this a summons not to be disregarded.
The book was full of the most delightful colored pictures-
people really taking advantage of their position as grown* ups
and doing nice things. "A company of squires and dames
hawking," was the line beneath one. Here they were, in the
most gorgeous costumes — really as handsome as the ladies and
gentlemen had worn in the circus parade— a bird was wheeling
through the sky in pursuit of a smaller bird, a man with puffy
cheeks was blowing a horn ; she fancied she could almost hear
it, clear and thin, coming from far away.
A little further on was another picture : '' Group of Can-
terbury Pilgrims." This was the nicest of all, they rode such
square, chubby little horses, and there was something about
them, as they jogged along, that made Theodora feel she
should like mightily to join their company. The reading was
not hard. True, an occasional monster of a word appeared to
contest her further knowledge of these goodly folk, but she
had at command a sufficient verbal retinue to turn the odds
against a chance four-syllable behemoth.
Why had she not been told about these things before?
Why had she been forced to glean such arid information as:
"Seven times seven are forty-nine"; when real people came
and went on pilgrimages and had their wishes granted like
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214 Theodora and the pilgrim [May,
people in fairy stories. Canterbary might be in the next
county for aught she knew — "Jogafry*' came next to tables
in her educational inquisition. Such information as she boasted
belonged chiefly to the " rag-bag ^* order of things — odds and
ends grasped from much hungry reading.
It seemed, if you couldn't afford to build cathedrals, you
could do things like cutting off your hair when you were a
lady and extremely proud of it; or, let it grow if you were a
gentleman and it promised to be in the way. Oh, there were
lots and lots of things one could promise— Thomas k Becket
seemed to be a very open-minded saint indeed I
Theodora closed the book, her mind was made up— she,
too, would go on a pilgrimage. In the meantime it was just
as well to arrange the details out of doors ; the weather was a
standing invitation to one's soul. The whole world was full
of sunshine, crispness, and joy. She could close her eyes and
still hear, in imagination, the clear, thin blowing of the horn
that she had seen in the picture. The fallen leaves rustled
silkily under foot and bright scarlet and yellow ones fluttered
down to join them like heralds in motley — gay messengers
'twixt earth and air.
Theodora ran down the back porch- steps, made her way
through the kitchen garden, and flung a handful of corn-bread
to the doomed fowls imprisoned at the cook's pleasure. A
little foot-road that connected their place with Aunt Winship's
was her objective point. This road was private property, and
no one was supposed to use it but the two families; this
morning, however, it was not without its wayfarer — a dirty»
trampish looking fellow with close to a week's growth of beard
on his face. A yachting-cap shoved on the back of his head
revealed a countenance not unlike a weather map, the growth
of beard on the lower half indicating the storm centre, the
cloudless upper half that fair weather might be expected. He
was clad in an assortment of garments that, in their lack of
congruity, had something of the effect of a sentence that will
not parse — the frock coat, as subject, could never be made to
agrree with the bicycle trousers, which stood in the relation-
ship of a predicate; a pair of patent leather pumps — jaunty
even in old age — was the ill-adjusted contributory clause.
A few days before Theodora might have been frightened,
but "reading maketh a full man," and in the meantime she
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19IO.] THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM 215
had added to her store of human knowledge tales of pilgriaa
and pilgrimages.
Here, undoubtedly, was one of them— even to the staff he
carried. True, his clothes were not as becoming as those of
the ladies and gentlemen in the print, but that only proved
he was pilgriming harder — had done something worse, or wanted
something more. Theodora was delighted to have found an
authority on the subject then engrossing her thoughts.
"Good- morning/ 'she said with her most ingratiating smile.
"I'm very glad to meet you/'
The pilgrim seemed surprised at the cordiality of his recep-
tion. He gave a little prefatory growl and brought out his
" good-morning " a little awkwardly, as if, perhaps, it was quite
a while since he had used it.
" It is a beautiful morning for a pilgrimage," she continued
genially. But her companion did not seem inclined for small
talk — perhaps silence was part of bis vow — or at least he might
have sworn not to talk any more than necessary.
" You ain't got anything about you in the way of a ' hand-
out,' have you?"
"A hand-out— what's that?"
"The hand* out is a local issue — in New England it's apt
to be cold fish-balls and me]>be pie ; if it's ben a failure, round-
about here it's corn-pone. Sometimes it's a shot-gun and some-
times it's dish-water. Oh, it's got plenty of aliases."
"Dear me, I'm so sorry I gave the corn-bread to the
chickens; but they have to be killed, you know, and I try
to make things as pleasant for them as possible while they
last."
"You run and ask your mother if she's got anything for
a poor man to eat — I'm hollow as a drum, I am."
" My mother isn't living, neither is my grandmother — I am
the lady of the house now."
"Then you run and see how well you can do for a poor
man."
" If it was only me I'd love to ; but our cook's so cross,
if you can wait till lunch I'll give part of mine — they let me
eat it out of doors."
" Oh, I'd be dead before then, starved to death at your
door, an' you the lady of the house, too. There was a little
girl up near Winchester, an' she gimme a regular parlor-car
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2i6 Theodora and the pilgrim [May,
meal, she did, she was a lady of the house as knowed her
place,"
'' And she walked right in and got the things and wasn't
afraid of anything?''
'' She was as brave as a lion/' affirmed the wanderer.
'' You wait here and 1*11 be out jjtesently." She hadn't
gone more than a dozen steps before she turned: ''Are you
sure that other little girl had a cook ? "
'' On my honor as a gentleman, they kep' a cook."
'' Had she liyed with the little giri's family a long time-
years an' years?"
"She had been with 'em so long/' said the pilgrim sol-
emnly, ''that the fambly theirselves seem to have butted in/*
With an absence of noise, almost professionally burglarious,
Theodora gained the kitchen. Aunt Sally was in the store-
room beyond, singing:
"Mount Nebo's given away O, Lord,
Mount Nebo's given away—"
Aunt Sally pronounced it, and Theodora understood it to be:
"My knee-bone's given away." And both regarded it as a
petition singularly appropriate to scrubbing, or duties that
called into requisition that particuUr joint of the system.
The chatelaine helped herself nervously and quickly to sev-
eral rashers of bacon, a couple of kidneys, corn muffins, and
coffee sweetened redundantly, and was leaving at a lively tempo,
when Aunt Sally called: "What you-all doin' wif Unc' Josh's
breaff ust ? "
" Please, Aunt Sally, I'm only taking a little something to
a holy man who is goin' on a pilgrimage."
" What you-all mean by a holy-man ? — dat he am ragged
or dat he am righteous?" demanded the cook sharply.
" Now Aunt Sally he's kinder both—"
" He aine' got no business to be bofe, de bible hit say dat
cleanness am nex' to gawdliness,' an' dat doan' mean to stop
wid washing yo' face — hit mean dat you is to keep yo'se'f as
aristocratish as succumstances pummit."
" But 'deed. Aunt Sally, the best pilgrims ain't stylish— they
put on their old clothes to mortify the flesh."
"Dey soun's powerful like po' white to me."
"But you don't understand. Aunt Sally, 'deed you don't;
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I9IO.] THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM 21 7
a pilgrim is awful good — better than the minister — an' when
he gets through his pilgriming the Lord 'most always gives
him what he wants/'
If Aunt Sally could be " conjured " the word minister could
be relied on to do it. Her reverence for the cloth amounted
to idolatry. '' I des' take a look at dish-yere holy man my-
se% I will"; and instinctively she straightened the handker-
chief on her head to make as good an impression as possible.
The wanderer, who sorely felt the need of the coffee that
had been cooling during these polemics, was at his most un-
clerical ebb when Aunt Sally appeared — he was sitting on the
ground with his back against the fence. Peradventure, he
dreamed — for his mouth gaped wide and his chin looked un-
godly in its field of stubble.
''Does you hav' de owdaciousness to say you is a minister
an' sen' into white folks kitchens io' breaffust on false preten-
shuns? You aine' nuttin' in dis Lord's worl' but a tramp— a
nasty, low-lifeted tramp I " And Aunt Sally turned and went
back to her kitchen. The pilgrim looked [after her and mut*
tered a word that Theodora knew to be worse than " doggone."
She looked at him deeply apologetic. ''Oh, please don't
mind her, Mr. Pilgrim, she don't understand — she can't read,
so she don't know anything about saints and shrines; but she
makes the nicest layer cake in the world."
He reached a shaking hand for the coffee and gulped it.
Theodora noticed that he turned away from the food as if he
had been to a party the night before.
" Aren't you hungry ? " she asked.
" This here fresh air cure kills the appetite when it's pushed
too far; but I kin eat after I've coaled up on coffee. You
just try me — "
She hesitated, then took the cup. "That other little girl
got me two cups," he called after her. This time fortune was
favorable — Aunt Sally was nowhere in sight. The pilgrim drank
his second cup of coffee, ate his breakfast, and thanked his
hostess. " You're an all right lady of the house ; I wish there
was more like you."
He groped in his pocket and produced an abandoned look-
ing pipe — his grimy hand bestowing an unconscious caress on
the blackened bowl before he filled it with shavings from a
plug of tobacco.
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ai8 THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM [May,
In the meantime Theodora had studied the details of his
dress and recorded them with the fidelty of a camera. He
didn't look much like the Canterbury pilgrims in the picture
— they all rode chubby horses much too small for them, and
their heads were wrapped around with cloths something like
the way Cindy wrapped hers before sweeping a room. Per-
haps he was too poor to have one of those little Canterbury
horses — a most fascinating order of beast to Theodora^or,
she thrilled with the magnificence of the idea, perhaps he was
a king who had done an awful crime and was walking to the
shrine of the saint, too humble to ride or even tie his head
in a duster 1
What had to be done? She felt her imagination kindle at
the magnificent choice of iniquity presented. A splendid
panorama of historical atrocity began to unfold itself before
her enthralled vision — had he slain nephews in a tower? Had
he beheaded a cousinly pretender to the throne? Had he shut
his wife up in a fortress, where she had pined away and died ?
Theodora found difficulty in fastening on him any specific
crime, perhaps because it precluded the luxury of believing the
others.
Whatever had been the nature of the heinousness, the un-
happy monarch was not without his moments of content; sit-
ting humbly on the common dirt of the road, with the fence
palings for a back-rest, he seemed to enjoy a momentary sur-
cease of pain. Theodora hung over the gate and looked at
his shabby habiliments and looked again, in the hope that
they might furnish a clue to his identity, perhaps a crown
jewel or two might peep from a ragged pocket^one that he
contemplated leaving at the shrine of the saint for an oflfering;
but time was passing, there were things she must learn about
pilgrimages from an authority.
** Now,'' she deprecated, ** I know it ain't polite to ask
questions; but if I said "scuse me ' first, would you mind very
much?"
He took his pipe from his mouth and waved it with a
gesture of conferring leave.
''I'm thinking of going on a pilgrimage myself."
** A pilgrimage ? " he repeated vaguely.
''Yes, walking somewhere like you, and leaving all my things
at home; but mebbe Pickey — she's my dog — I know dogs
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19IO.] THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM 319
can't get holy like people from goiog on a pilgrimage; but
don't yott think God would 'sense her if she kept on being
the same as she is now, even after we came home?"
'' Sure t " He took his pipe from his month and watched a
smoke cloud whirl and eddy. ''I think He excuses a lot of
things when we try, and slip. But, what put trampin' in your
head — ain't the folks good to you at home?"
"Oh, yes, indeedy; an' I've got very few folks besides."
" Then what do ' you want to tramp for ? Besides, the
business ain't what it used to be — the nap's wore oflfn it. But
you was sayin' as how you wasn't much of a family man."
Unconsciously the tramp straightened up a little as he awaited
her reply.
'* My father's a circuit judge and that keeps him away from
home a good deal — "
" Who's home with you ? " the pilgrim interrupted.
"There ain't any one home with me but the servants*
My Aunt Winship lives next door, and she comes in every
day to see that I'm washed and behaving like a little lady.
She's nice, but she's not like my father — did you ever have an
aunt?"
" Had 'em to burn," said the pilgrim, bitterly reminiscent.
" Oh," and Theodora's breath came a little more quickly at
the discovery of the object of his pilgrimage — he had burned
his aunts t Perhaps — she tried to think as exteouatiogly of the
circumstances as possible — they had sought to usurp the throne.
"You was sayin' as how most of the time you hadn't no
home ties, barrin' a long-distance aunt"
"Aunt Sally and Cindy, the housemaid, stay in the house,
Uncle Josh and Tommy sleep over the stable ; but we ain't
ever afraid, 'cause all the people round here are honest*-half
the time Cindy forgets to bring the silver upstairs."
"And I suppose she's careless about fastening up some-
times ? "
"Aunt Winship is always getting after her."
" And p'raps some of the ketches ain't as good as others ? "
"If any one wanted to get in 'twould be dead easy — the
springs on the back porch windows are loose. I often come
in an' out that way myself."
The pilgrim smoked on silently. Theodora noticed that his
expression had changed, he looked almost happy.
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220 THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM [May,
Loud calling came from the house — the uncouth music of
a negress' voice: '' Tee-doah^you, Tee-doah — come into de
house dis instance — ^yo' aunt am waiting fo' you-all/'
'' That's Cindy, and I must go. Aunt Winship's come over ;
but — I'll be out again soon, don't go away ; I haven't finished
asking you about the pilgrimage yet."
*^A11 right/' the pilgrim answered, and he went on smok-
ing.
Bat when the auntly inspection was- over and Theodora
hastened back for a final word with him on the all-absorbing
subject, he was nowhere to be found. This left the decision
of several weighty questions entirely to her own discretion-
search from cover to cover of the pilgrim book as she would,
there was no data on such an important issue as this: should one
take a toothbrush on a pilgrimage? or did it savor of pomp
and ceremony, and would it please St. Thomas better to leave
it at home? In the matter of Pickey — should she wear her
collar— or abandon the gaud, temporarily, for the same
reason ?
And then, quite unexpectedly about a week later, Theodora
had another encounter with her pilgrim. Pickey, the faithful
black-and-tan, whose wants on the proposed journey were no
small source of anxiety to her little mistress, was in the habit
of sleeping in her room when she could evade the watchful
eyes of Cindy and Aunt Sally. Failing of this, she courted
slumber, more or less indifferently, on an old sofa downstairs.
Theodora had gone to bed, on the night in question, at the
usual hour, but all^ the strategic gifts of Pickey had not en-
abled her to escape the vigilance of the guard; a depressing
night on the sofa confronted her. There was a slim chance
that she might reach the back stairs through the cellar — Pickey
took it — and found herself locked out into a cold world. She
prowled about for a while, chased a cat or two, but found it
rather slow ; then settled herself beneath her mistress' window
to whine piteously.
Presently, from the little foot-road at the back of the house,
came a man ; Pickey knew him to be an intruder, or he would
not have stooped and crouched to keep within the shadow of
the fence; and being of the fair sex, and of an emotional
temperament to boot, Ihe little terrier threw back her head
and had hysterics. The lady of the house heard the yapping
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I9IO.] Theodora and the Pilgrim 221
wails and concluded that ker confederate was baying the
moon. It was not the first time that Pickey's miscalculations
had cost Theodora a trip downstairs, and, grimly dutiful, she
lighted a candle — the undertaking had no terrors for her.
She raised the sash in the library^Pickey had undoubtedly
sought shelter on the porch — pushed back the shutter cau-
tiously, it flapped against something that had a human feel.
Limp with fear she shook in every limb. The shutter swung
back against her hand and the pilgrim confronted her.
''Oh, you frightened me so^I thought mebbe it was a
robber ? '*
'' You did, did you ? What are you doin' up at this hour
of the night ? "
'' I came down to let my dog in — here Pickey, Pickey— -
she won't come, she's afraid of you. Oh, Pic-a-lums, don't be
a silly doggy; please grab her and give her to me."
The pilgrim grabbed her — he would have enjoyed doing
more. Theodora patted her into a state of reassurance and
stood holding her clasped in her arms. They were a strange
trio— the lady of the house and Pickey inside the library
window, and the pilgrim without, like the traditional peri.
''Are the darkies asleep?*' he inquired.
"Oh, yes, indeedy; nothing ever wiEtkes them. Sometimes
Pickey howls worse'n this when she's shut out; but I'm so
glad you came back, there are so many things I want to ask
you. You've been on your pilgrimage, haven't you ? "
He nodded. "But, say now, I ain't got no time to talk
about that, you g'long upstairs"— he glared at her— "mind
now, if you tell them darkies I'm here, some'pun terrible's
goin' to happen to you."
" Oh, I know why you came back, it was because you said
a bad word the day you were here; an' now you've got to
do your pilgrimage over again, from this place."
" Yes, that's it ; but you g'long upstairs now, an' remember
what I told you."
"Please don't ask me to go upstairs, Mr. Pilgrim, I want
to ask your advice about lots of things — will it make God
angry if I run away, even to go on a pilgrimage?"
" Of course it will, what do you want to run away for ? "
The quaint little face, with its big brow that seemed to
dwarf the rest of it into insignificance, grew absolutely grave.
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222 THEODORA AND THE PILGRIM [May,
'* I'm going on a pilgrimage because I want God to grant me
a boon/'
"A what?"
" Oh^ well, yott can say favor if you like, bnt I say boon,
because Robin Hood and lots of nice people in books say boon.
They're going to send me to boarding-school; then I sha'n't
be the lady of the house any more, and there's no telling
whafU happen."
"An' you're going to run away from them?"
'Tm not going to run away for fun; but how can I go
on a pilgrimage without running away ? An' you being a holy
man, I want you to tell me."
'' You want me to tell you how to be good and bad at the
same time." The wayfarer made a sound that was something
between a laugh and a grunt *'It can't be done, little girl;
besides, there ain't nothin' in this runnin' away ; it seems brim
full o' glory when you're a kid, but there ain't nothin' in it'*
"But I want to leave my offering at the shrine of the
saint — it's a little coral hand with a gold bracelet on it. I got
it in the grab-bag of a church fair, and I think St. Thomas'll
be real pleased with it, and do what I want him to."
"You think you could fix it up with him for the coral
hand?"
" Oh, yes, indeedy ; to begin with, he was devoted to pomp
and splendor— I read ail about him in my English history."
"But you said he got converted."
"So he did."
"Then you couldn't do nothin' with him for graft"
"Graft—?"
"Yes; that coral hand's graft; an' you'd make him mad
as — as anything, offering it to him; besides, how d'you think
he'd like gettin' mixed up in your runnin' away ? That's wicked
to run away an' scare folks, and mebbe get killed — "
" But ain't you pilgriming yourself ? "
" Lord t it don't matter what I do— nobody cares — "
" But I'm sure St. Thomas is glad you're pilgriming, and
he'll ask God to forgive you. He does wonders with sinners,''
said Theodora warming to her task.
The wayfarer groaned. " I'm afraid he'd give out on me.'*
"No"; she said with passionate conviction, thinking of
the aunts he had burned. "It's the wickedest ones he takes
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i9ia] Theodora and the Pilgrim 333
the most pains with. If I had the pilgrim book with me I
could read you about it. Why he forgave the kiog that had
him killed.''
She was so eager, standing there in her little white night-
gown, with the shivering Pickey in her arms, that the way-
farer smiled ; not his usual sardonic grin, but a smile that had
something of youth in it: "Say, you're the oddest kid I ever
struck; now, don't you go runnin' away, somethin' might
happen to you — "
" If you tell me not to, I won't ; do you want me cross my
heart and promise?"
He, too, could remember when he had been young enough
to cross his heart and promise. ** Yes ; I'd kinder like to have
some one gimme a promise."
She put down Pickey to perform the cryptic rites and re-
peated: '*I promise to stay home and not run away, even to
go on a pilgrimage. But you'll tell St Thomas when you get
to Canterbury, won't you, that I wanted to go, only you said
1 mustn't?"
''Yes, I'll tell him; an', say, I hope your game won't be
queered by your messenger." He threw his shoulders back
and looked her straight in the eye. ''Say, it's good to have
some one believe in you — even if they don't know what you
are."
Theodora, who took this to be a reference to his royal
rank, replied : '* I think it was so kind of you to come back
here to-night. I might have been very wicked if you hadn't."
He groaned. ** O Lord 1 you're worse'n a trust for crowdin'
a poor man out of business. I'm goin' now. Good- night
I'll push the shutters to real easy; an' you fasten 'em quiet
on the inside — "
''Good-night," she held out her hand, the wayfarer took
it. "You don't need to go to no heathen country a-mission-
aryin'^you don't."
" Good-bye," she called through the closed shutters, not
understanding his last remark in the least She took up the
candle and began to climb the stairs, Pickey following.
The pilgrim quietly left the back porch, made his way to
the little foot- road at the back of the house where he had
first met her. "It's a wonder," he soliloquized ironically,
" that you don't take to bein' a solid citizen. What do you
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224 *' MANJS NOBISCUM DOMINE t " [May.
want if that job wasn't slick enough to suit you? Do yon
want people to press the family jools in your hand and tell
you they're tired of them."
He could get a view of the house now above the tree-tops.
For a long time he stood looking at it — that uncouth, inde-
terminate figure that Theodora had sped forward toward her
ideal Canterbury. With such sweet, innocent vigor had she
dispatched him that new impulses seemed to guide the feet of
the wayfarer along dark lanes; and as he shot a last whim-
sicali puzzled glance toward the roof under which Theodora
now slept he spoke, softly, a phrase by no means unworthy of
a godly pilgrim.
"MANE NOBISCUM DOMINE I"
BY VERA M. ST. CLAIR.
" Sl^AY with us, O I^ord 1 "
The lengthening shadows purple on the hills —
The night-dew cools the lips of thirsty flowers —
Nay, go not hence until the day-break fills
Our hearts with gladness, and the golden hours
Smile upon our way.
'Twas thus the twain at Emmaus spoke that day,
While burned their souls with rapture at the board :
" Stay with us, O Lord!"
Stay with me^ O I^ord I
When stealthy months have crept into the years,
And full upon mine ear Life's vesper chime
Doth break in sudden melody. The fears
That yawn upon the border-path of Time
Wait my tired feet-
Nay, let us go not hence ; 'tis. Master, meet.
That at Life's farth'est Inn we sit at board-
Stay with me, O Lord I
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ARE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE?
BY THOMAS GAFFNEY TAAFFE.
say that the average college theatrical perform-
ance of to-day is of educational value, is to in-
vite a smilci Musical comedy, at its best, is but
a poor and flimsy thing, and the skill and clev-
erness of even masters of the craft have never
succeeded in raising it above the level of mediocrity. What^
then, of the college performance, the product of youths still
in the rawness of their nonage, and the happy illustration of
the proverb about fools and angels ? And what of its educa-
tional value? Yet who can say, in these revolutionary days,
what far-seeing design is behind it? The drunken Helot
played his part in the training of the Spartan youth of old;
and why not the college burlesque in this year of grace? In
justice be it said, however, that if we view college life as it is
pictured in the current magazines and newspapers, we may be
forgiven if we accept the college performance as an adequate
reflection of undergraduate habits of thought. The constant
exploitation of the accidentals of college life has resulted in
obscuring and relegating to the background what to the
serious-minded are the essentials. It is the order of the day
to emphasize the trifling and the inconsequential. What won-
der, then, that college theatricals, which in their most serious
aspect are in the nature of recreation, should take on a frivo-
lous character. A high standard of taste supposes an element
of seriousness, and youth, left to itself, especially in matters
of entertainment, is not prone to seriousness. Hence the
gravitation of college theatricals toward the lower
the epidemic of musical farces, more or less — and
than less — inane, and verging perilously near the ^
the crudities, the buffooneries, the pitiful attei
femininity in its least engaging aspects.
It may be argued that these performances are
to be educational; that they are frankly mere ft
versions of undirected youth, having no other en(
guile the lazy time that popular fancy attribute
VOL. xci.— 15
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226 ARE College Plays Worth While? [May,
life. One might say with Sir Toby: ''Dost thou think,
because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and
ale?'' But, then, even the most ardent sympathizer with Sir
Toby would hardly maintain that this rejoinder is a conclusive
argument, apt and appealing as it is. Life, even college life,
is not all cakes and ale. Nor is Sir Toby competent authority.
He is a very engaging blackguard, to be sure, but he is a
blackguard nevertheless, and though we may enjoy him, we
need not commit ourselves to his philosophy of life.
But is it necessary that college dramatics should be alto-
gether a matter of cakes and ale ? Or, if not — if we be virtu*
oas, need the cakes and ale be banished ? Must college dra-
matics be confined to the lower level? Or, can they serve a
higher purpose than mere foolery, without loss of interest to
the players ? And if so, is this purpose worth while ? Here
we have a wide divergence of opinion. On the one hand is
your learned pedagogue to whom education is a thing of tasks
and text-books; who can see no virtue in anything outside of
the deadly routine of the class room; who frowns at every
turn from the straight and narrow path. On the other is your
student for whom college days are days of dalliance; who re-
fuses to take his pleasures seriously; to whom a play is a
play and nothing more. And, as usual, truth and reason walk
in the middle course. There is a measure of justice in each
extreme. But both are blind to the real purpose of a college
training. Education is not a mere matter of text* books and
lectures; it is not a treadmill to which a student is bound and
driven to labor through four grinding years; nor is it a pro-
longed holiday, a thing of gaieties and diversions, a round of
varied pleasures. It has its tasks, it is true, its obligations,
and its solemn duties. It is no royal road. But a score of
lesser activities go hand in hand with its serious duties. And
these, each in its own way, share in the work of formation.
Body and mind are benefited, an added zest is given to the
set tasks, and lecture hall and class room are brightened by
the side-lights thrown in on them. The student who goes
through his course with mind and eye and ear on the alert
for everything that makes for culture is getting the best his
college can give him. There is no Procrusteaa bed for him.
Not the least of the benefits to be derived in this indirect
manner is to be found in the dramatic training, when properly
conducted and kept free from vulgarity and inanity. One might
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1910.] ARE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE? 227
go farther and say that there is not one of the many activities
at the student's hand from which so many and such varied
benefits can be reaped. The mere appearance before an audi-
ence, to cite the least of them, gives him an ease of manner
and grace of bearing that fit him to face any gathering. It
breeds in him^ too, a confidence in himself that is of inestima-
ble value. In the mere externals, the use of voice and hands,
the bearing of his body, unimportant as these are, he acquires
an ease and grace which he could acquire by no other means.
And where the enterprise is carried on in a manner and with
a judgment fitting the dignity of a college production the study
of even one masterpiece of dramatic art with the care and
research necessary for an adequate interpretation, brings a
knowledge more thorough and intimate than any amount of
class room analysis. Add to this the effect on the character
of conceiving a notable enterprise and carrying it through to
achievement, no matter how small his share in the undertaking.
And above all there is the inestimable benefit he derives from
being lifted out of the rut of everyday events; from the in-
evitable rousing of his emotions and the stimulation of noble
impulses. The impersonation of the character, the delivery of
the poet's impassioned lines, lifts the player above the common
level into a world of lofty imagination, and stirs and quickens
in him emotions that the world of reality knows not of. One
hour of this is worth days and weeks of class room drudgery
Sttdi work as this brings to the student a two* fold reward.
It not merely instructs, but pleases while instructing. Perhaps
it would be more correct to say that it instructs by pleasing.
In this respect the dramatic art does not differ, in kind at least,
from other arts, but the difference in degree is what makes
this particular mode of training most valuable. From its very
inception the modern drama has served this two- fold end of
pleasing and instructing. When St. Gregory Nazianzen, or
whoever it was who wrote '^ The Suffering Christ," the earliest
mystery play of which we have any record, set himself to his
task he had this two- fold end in view. So, too, had the host
of learned clerks who followed in his footsteps through the
succeeding centuries. Their primal purpose was to teach, to
spread the gospel, to quicken the knowledge of the doctrines
of religion in a dull-witted and unlettered generation. It was
a generation that knew not books, that hearkened not willingly
to sermon or homily, and other means were needed to stimu-
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228 ARE College plays Worth While? [May,
late its interest in the essential truths of religion. Hence the de-
vice of visualizing these truths, tricking the senses by pageantry
and show and making vivid and real to them what would other-
wise have been poured into unheeding ears. At Christmas it was
the Incarnation that furnished the theme ; at Easter it was the
Passion; and at other seasons subjects equally appropriate. And
when out of this type of elementary drama grew another— the
miracle play, which dealt with incidents in the lives of the saints
or prophets or patriarchs — the same two-fold end was in view.
The underlying purpose in all these plays was instruction,
but the element of entertainment was not forgotten. In fact^
the practical purpose was attained through the instrumentality
of the diversion furnished. Our wise elders realized the effect
of the combination and used it to every possible advantage.
Nor was this two-fold end lost sight of in the later development
of the drama.
Even when it had become secularized in the fifteenth cen-
tury the didactic purpose and the means by which it was at-
tained were not lost to view. With the introduction of the
morality play came an extension of the field of instruction.
The drama came down from the heights of theology to the
lower plain of practical ethics. The aim was still to instruct,
and though a greater license resulted in the introduction of a
deal of clowning and buffoonery to please the groundlings, the
serious character of the plays was not affected. Even the in-
terludes, which followed in the line of development, were
made to serve a purpose, which was, in a measure, educational.
They flourished at a time when religious feeling ran high, and
in the hands of Bale and Hey wood and others of their day
proved effective weapons of 'controversy.
It was with the beginning of the drama as we know it to-
day that the first radical change is to be noted. The develop-
ment of the drama had been slow before the middle of the
sixteenth century. As an art form it had been subsidiary and
was looked upon merely as a means to an end. But with the
appearance of the first English comedy, ** Ralph Roister Dois-
ter,'' came a new departure for the drama. It was no longer
consciously didactic, and in the plays that followed we find
the same disregard of the purpose of the drama of an earlier
and less sophisticated age. But, though it had abandoned the
didactic pose, it had not severed its connection with the cause
of education. On the contrary, the new drama was actually
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I9I0.] Are College Plays Worth While? 229
bora in the school. Nicholas Udall, the author of *' Ralph
Roister Doister/' was head master of Eton, and the play was
written for presentation by the pupils of the college. So it
was with all the plays of that day. They were written for
presentation in the schools or universities or inns of court*
Moreover, their inspiration and, to a certain extent, the models
on which they were constructed were classical. |From this
time until the beginning of the era of professional writing and
the birth of the native English drama, in the reign of Eliza-
beth, the drama was practically a diversion of the schools.
Even the court pageants were often performed by the boys of
Westminster and other schools, and sometimes, though rarely,
by the gentlemen of the inns of court.
Here, then, we see the drama serving another educational
purpose. It is not, as in the days of its beginning, a con-
scious teacher. Its end is cultural rather than directly didactic.
And this is the tradition that has come down to the present
day. Throughout Europe the cultivation of the drama in schools
and colleges has become almost universal and the custom has
long obtained in this country, too. In our Catholic colleges,
particularly in the Jesuit colleges, the tradition has been as-
siduously preserved. Indeed, the Jesuits have gone farther
than any other educational body to keep alive this wholesome
and valuable custom. Where others have depended on the mere
devotion to tradition to perpetuate the custom they have pro-
vided for it by legislation. The rule is laid down in their
institute and provision is made for faculty supervision of every
play. With them the production of a play is not a mere
student diversion, but an integral part of the college work,
carried on under the direction of a member of the faculty
designated as Moderator.
But, whether fortified by legislation or dependent on estab-
lished custom, which in some quarters is almost as secure a
safeguard, the college drama is a firmly rooted growth. Its
roots have sunk centuries deep, and its growth is almost co-
eval with that of the school itself. Seeded in the desire for
the spread of knowledge it has found congenial soil in the
schools, and while the one endures the other will flourish. It
has grown with the ages and, though with its growth it has
altered its aspect, it is essentially the same. The destiny fore*
shadowed for it in its first uses it is fulfilling to-day.
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METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY.
BY JOHN F. FENLOH, D.D.
Y are tbe Methodists, of all sects at work in
Rome, singled out by the Vatican for repro-
bation ?
The Vatican account is quite naturally regarded
as partisan by a section of the public; let us,
then, go to a source of information that will not be suspected
of unfairness to .the Methodist propaganda in Italy.
I.
An old-fashioned Methodist minister, brought up in Maine,
firm in the faith, not weakened either by modern difficulties
or lurking tenderness for Rome, scorning delights, in good old
Htyle, and willing to live laborious days, militant and mission-
ary in spirit, is unexpectedly called by his bishop to the Italian
Mission. He accepts the call as the voice of God and sees in
his new work the career for which ''years of enthusiastic
study'' had furnished him ''a graciously providential prepara-
tion.'* He starts for his post, going by way of London, where
'* new inspiration was gained by listening to some of the living
prophets and visiting the tombs of the dead," as well as the
hallowed spots on which ** Christian heroes bad suffered mar-
tyrdom*' under Queen Mary. At last he reaches Rome and
surveys the Eternal City from the Pincian Hill. ''Towering
in the distance across the Tiber is the massive pile of St.
Peter's and the Vatican. Here at last is the citadel of the
hostile forces. Here is the centre of that huge system of error
and superstition that we have come so far to spend our life in
opposing. The might of ancient Rome vanished before the
presence of our northern barbaric ancestors. Why may not
this new and mightier Rome be conquered by weapons of
Gospel truth? Not in our day, to be sure, but it is a great
privilege to have even a small part in the beginning of the
mighty contest. Such thought," our missionary adds, "in the
midst of such scenes and associations, inflames enthusiasm."
We like the spirit of the man and forgive his prejudices.
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I9I0.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 23 1
We remember that John Henry Newman of Oxford once shared
in them and had more bitter thoughts than this preacher from
Maine. A sincere character we feel him to be, and zealous
for the truth as he sees it.
For four and a half years he lives and labors in Italy at
his appointed task, the creation of a theological school and
the raising up of a native Italian Methodist clergy. That sturdy,
uncompromising champion, Bishop Vincent, commends him for
laboring ** most faithfully to promote the spiritual life, to train
the heart and conscience'' of the young men who are the
hope of Methodism in Italy. He attends conferences; he be-
comes acquainted with the work and the workers; he travels
throughout the country and sees the actual condition of the
missions. The result? He becomes disillusioned, not to say
disgusted; disapproves of the entire policy of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Italy; his school breaks up; he returns
to Maine and tells his brethren they can do nothing better
than to work on where they are.
What was wrong ? What quenched this ardent enthusiasm ?
Our missionary wrote a book to inform us. He tells the truth,
according to his knowledge, but not the whole truth. He
dare not. '* It is of course quite improper,'* he says, ** to state
in public print all the facts that the authorities need to know.
They would be disgraceful to all concerned." The story is
unfolded in the volume : Four and a Half Years in the Italy
Mission : A Criticism of Missionary Methods. By Rev. Everett
S. Stackpole, D.D.''
Of another work of Dr. Stackpole, Bishop Vincent says:
** There is no creak of the crank in it.*' There is none in this
volume. It is calm and measured; it creates the conviction
that the author desires to be just and merciful in his criticisms.
He is evidently and avowedly reticent, not revealing more thaii
is necessary for his purpose, the reform of the missionary
methods of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he con-
sidered sadly in need of reform. His disclosures might tempt
one to conjecture about the hidden. We shall be content
with the facts revealed. They suffice.
II.
The first great need of the Methodist propaganda in Italy
was a corps of native preachers. Without them this foreign
religion, strange to Italian eyes and preached by Americans
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232 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
who spoke the Italian language imperfectly, could hope at best
for a very slow and uncertain success. To dispense entirely
with native preachers and endeavor to form a little congrega-
tion here and there; to pick out a few promising candidates
for the ministry, to instruct and to train them; to wait for
the gathering of a richer harvest by these new preachers and
the recruiting through them of a native clergy ; all this seemed
to the Methodist pioneers an interminable process. A short
cut to success must, if possible, be found.
As there were no Italian Methodists (except perhaps a few
Wesleyans), the difficulty of getting Italians to preach Methodism
might have seemed formidable. How could it be overcome?
The men in charge of the Methodist organization hit upon
a solution which, however, was not original with them; they
would draw preachers to spread the Gospel in Italy by the
attraction of large salaries. This, they believed, would appeal
powerfully to the Italian nature. Accordingly, it became the
settled policy to pay their preachers better than those of any
other denomination in Italy. They receive in most cases. Dr.
Stackpole shows (pp. '130, 131), from two to three hundred
dollars per year more than other preachers, which is counted
there a very considerable sum. House rent, moreover, is free.
This recompense compares more than favorably with the in-
come of other professional men. ^* Reckoning bouse rent,'*
says our author, ''our preachers in the larger cities have re*
ceived more than twice what a College Professor receives in
the same city" (p. 131).
III.
By this winning financial policy, preachers of various kinds
were procured and Methodism established in Italy. Dr. Stack-
pole tells us from what ranks they were recruited. ''The
policy and practice from the first have been to choose our own
preachers mainly from two elements, f^>., ex- priests and ex-
Waldensians. There is a heterogeneous remainder that comes
from other denominations and is picked up at random. . • •
Not more than three of our preachers have been converted
under the auspices of our church" (pp. 58, 59). This was in
1S94; probably some of their converts since then have become
preachers.
The tiny sect of the Waldensians, as most of our readers
know, traces its rise far back into the Middle Ages, and amid
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I9I0.J METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 233
many vicissitudes and despite cruel persecutions — or because of
them^-still survives with a certain vigor. A pertinacious,
simple peasantry, they have been unyielding in their opposi-
tion to Catholicism, but fluctuating in their theological ideas.
Migrating from Piedmont, they established churches in several
cities of Italy. They maintain a propaganda among Catholics;
but with the poverty and coldness of their creed and worship,
their lack of intellectual culture, and their immemorial insigni-
ficance, they have made little headway. They are, however,
more respected in Italy than the denominations which foreign-
ers are endeavoring to establish. ''Thus far,'' Dr. Stackpole
confesses, '' we [Methodists] have simply a poor and feeble
imitation of Waldensianism, and any careful and candid ob-
server can but prefer the original article '' (p. 63). If the
Waldensians had the vast wealth of the Methodist organiza-
tion at their command, they might — unless wealth corrupted
their simplicity — become more formidable.
The Waldensians have always shown a certain readiness to
ally themselves with other Protestant sects, and in Italy many
of their preachers have joined themselves to the Methodists.
Though the two churches differ considerably in creed and
worship, the Methodists have welcomed these ex- Waldensians
and sent them forth to preach Methodism and to convert
Catholics. ''They are simply Waldensians with the name
Methodist,'' we learn {p. 63), "and while they may be very
excellent Waldensians, they are, for the most part, very poor
Methodists. They retain the spirit and form of the mother
church and, we think, still respect and love that church more
than our own, for which we cannot blame them." Neither
can we; but we feel, and probably Dr. Stackpole feels also,
that in such a case they cannot escape blame for quitting their
own church. Our author continues: "They have not been
converted and trained up by our church. Thev have simolv
been employed to serve us as best they can.
remuneration offered for their services is relati
most of the Waldensian pastors (be it said to th
remained in their poorly paid charges. Th
Methodists obtain, it is stated, are '* preachers v
reasons, could not obtain a pastorate in the Wa
or have not wished to accept such pastorate
Some have not been sufficiently educated in the
church " (p. 62).
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234 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
A mild and mitigated praise is all that Dr. Stackpole feels
able to bestow apon this element of his Italian Mission. He
far prefers it to the ex-priest contingent. At this none of us
will wonder — corruptio optimi pessitna. " They have never dis-
graced our ministry by immoralities/' he says in his compari-
son. '' They have, as a rule, more sympathy with the common
people. They are more spiritual and less addicted to plots and
scheming" (p. 62).
Besides the Waldensians, there is, as we have seen, another
Protestant element in the Methodist ministry in Italy; or, as
Dr. Stackpole puts it, '* a heterogeneous remainder that comes
to us from other denominations and is picked up at random."
There seems, in fact, to be a wide freedom among preachers in
Italy in passing from one denomination to another; and the
head of a church, longing to be rid of an undesirable minister,
does not always feel bound, in recommending him to a sister
church, to tell the whole truth about his departing brothen
^' More than one superintendent in Italy," according to the
testimony of Dr. Stackpole, ''has a way of recommending to
another denomination men whom he does 'not want. . • •
The preacher who, on being turned out of one denomination,
cannot find acceptance in another, must be a poor thing in-
deed. We never knew such a case; and the preachers that
have belonged to two or three denominations may be counted
by the score" (p. 116).
Here and there, in the book, the edge of the veil is lifted
a little to permit a half glance at the character of these changes
of allegiance. We get a glimpse of Signor Bracchetto, for in-
stance, who was in charge of a Free Italian Church, at Turin,
during many years. When accused of '' constantly compromis-
ing his church and committee and the honor of Christ," he
withdrew and was able to carry his congregation with him;
they were received into the Methodist Episcopal Church. '' The
action of the pastor," Dr. Stackpole comments, '' cannot be
considered as anything better than a treacherous secession"
(p. 98). And he hints at the reason for his welcome by the
Methodists. '' He reported 97 members and 125 hearers, and
our annual statistical report was increased by so much." An-
other instance is that of a Modernist born before his time.
<'He had been educated by the Wesleyans, but was unaccept-
able to them." He was welcomed by the Methodists, appar-
ently on the recommendation of the Wesleyan superintendent.
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I9IO.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 235
^' After he had preached five years in the Methodist Episcopal
Church, we became aware of a book published anonymously
by him in the first year ol his ministry, in which he avowed
the rankest pantheism. He denied the personality of God, the
divinity of Christ, the efficacy of prayer, the need or possibil-
ity of regeneration, and conscious existence after death. Yet
the committee on examinations had reported him sound in the
faith. When charged with being the author of the book, he at
first denied it ; but when the proof was presented, he confessed
his authorship, but declared that those were his opinions five
years before, when he thought that ' Methodism might be thus
philosophically interpreted.' Now he had changed his mind.
He was, however, asked to withdraw from the Conference and
did so. We were told that he wrote to a friend soon after,
reaffirming the opinions of that book. He was, however, soon
received into another evangelical church in Italy on the * warm
recommendation' of the Presiding Elder'' (pp. 115, 116). The
Presiding Elder at this time — the one, we presume, who gave
such a warm recommendation of this pantheistic preacher— was
William Burt, D.D., later made bishop, and at present charged
with the responsibility of the Italian Mission.*
There is the story, too, of the preacher '' who brought over
a Wesleyan flock to us in Florence and this was duly tabulated
as an indication of the progress of our Mission in Italy.'' He
was, our author judged, ''the ablest minister" at the Milan
Conference. Remaining with the Methodists for fourteen years,
he ''located and • . • asked for a bonus of six months'
salary, i. e., $480. He had already made arrangements to re-
turn to the Waldensian Church as pastor, and, in fact, directly
after the session of Conference, withdrew from our church,
taking with him to the Waldensian fold, nearly our entire con-
gregation at Rome. . . . Some blamed the preacher for
his act, which had the appearance of treachery, but long re-
flection has convinced us that he did what any other preacher
would naturally have done under similar circumstances. He
had become thoroughly convinced of the inability of our Mis-
sion to accomplish the work needed, and so could not be ex-
pected to urgently advise his congregation to remain in the
Methodist fold " (p. 82).
* C/, Enropt and MetJUdism, by William Bnrt, D.D., whose narratire of the Italian
Mission is summarised and briefly commented upon [in the March issue of Thb Catholic
WOKLD, pp. 858-862.
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236 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
Instances such as these illustrate how the Methodist organ-
ization in Italy recruits its preachers — and how, sometimes, it
loses them. As the wealthiest corporation engaged in this fieldt
it seems willing to take over any struggling Protestant church,
finance it, and add its membership to the statistics it presents
to its American contributors. It was thus, we see, that the
Wesleyan churches at Pavia and Florence, as well as the Pres-
byterian Free Church at Turin, were gained ; while, on the other
hand, Dr. Stackpole records various instances of Methodist
ministers and even congregations passing over to another de-
nomination. Catholics, with strict ideas of dogmatic truth and
of the binding character of church allegiance, are not apt to
view these changes very charitably; but we must remember
that one form of Protestantism must appear to the Italian mind
very much like any other form. Dr. Stackpole will inform us
presently as to the real nature of Italian Methodism.
IV.
And now we must touch on the disagreeable topic of '* the
ex-priest element '' in the Methodist ministry of Italy. It has
been, we are told, not only the practice but the policy of the
Methodists to employ ex-priests to preach Methodism. It is
not at all surprising, however we may lament it, that they have
always been able to secure the services of a certain number.
Ex-priests there always have been since the days of Judas, and
there will be till the coming of Antichrist. That in a large
Catholic country like Italy, where there is much poverty, a
certain number would creep into the ministry through worldly
motives; that some of these and certain others who began with
higher spirituality would fall by the wayside; that some, for
one reason or another, would lose the faith; all this is ex-
pected by any student of history or of human nature. Viewing
the matter abstractly, and from their standpoint, we cannot
blame Methodists for receiving an ex-priest, as such, and em-
ploying him among Catholics any more than they can blame
us for ordaining an ex-minister and sending him forth to preach
to non* Catholics. But the question, a concrete one and not at
all abstract, is this; what kind of men, as a matter of fact,
are employed ? Now some Catholics would condemn all ex-
priests as about equally bad ; but they have no right to expect
this view to be taken by non- Catholics. The name perhaps
should only be bestowed on those who trade upon the sacred
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I9IO.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 237
character they have renounced, who are ex-priests by profes-
sion. And, truly, men who have forsaken the priesthood vary
all the way from Ddllinger, a man of clean morals and of per-
sonal dignity, down to that unprincipled rascal and marvel of
depravity, Achilli. Two things may in justice be demanded of
a Protestant organization before it engages an ex-priest for its
ministry: first, that it be reasonably certain he truly believes
the doctrines he is expected to preach ; and, second, that he
is a man of correct life. If these essential qualifications of a
Christian minister were to be in all cases exacted, how many
ex-priests would be preaching Protestantism? Nowadays far
intore caution and decency' are observed than formerly; but
one indelible shame imprinted on the face of Protestant history
—which has by no means blushed for its shame as it should
^s undoubtedly this, that it has frequently shown itself willing
to welcome any one coming from Rome with vile stories, caring
little or nothing about demanding guarantees of their truths
and that it has been ready to engage such a one without
reasonable certitude of the sincerity of his belief or the fitness
of his character. Baptists and Methodists, far more than other
organications — some of which have acted with decency — incur
this shame. Too often the only question has been : can he dam-
age the cause of the Papists ? If he could, then he was en-
gaged, even as the unspeakable Achilli and many another be-
fore and since. Moreover, Protestantism has very rarely been
able to enlist the services of those former priests, whom, in
a measure, we can respect, while we mourn their loss of faith.
On the other hand, who ever heard of the Catholic Church
welcoming into its priesthood an ex-minister of unsavory repu-
tation or questionable sincerity of belief? And when has she
commissioned any one to attack and vilify the ministry or the
church which he has abandoned? No, not by such means are
truth and charity communicated from soul to soul; and it is
because such a policy deserves only the loathing and contempt
of all decent men, and yet has been pursued by the Methodists
in Italy, that the Holy See has condemned them while keep-
ing silent about other Protestant denominations in Rome.
''From the first,'' says Dr. Stackpole, 'Mt has been the
policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Italy to employ ex-
priests as preachers'' (p. 58), Does the abandonment of the
Catholic priesthood by an Italian qualify him for the Metho-
dist ministry? What becomes of the cardinal Methodist doc-
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238 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
trine of conversion ? No one is a true Methodist until he has
''experienced conversion''; yet of all the preachers employed
during more than twenty years, only three, according to Dr.
Stackpole (p. 59), were converted under the auspices of the
Methodist Church. Probably it is not rash to conjecture that
not one of the three was an ex-priest. Men of this stamp sim-
ply cease to be Catholics; they do not become Mothodists.
And so Dr. Stackpole avers: ''We have no Methodist preach-
ers among the Italians'' (p. I2i). It is not hard to know the
type of Methodism among those who, our author states, are
*^ex necessarily. They have quarreled with their superiors, or
been guilty of some immorality, or they want more salary or
to get married" (p. 6o). The entire story of this book shows
that these men are seeking, not the Methodist assurance of
salvation, but the assurance of a good salary and little work.
Concerning those of whose character Dr. Stackpole thinks
more highly, he says: "They do not make good Methodist
preachers, for the simple reason that they know nothing about
Methodism; and when it is explained to them, they either do
not understand it or they do not like it" (p. 6o). No won-
der he concludes that " a full-blooded Methodist • • • can*
not be found at present among the Italians. It will be a long
time before he will be produced" (p. 120).
By what process do these men become Methodist preach-
ers? They are not converted; they do not undergo years of
theological instruction and moral training, as a former minister
must among us ; they simply offer themselves and are accepted
on trial and begin to draw a good salary. They have no
more faith in Methodism than they have in any other form of
Protestantism; and the sole reason why most of them are
attached to Methodism rather than to any other form of Prot-
estantism, according to Dr. Stackpole, is the larger salary it
pays (p. 132).
Dr. Stackpole, happily, refrains from any detailed account
of the lives of these preachers of Methodism ; stray hints there
are and broad statements regarding the scandalous conduct of
several, but we have no heart to weave them into a picture of
this group. The shame of it, that a Christian denomination
should pick up these poor weeds from the Pope's garden, call
them Methodists, and expect them to diffuse around an odor
of virtue and a perfume of sanctity. But, alasl a weed by
any other name will smell as rank. They have no spiritual
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I9IO.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 239
life and they communicate none. Dr. Stackpole says in gen-
eral of the ex-priests whom they employ : '' The spiritual con-
dition of their flock and the salvation of sinners give them
little concern'' (p. 62). Our good Doctor, who evidently got
many of his impressions and ideas of Catholicism from these
derelicts, attributes this to their Catholic training. We may
remark that he lost none of his anti-Catholic prejudices in
Italy, and is frequently very sweeping in his condemnation;
but this may to a certain extent be excused because of his
disheartening experience of the characters who swarmed around
the Methodist Mission — the only persons, no doubt, whom he
came to know intimately. His conclusions are eloquent of the
judgment he formed upon their character and work. ''The
ex-priests, on the whole, have done us very little good and
very much harm'' (p. 61). Elsewhere there is the same story
ta tell. '' The experiment of utilizing ex-priests had been tried
and had failed in Mexico and in South America" (p. 59).
And he ends with this earnest admonition to his brethern:
'' We wish this matter might be laid seriously to heart by our
own and other churches, that genuine Protestantism cannot be
built up in Italy or elsewhere by means of ex-priests " (p. 62).
A wish to which we say a fervent amen, not because these
men harm us, but because the policy is so disgraceful. Six-
teen years have passed since this wish was uttered. Ex-
priests are still employed by the Methodist Episcopal Church
in Italy. We have not the knowledge, however, which would
warrant us in affirming that they are of the same stamp as the
pioneers of Italian Methodism.
V.
Ex-Waldensians and ex-priests failed to create a satisfactory
Methodism. ''AH our authorities/' we are informed, " became
at last convinced that a Methodist Church could not be estab-
lished by means of such preachers " (p. 59). A training school
to raise up genuine Methodist ministers became a necessity.
Dr. Stackpole himself was the man named to establish and
direct the work. His story of the enterprise is not lacking in
interest and deserves space. The preachers had spread the
good news abroad. " Applications for admission fairly poured
in. Sixty- five applicants wrote to us in the course of three
years. . • . All who wrote told the same story. They
were absolutely penniless. Only one of all the sixty-five felt
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240 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
able to do so much as clothe himself. The rest wanted board,
clothes, books, lights, fuel, washing, tuition, and even railroad
expenses. • • . Some with family asked to be supplied
with a furnished house outside the school and a salary of 300
francs per month. ... At first, money to pay traveling
expenses to Florence was sent to accepted candidates. Enough
was sent to purchase a second-class ticket. . . • The re*
suit was that the hopeful candidates bought third-class tickets
and put the balance in their pockets, and soon one to whom
we had sent money for railroad fare, failed either to appear
or to refund the money '' (pp. 65-68). Henceforth railroad fare
was not paid.
Of the numerous applicants, nine, the most promising, no
doubt, were selected. '' It might be interesting," Dr. Stack-
pole continues, ''to know more particularly the personnel of
that first class in the school in order to get a little insight
into Italian character '' (p. 69) ; or, rather, as we would prefer
to say, into the character of the Italians who aspired to the
Methodist ministry. Number one was '' expelled from a Roman
Catholic Seminary for vagabondage. He professed conversion
and united with our church at Turin, He was warmly recom-
mended by the pastor and had been employed by the Presid-
ing Elder about a year as assistant pastor at Milan and else-
where. At Milan he was also President of the Young Men's
Christian Association and is said to have left the city with
some of the funds of that society in his pocket. ... He
was about the plainest specimen of a rascal that we ever had
anything to do with. He could pray and exhort with what
passes for ' unction ' with some. ... By cheating and bor-
rowing from other students he succeeded in taking away with
him about one hundred francs. Lying and swearing were his
daily pastime. We gave him money enough to pay his fare
to Turin'' (pp. 69-70). Number two came highly recommended
by his pastor and wife, '' He had wasted his substance and
well-nigh his body in riotous living. He could wear a meek
and devout look and could almost cry at will. But he would
lie and break the rules of the school. He had to be dismissed
for general worthlessness " (p. 70). Number three was dis-
missed for stealing books from the library and selling them to
second-hand book stores. Number four captivated Bishop
Barf by his readiness of utterance and apparent earnestness."
He was suspended as an untrustworthy character, but. to the
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19 IC] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 24 X
Faculty's surprise was appointed, we presume by Bishop Burt,
as assistant pastor. Number five 'Macked gifts, grace, and use-
fulness/' Number six, ''general worthlessness • . . with
a marked tendency to deceitfulness/' Number seven was in
love and neglecting his studies. Told to choose between the
ministry and the girl, he chose the girl. He married, and
struggled with hard luck till he was appointed pastor of a
Methodist Episcopal Church in a large city. Number eight
''was called prematurely into the ministry. His heart was im-
pulsively good, but he lacked stability of character. He was a
poor scholar and could say all he knew in a very few. noisy
sermons.'' Number nine finished his course of study and was,
up to 1894, the sole graduate of the school. Dr. Stackpole
says nothing of his character (pp. 71-74). This completes his
report of the first aspirants to the Methodist ministry in Italy ;
it speaks more convincingly perhaps than he was aware con*
ceming the sort of characters whom Methodism attracted in
Italy and the degree of influence which it exerted upon them.
The result was discouraging, but more students must be
secured. "We searched the land through and got all that
were at all hopeful cases." Bishop Vincent visits the school
and is charmed; he writes a most glowing and edifying letter
to the New York Christian Advocate all about the dozen young
meut selected out of fifty-six applicants, who "are Methodists
in theory and experience and choice" (p. 156). They "filled
me with large hope," the bishop says, " for our work in Italy."
And Dr. Stackpole, who has a low opinion of the Italian
character, for which he cannot be greatly blamed, since he
came into close contact chiefly with worthless or rascally
preachers and would* be preachers, records his " conviction that
it will be impossible to gather so good and promising a com-
pany of young men as candidates for the [Methodist] ministry
in Italy for many years to come" (p. 158). Soon a con-
spiracy was formed by all the other students against one who
proved to have a good character. As a consequence, all but
four left. "We discovered that every one of these [twelve]
students, except the one accused, had been secretly breaking
the rules of the school ... by getting in or out of the
window late at night, by improper associations, etc." (p. 161).
"Some declared their readiness to abandon Methodism and at
once sought admission to other denominations. . . . We
VOL. xci.— x6
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242 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
found they had no love for Methodism, for which we could not
much blame them, since the so-called Methodism of Italy has
manifested few amiable qualities'' (p. 162). This school, which
was at Florence, was discontinued. ** Dr. Stackpole having re-
tired from the field,'' as Bishop Burt writes* in a laconic
style that makes Caesar appear verbose, a theological school
was later established at Rome under Rev. N. W. Clark, its
present head. So far as we know, the inner story of the new
school has not yet been published by Dr. Stackpole's successor.
Bishop Burt is silent about its success or failure. From our
author we merely learn that it started with three students;
these three foundation stones were an ex- monk, an ex-priest,
and an ex-seminarian (p. 164).
VI.
Jam satis. Let us turn now from this study of the clergy-
men and clerical aspirants of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in Italy and, under Dr. Stackpole's guidance, take a brief
glance at the organization's work among the people.
Who constitute the Methodist laity of Italy ? Let our guide
answer: ''The better and nobler class of Italians' we have not
reached. Our system attracts the mendicant class, just as mo-
lasses draws flies" (p. 177), which, by the way, throws light
upon the character of the young men from whom we have just
parted. A vivid sketch is drawn of the working of the system ;
how the community has no interest in the new movement,
which they regard as a foreign importation thrust upon them ;
how some come at first out of curiosity, when a semi-political
subject is announced, and applaud when the preacher chimes in
with their political views, but leave him empty pews if he
preaches religion; how persons of noble character and social,
influence stay away, out of self-respect, while a lot of mendi-
cants, hearing that a very wealthy society has domiciled among
them, flock to the church; how tramps and beggars expect the
pastor to furnish them money for all their wants and, if re-
fused, desert his church for another similarly organized but
* Europe and Methodism, p. 73. The bishop's concise narrative omits the entire story of
this theological school at Florence, which fact speaks volumes about his method of writing
history.
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I9IO.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 243
more liberal in the distribution of money, clothing, and soup;
how the congregation looks to the wealthy oi^anization to
provide Yankee gold to pay the pastor and nearly all current
expenses; how some are shamed, for the sake of appearance,
into throwing something, the smallest coins, however, into the
collection basket; how the very small sums which the Metho*
dist Episcopal churches of Italy contribute come chiefly from
American and English visitors; how, in some places, a few
persons become sincerely attached to the church, while the rest
are ready to sever their connections for the slightest cause;
how one sort of pastor dare not rebuke sin, for fear of dimin-
ishing his congregation, and another doesn't care a green fig
whether his people come to church or stay away.* No fancy
picture this. Dr. Stackpole assures us. In a few instances
''some favorable modification'' would have to be made; but
for a true picture of the oi^anization as a whole, he avers,
''such is the Methodist Episcopal Church in Italy" (p. 142).
No wonder the whole basis is pronounced unsound. "Not
the least of the evils of our financial system in Italy," he de-
clares, "is that it tends to diminish piety and to develop a
selfish dependence upon others" (p. 148). If any of these
converts ever had any zeal, this system kills it. "In Italy,"
he says, "the laymen do almost nothing unless paid for ser-
vice, and then they do but little" (p. 108). It is to them a
plain matter of business and they regard themselves as work-
ing for the society (p. 150). In fact, according to Dr. Stack*
pole, most of the workers in Italy, as^in Bulgaria, are under
the impression that the Methodist Mission exists "for the
financial benefit of the workers employed" (p. 113). This
view is shared by the women workers as well as by the men.
Not infrequently the service of the employees has to be dis-
continued. It is the "rule without exception, so far as we
know," says Dr. Stackpole, that "whoever has once been in
the pay of our mission as preacher, Bible woman, janitor, or-
ganist, etc., and has, for any cause, been discharged, has be-
come at once a bitter opposer of our church, proving thereby
that his motive for uniting with us was a mercenary one"
(p. 54).
How these unprincipled rascals must have laughed among
themselves and chuckled in their sleeves at our poor Methodist
♦ Chapter on " Self-Support."
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344 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May,
brothers and their Yankee shrewdness I Imagine, for instance,
the twinkle in the eye of the editor of the Nuova Scienza^
sometimes called the Italian Methodist Quarterly Review. For
six years he extracted from the Methodists both his salary and
the funds for printing his magazine, ''which had not the re-
motest connection/' it appears, ''with any work of Methodism
in Italy/' It was a philosophical review, and the philosophy
it taught, as judged by several members of the Conference,
was . . . pantheism. The editor " accepted the compliment
pf being the best recent exponent of Giordano Bruno '' (p. 84),
which possibly explains why he was paid by the Methodists.
Shrewd schemers, high and low, from philosophers and preach-
ers down to janitors and Bible women, they have all gleefully
gathered in the golden eggs laid by the Methodist hen.
The financial policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church
ruled also over their educational institutions, at least to a great
extent Free elementary schools were established. "It wad
thought that by getting the children into our schools, the par-
ents could be drawn into our church services; but the results
in this direction have not been encouraging. As soon as the
children are able to earn a few cents per day, they are put to
work and we see them no more'' (p. 167). In Rome there
was established a Boys' Institute, which was advertised as
" semi*gratuitous." "The word semi-gratuitous, with the
emphasis on the last part of the compound, expresses the pres-
ent policy of the administration. Everything must be furnished
either for nothing or less than cost. This is the shortest way
to apparent success" (p. 171). It opened with eight pupils:
three were expelled for stealing (p. 170). Since Dr. Stackpole
quit the field the educational work of the Methodists has grown
greatly; and we believe the claim is now made that some of
the institutions are self-supporting.
The final judgments of Dr. Stackpole upon the system are
well worth noting and weighing. " We fear that much of the
money poured into Italy by Protestants of every name and
land has become unintentionally a corruption fund" (p. 133)^*
this he declares in relation to the effect upon preachers. "A
corrupting financial policy " (p. 1 13) is his characterization of the
method of dealing with the workers in general. And when we
remember its influence upon the people and the children, we
are prepared to hear him sum up the system in this final word :
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I9IO.] METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY 24S
** It is an attempt to build up the Kingdom of God by a judi-
cious use of money alone'' (p. 142).*
VII.
Sad chronicle of shame t What object could tempt men of
a certain religious zeal to stoop to so low a policy and to en-
list the aid of rogues and mercenaries? Only a rare and
alluring prize — the conquest of Italy, the Pope's own country^
of Rome, his very city t What but this could prove so fatally
bewitching to the Methodist heart, so dazzling to the Metho*
dist conscience? Here lies the secret of the warped hearts
and twisted consciences with which American Methodists have
attempted to carry out this brilliant enterprise. Elsewhere
indeed, in the pursuit of their propaganda among Catholics,
we do not observe in them any nice scrupulosity in the
choice of means; witness their missions among the Italians
of our large cities. But when Catholicism is not their game,
their native sentiments of honor and decency seem to have full
play. Then, with something higher than hatred to inspire
zeal, their efforts are more worthy of respect and crowned
with greater success. In contrast to their Italian missions, Dr.
Stackpole outlines their policy in Germany. Here we see none
of those characteristics which are so salient and sinister in bis
sketch of Italian Methodism. There are no ex- priests, no ex-
Lutheran ministers, hired in Germany to attack or vilify the
church they have ceased to serve. Soup is not regarded as
* Here would be the appropriate place to speak of the results of these missions ; but per-
haps that has been done sufficiently in the March Catholic World, pp. 858 sg. The only
trustworthy account is kept by the recording angel, and the secret is safe with him. Dr.
Stac]q>ole repeatedly asserts that the reports of the Mission, at any rate, are not at all trust-
worthy, because falsified by the pastors. The great apparent aim is to produce a good in^
presskm on the society in New York, from whence cometh their aid. The Americans in charge
of the Italian Missions are not accused of fraud, however ; but, apparently, Yankee shrewd-
ness has been beguiled by Italian diplomacy into believing in very highly exaggerated
numbers. The Mission at present makes far bigger boasts ; we cannot say how great a dis-
count should be deducted before the truth be reached. Is there one Methodist among them
all 7 Perhaps one ; possibly fifty ; but many, no doubt, become good Pope-haters. Bishop
Burt, if quoted correctly (New York Times , Sunday, April 10), has abandoned the hope of
converting Italy to Methodism, but expects great things from it in the fight for religious
liberty. It will be remembered that the providential Dr. Tipple, who in one crowded hour
of glorious life revealed to the world all the sweetness and light of Italian Methodism, also
strongly advocates religious liberty and the destruction of Popery. So does LAsin^* [See
remariu hi the department of *' With Our Readers."— Editor.]
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246 METHODIST PIONEERS IN ITALY [May.
the universal, divinely appointed means of salvation. The
American Methodism of Germany appears — ^if, as we believe
and trusty Dr. Stackpole's picture is faithful^what we should
like to see it everywhere — decent and respectable, with a soul
of piety and fervor and love. But what a marvelous magician
is religious hate I It waves its wand and, lo t men of ordinary
honesty and cleanness of life see rascals transformed into help-
meets for the spread of God's kingdom, they see the light of
sanctity rest upon ways and means of propaganda from which,
an their sober senses, they would shrink as too vile to touch.
All is fair and good when the Pope is the foe. In his pres-
ence latent antagonism is aroused, and hate, and the determina-
tion to conquer at any cost. The priests and the scribes of
Methodism have vowed to undo him. They seek out Judas
and buy him with silver. They join hands with Herod and
Pilate, with men who scorn them and hate all religion, in order
to compass their ends. They encourage the rabble to shout
for Barabbas, and join with the cohorts of evil that revile and
spit upon the Vicar of Christ.
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Hew £ooIi8*
It is a constant source of wonder
CARDINAL MERCIER'S to us why, with the large number of
CONFERENCES. very excellent books issuing from
the Catholic press, Catholics are
not more alive to the benefits and the joys of spiritual reading.
Nothing would so efficaciously create the ''new man'* within
them ; nothing would so wondrously transform their lives from
a dull, monotonous succession of days, than a faithful de-
votion to healthy spiritual reading. It is idle to say that the
devotional books written for Catholics are poorly written.
In truth, with all the active, energetic forces about us that
constantly seek to deceive us by false values; that constantly
endeavor to lead us to compromise with the world-spirit; that
insidiously blind our soul to the vision that God would grant
it and shut us from the knowledge of our power and our in-
heritance; it is absolutely necessary for every Catholic, if he
is to keep the flame of divine love aglow within him, if he is
to keep, by freedom from mortal sin, at least, the reign of
the Holy Spirit within the temple of his soul and body, that
he should, by spiritual reading, preserve fresh and living the
basic principles of the Christian life. If the soul does not by
prayer, by reading, by instruction, recall these to its active
consideration, it will abandon them altogether.
Call after call is being sent forth by unselfish souls who
have given themselves to the highest service of humanity ; who
have, by study and by personal consecration, learnt the prec-
ious secrets of the real Christian life ; and who, with further
labor, have written for others in a delightful, appealing way
of that life and the principles that must guide one in it
Books of this sort are issued frequently by the Catholic press.
What they treat of is the very warp and woof of the Christian
character; and every Catholic — for we are all sufficiently edu-
cated — should welcome them, read them, and, because of the
food which under God's grace they will give, lead the life
which is not of this world and which they must lead if they
really hope ever to reach the kingdom of God.
These words will be appropriate for many of the volumes
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248 NEW BOOKS [May,
reviewed in The Catholic World month after month. For
there is not space always to exhort. Most frequently we most
confine ourselves to a few lines of exposition. We wish to call
special attention here to a book* which, though written es-
pecially for those who were studying for the priesthood, con-
tains chapters that will be joyfully welcomed by every intel-
ligent and pious soul — cleric or lay. Cardinal Mercier treats of
great lofty themes, themes that appeal to every soul, and yet
which many souls abandon because they hopelessly believe that
such things are not for them. The Cardinal exposes in a
masterly way and with simplicty of expression intelligible to
any one the steps and the methods, and, better still, the prin-
ciples of the spiritual life. He is thorough, solid, thoughtful,
competent. He has written a book which has this mark of
distinction — that it may be employed with profit by the simple
and the learned; by beginners and by experts. It is com-
posed of seven conferences. And among the subjects are Re-
tirement and Recollection; the Voice of God; Intercourse With
God ; Peace of Soul ; and Emanuel : God With Us. The layman
who reads it will be able to see what is for him and what is
not, and he will find here a fullness of instruction, of guidance,
and of inspiration that will enlighten his mind and gladden his
heart. We need not speak of its excellences for clerics. The
translation is unusually well done.
Mr. John Redmond, in his preface
IRELAND. to this book,t gives a brief ac-
By Sutherland. count of the way in which it came
to be written. ** Some seven years
ago, when the Irish movement was passing through one of its
most exciting and critical stages, the proprietors of the Nprtk
American (of Philadelphia) sent one of the ablest members of
their staff, Mr. Hugh Sutherland, over to Ireland to describe,
for the information of the American people, the Irish situation
as he found it. The result was a series of brilliant and illu-
minating articles. . . . Mr. Sutherland was again deputed
this summer (1909) to visit Ireland and record his impressions
♦ Cardinal MireUf's Omfirmces, Translated from the French by J. M. O'Kavanagfa.
With Introduction bj Canon Sheehan. New York : Bendger Brothers.
MrelandYtsitrday and To-day, By Hugh Sutherland. With an Introduction by John
E. Redmond, M.P. Philadelphia: The N«rth American.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 249
of its changed conditionsi and this he did in a second series
of letters no less remarkable than the first." To these two
series of descriptive letters Mr. Sutherland has appended an
historical sketch which shows the reasons for Ireland's miseries
and the justice of the claim for self-government.
The work is well done. Mr. Sutherland is a wide-awake
American reporter, with an eye to see and a tongue to tell,
and a camera, too, to prove his descriptions true. His investi-
gations were made in the congested districts, mainly in West-
ern Connaught. The first series of letters paints a dismal
picture of poverty and distress, but the second series depicts
conditions which have already been vastly improved, and which
will, no doubt, continue to grow better as the new peasant
proprietors acquire complete ownership of their farms.
Incidentally, Mr. Sutherland describes for us three fine
types of Irish patriot, and describes them well. One is that
of a political leader, in the person of Mr. John Fitzgibbon;
another the practical reformer, quiet and e£fective, Mr. Henry
Doran, chief land inspector of the Congested Districts Board.
He is most enthusiastic in his appreciation of Rev. Denis
0*Hara, parish priest. '' It seems to me that the ' P. P.' which
he writes after his name is as noble a distinction as any string
of letters to be found in the peerage. It is the Distinguished
Service Order of Humanity."
There is an interesting chapter, by way of postscript, in
answer to critics. Most of them were moved to write to him
by anti-Catholic bias. ^'One indignant person « • . dis-
missed my labors with the charge that I was a narrow-minded
bigot, hopelessly enslaved by the Church to which he assigned
me. Perhaps this will be sufficient apology for the very per-
sonal disclosure that back of my Americanism is an ancestry
of double-dyed Ulster Scotch-Irish, and that the nearest ap-
proach to a saint in my church is John Wesley." Concluding
this topic, he says: ''If religion was 'dragged into* the Irish
question, the dragging was done by Elizabeth, James I., Wil-
liam III., James II., and their Parliaments; but there's no use
writing peevish letters to them, because they're dead. And if
it is kept in, the keeping is done by those who denounce the
idea of self-government upon the ground that it would confer
equal rights upon citizens of a different faith."
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S50 NEW BOOKS [May,
It is cheering to see Catholic
POLITICS AND HISTORT. writers who have the courage
By Dewe. and initiative to blaze their own
way through the virgin forests of
a new science, instead of following after, as we so often do,
picking brushwood. The science of sociology, though it occu-
pied, in some of its phases, the minds of Plato and Aristotle,
of St Thomas and Dante, of Locke and Rousseau, is still, in
many important respects, a new science.
The present volume,* by a Catholic priest, the Rev. J. A.
Dewe, M.A., of the University of Ottawa, is an inquiry into
the principles of social development and decay along the lines
of the nature of man himself. The author is convinced that
the attempts to explain the rise and fall of nations on the
basis of climate or of geographical conditions, or of economic
opportunities, leave out the most important factor in the
problem — the psychology of individuals and communities.
Outside of this one contention, he can hardly be said to have
any pet thesis to defend. He approaches his task with the
manner of one who has an investigation to make, not a point
to prove. This is a proper scientific attitude to take, and his
taking it gives one confidence in his treatment of the problems.
His plan is stated in the Introduction (p. 4) as follows:
** It is the human element that counts, and the object of our
research must be to consider scientifically the constituents of
this element in the individual, and then to see how its work-
ings affect the condition of society.** This plan is beset by
the difficulty that is always present when one endeavors to
follow a single thread through, a tangle, and the author does
not always stick to his proposed method. He often takes the
easier way of discussing social changes from the standpoint of
the historian rather than of the psychologist. For the rest,
his conclusions are drawn from a wide knowledge of human
nature and human history; they are well-balanced and sane,
and in accordance with Catholic views of life.
Two of the most valuable chapters are the third, on ''The
Harmony between the State and £xtra*State Elements/* and
the seventh, on ''The Influence of Christianity on the State."
In the former he shows the relation between " extra-state** ele*
ments, i. e., individual rights and family interests on the one
♦ PsychoUiy of Politics mnd History^ By Rev. J, A, Dewe, M.A. New York, Bombay,
and Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co.
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hand and the claims of the general social organism on the other.
His conclusion is that men are best o£f in a middle condition
between mere iamily clannishness and the sort of State domi^
nation which Socialism proposes. The chapter on Christianity
is an excellent analysis of the social value of the Gospel
teaching, with a brief but lurid sketch of the relations between
the Christian Church and civil society down to our own day«
The author looks with equanimity upon the present tendency
towards separation of Church and State.
We shall venture to quote one passage which is interesting
to American readers, and which will serve as an example of
the author's clearness and fairness of view. In his chapter on
''The Connection Between the Speculative Thought of Indi-
viduals and the Thought of the Masses/' he says that in coun-
tries where democracy is all-powerful, as in the United States,
''it is only with great difficulty that individual genius can
assert political influence/' He quotes De Tocqueville to this
effect, and then goes on to say : " What commanding influence
has there been in the States but owes its power and origin to
the people themselves? And what instance can be quoted of
any commanding individuality that ever came into collision
with the strength of the masses and was then able by sheer
intellectual force to lead them along ? " This has a good and
a bad side, as is evident, but to offset the evil in it, as he
remarks: "The American people have reached generally a
high level. Even the ordinary workman is fairly well educated
and is able to take an intelligent interest in the affairs of his
country.*' The author's summing up of the conditions is really
a testimony to the vitality of our democracy. The power ex-
ercised over English opinion by individual thinkers and lead-
ers " stands out in remarkable contrast with the state of things
in America, where reforms and changes have almost invariably
arisen from the people themselves, or from persons who owe
their influence entirely to the people."
Canon Sheehan's work in fiction
THE BLINDNESS OP could be published under a general
DR. GRAT. title borrowed from George Eliot,
By Canon Sheehan. Seems from Clerical Life. He has
been criticized for this by some
well-intentioned people, who would like to have inscribed over
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the door of every rectory the legend ''Foris estote, profani/'
Of such it may be said that they are more reverent than
judicious. When men are . as prominent in the minds of the
people as the Catholic priests are, their lives and characters
are constantly under review. And, necessarily, the estimate is
made, to a large extent, on the basis of externals. The best
portion of a priest's life, being hidden with Christ in God, is
unknown.
The leading character of the present novel* is an Irish
parish priest, who was educated under the old semi-Jansenistic
Irish school, ''a rigorist in theology, a rigid disciplinarian,
who never knew what it was to dispense in a law either for
himself or others, ... a grave, stern man, . • • inflex-
Uble in the observance of statutes, • . • with the fury of a
revengeful deity on any infraction of law, or any public scandal,"
A type to be respected, but not loved. In the end he dis-
covers the truth that '' Love is the fulfilling of. the law."
The book is not, however, a mere study in sacerdotal psy-
chology. It contains a well-handled bit of romance; together
with scenes of gypsy life and smuggling, which bring us back
to Guy ManneHng ; the unending, miserable, Irish land squab-
bles; and scenes of Irish domestic life, painted with tender-
ness and humor. And the still deeper note, so prevalent in
all his work, is not wanting here. His deepest interest seems
to be, not in life as led by this or that individual, but in the
great problem of life itself. He has sympathy for various
views, but over and over again there comes out his own Cel-
tic Christian mystical view of life. His work is the work of
a priest. It is priestly in its broad and generous view of man^
his passions and aspirations, and priestly also in its steady in-
sistance on the claims of God.
Because of the limits of our space
INDUSTRIAL AMERICA, it is impossible to give reviews
such as we would wish to many
important publications. In fact, with regard to many new
books an article of ten pages would scarce do justice. The
Arthur H. Clark Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, whose unsel-
fish labor as publishers is worthy of all praise, are just now
issuing a work entitled The Documentary History of American
• Th€ Blindness ofthi Vtry Rev, Dt, Gray^ By Canon Shechan. New York : Longmans,
Green & Co.
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Industrial Society ^^ to which the much-abused adjective ** monu-
mental*' may be justly ascribed. The work will cover in a
documentary way the labor, industrial and generally sociologi-
cal history of our country from pioneer to present day. The
American Bureau of Industrial Research and the Carnegie In-
stitution of Washington have gathered information through years
of labor, at an expense of over seventy-five thousand dollars,
and have carefully prepared and edited the work.
It must be apparent at once that any one who wishes
to make a study of America; of the beginnings of its politi-
cal institutions; of the courses that shaped its history and
guided the actions of its people — for nothing is in a practical
way more close to the people than their daily occupation — any
one who wishes to speak or write upon social or industrial
America must be acquainted with these volumes. They give
detailed, documentary evidence which is otherwise inaccessible;
and evidence such as this is, one must know and digest if he
is to speak with authority. From these volumes one may
really know at first hand the beginnings and the growth of
industrial America and of the great forces within it that are
surely making the America of the future. No student of
social reform, no student who seriously looks out upon the
horizon and asks himself anxiously what mean the clouds that
are gathering there, will remain unacquainted with this thorough,
painstaking work. The volumes so far published deal with the
Plantation and Frontier, and the Labor Conspiracy Cases from
1806-1842. The work will be completed in ten volumes, and
will recite by documents the history of the labor movement
up to 1880.
No doubt the documentary history of later years will sub-
sequently be added, and we will have what we absolutely lack
—and what no other country lacks — a detailed record of our
industrial and economic life. The Catholic World earnestly
hopes for the publishers the success and support which their
labors deserve. Every library in the country worthy of the
name will have on its shelves this work; and the individual
able to afford his own personal collection will do well to
secure it
* Tki Docnmintafy History of American Industrial Sociity, With numerous illustrations
and facsimiles. Complete in ten volumes. Cleveland, Ohio : The Arthur H. Clark Com-
pany.
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The translation of this volume *
THEOLOGT OF THE was a work worth doing and is a
SACRAMENTS. work well done. Of late years
liberal Protestant and Rationalistic
Iheologians have declared that the Catholic dogmas concerning
the Sacraments are purely human inventions and that these
Christian rites have been borrowed from Paganism. With an
array of historical facts that would startle the uninitiated, and
aided by an unscientific criticism, these scholars have triumph-
antly given their biased and exaggerated doctrines to the world
as the latest results of scientific and critical investigation.
In the present volume Father Pourrat submits these same
historical facts to a rigorously impartial and scientific criticism.
The result has been to show ^'that an exclusively Christian
inspiration presided over the origin of our dogmas regarding
the Sacraments and over the origin of those Sacraments them-
selves; and that between the scriptural and patristic data in
this matter and the sacramentary definitions of the Council of
Trent there exists a conformity sufficient to satisfy any reason-
able mind.''
The various chapters of the book deal with the questions
usually handled in the treatise on The Sacraments in General;
The Definition ; Matter and Form ; Efficacy of the Sacraments ;
The Sacramental Character; The Number and Divine Institution
of the Sacraments ; The Intention in the Minister and Subject.
But besides being treated from the ordinary doctrinal point
of view, they are all subjected to an exhaustive historical study.
For this purpose the author divides the matter into four peri-
ods: from the beginning to St. Augustine; from St. Augus-
tine to the Twelfth Century ; from the Twelfth Century to the
Council of Trent; from the Council of Trent to our own day.
And he shows how the doctrines have been deduced from the
sacramental practice of the Church, how the sacramental the-
ology has grown out of the Church living by her Sacraments.
The process can be summed up in the consecrated phrase ''Lex
Orandi, Lex Credendi.'' In the earlier centuries, the Fathers
were absorbed by such doctrines as the Trinity, Incarnation,
Redemption, Original Sin, and Grace; there was no doctrinal
development of the Sacraments ; writers were content with a
* Tkiohiy of the Sacraments, A Study in Positive Theology. By the Very Rev. P.
Pourrat, V.G., Rector of the Theological Seminary of Lyons, France. Authorized Transla-
tion from the third French Edition. St. Louis : B. Herder.
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mere description of the existing customs; hence the theology,
as distinct from the practice of the Sacraments, was incomplete
and vague. It was only later that Christian thought turned
to the formal consideration of the Sacraments: the theologians
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the representatives of
Catholic Tradition in their time as the Fathers were in the
first centuries, gathered together and synthesized all the tradi-
tional data relative to the Sacraments and constructed there-
from a complete theological system.
The Council of Trent (1545-63) defined the traditional doc-
trine of the Sacraments which Protestants were casting aside;
we say the traditional doctrine in order to distinguish it from
the theological opinions which the Church has never sanctioned
and which have been subjected to change according to the re-
sults obtained in late centuries from a more profound and more
critical study of history. It is to this work of positive theol-
og7f u distinct from scholastic theology, that modern theolo-
gians are now devoting their efforts in accordance with the
desire expressed by Pope Pius X. in his Encyclical on Mod-
ernism.
Such in brief is a summary of a volume which should be
in the library of every English-speaking priest and seminarian.
The field of positive theology has been exploited by German
and French Rationalists for their own purposes and their works
have found abundant translators into English. But it is a field
that has as yet been but little explored by Catholic scholars
•f any nationality. Of late years something is being done, but
as yet our English literature on positive theology is limited to
such volumes as the one under discussion and the translation
of Riviere's History of the Atonement.
We trust, then, that this volume of Father Pourrat will have
the circulation and success it assuredly deserves.
We welcome this little book on The
THE COURAGE OF CHRIST. Courage of Christ • In it Father
Schuyler sets an example and pre-
sents a model. In the first place, the work is based on a sound
theological foundation. There is a complete avoidance of the
danger into which pious Protestants often fall, of getting to view
our Lord as if he were a mere man, ** the Master,*' indeed, but not
^Tk4 Courage of Christ. By Henry C. Schuyler, S.T.L. Philadelphia: Peter Reilly;
London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
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256 NEW BOOKS [May,
(at least not with doe emphasis) '' the Lord God/' Secondly, the
study is based strictly on the Gospel record, and there is no
attempt to push description beyond the legitimate ground of
imagination working on the data of the Gospels and knowledge
of the customs of the times. The style is manly, direct, simple,
sincere. The object of the author is to present the actions of
our Lord so as to produce a moral e£fect on the readers. This
he does by revealing the attractiveness of Christ as a model
of courage and patience, and by well-timed and brief moral
disquisitions and exhortations. We are glad to be told that
^' this little volume is the first of a series, in each of which,
circumstances permitting, one of the virtues of our Lord will
be treated.'*
The daughter of a great-grandson
TffB HOLT PRACTICES OF of Blessed Thomas More, Helen
A DIVmE LOVER. More, was the head of that grou^
of nine young women who, in
about 1623, left inhospitable England and founded a Benedic-
tine community at Cambrai. Miss More's name in religion
was Gertrude. She possessed many of the gifts of her illus-
trious and saintly grandparent. She was well educated, talented,
and of quick and ready wit. Yet she suffered from the defects
of a too-high spirited and enthusiastic temperament. The first
years of her religious life were, in a great measure, unhappy,
and at length the clouds of doubt settled upon her soul and
she seriously questioned her religious vocation. But her soul
was not to be lost to the high service of God. She was to
be taught that hers was a nature that must possess all or
nothing; must climb to the highest perfection or not seek to
climb at all.
Under Divine Providence, a master of the spiritual life of
prayer was sent to her. Father Augustine Baker was at that
time already renowned for his learning and his spiritual in-
sight. Under his skillful, holy guidance Dame Gertrude ad-
vanced rapidly. Her soul grew strong in prayer, and interior
peace settled upon her. She was in religion only nine years;
yet when about to die, and asked if she wished Father Baker
to come to her assistance, she answered: ''No; only thank
him a thousand times for having secured the peace I now en-
joy.'' Dame Gertrude died in the odor of sanctity on the
17th of August, 1633, in the twenty* seventh year of her age.
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Her life, which was written by Father Atigastine Baker, is, we
are pleased to say, to be republished in the very near future.
Dame Gertrude was the compiler of this small book of
Devotions. They were prepared by order of her confesson
They are not always original, for Dame Gertrude drew upon
any source near at hand — the writings, for example, of St
Augustine, particularly his Confessions^ and of the Abbot
Blosius. The title. The Ideofs Devotions^ was not an uncommon
one in that age and means simply ''Devotions of a Plain
Man/'
The book * breathes throughout the spirit and the teaching
of the great Benedictine master — Father Baker. It will be a
source of much profit and great joy to tvtxy lover of prayer;
and a special help, as Dom Fox says in his introduction, to
those "who by nature are unfit to practice meditation in the
sense in which that word is usually understood by spiritual
writers in these days. For many souls this is a most salutary
and necessary practice; but for others such discursive prayer,
as it is called, is a distraction and a hindrance.''
The work gives first a summary of perfection ; then careful
directions as to the use of these devotions; then follow the
devotions themselves — practices of contrition; exercises on the
life and passion of our Savior, Jesus Christ; acts of resigna-
tion ; holy practices of divine love ; holy exercises of pure love
of God; certain amorous aspirations; and at the end is added
the Top of the Heavenly Ladder — which is really a develop-
ment and completion of the Devotions. Dame Gertrude tells us
that they were written for persons of ''every state and con-
dition — religious, single, or married people." She prays that
all may make use of them to the honor of God and their souls*
good — and we heartily re-echo her prayer.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, in ^at
SOCIALISM. article II., U.^^ q. 66, a. 2, of bis
By Spargo. Summa, which is devoted to the
discussion of private property,
presents as his chief argument in its favor the fact that it is
in accord with the best interests of the community. A simi-
lar principle is affirmed by Catholic teachers when, in consid-
* TAi Holy Practices of a Divime Lover; or, the Saintfy Ideofs DevotUtu, By Dame
Qeitmde More. London : Sands &^Co.
VOL. XCL— 17
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258 NEW BOOKS [Majr,
ering the limitations of the right of private property, they
reprobate that use which is inconsistent with the best inter*
ests of the community largely considered. In a word, private
property is justified on the one hand, and is limited on the
other, by the common welfare.
Now if, accepting this principle, one were to reflect upon
the abuses prevalent in the industrial and commercial world
to-day; and if, reflecting thereupon, one were to outline a
method for the permanent bettering of conditions, it is possi-
ble that he would produce a volume resembling in many re-
spects the little book which Mr. Spargo has been pleased to
name The Substance of Socialism.^
In Mr. Spargo's vocabulary. Socialism is a principle— a princi-
ple which calls for the elimination of the power of an idle class in
society to exploit the wealth- producers (p. 84). It is not opposed
to private property. Subject to the superior right of society as
a whole, the individual possession of private property might
be ** far more widespread under Socialism than to-day *' (p. 89)*
The form of ownership ** is relatively unimportant according to
the Socialist philosophy" (p. 92). ''Socialism is not hostile
to private property, except where such property is used to
exploit the labor of others than its owners. The socialization
of property in the Socialist State would be confined to (i)
such things as in their nature could not be held by private
owners without subjecting the community to exploitation or
humiliation; (2) such things as the citizens might agree to own
in common to attain superior efficiency in their management''
(p. 94). What Socialism wants, in a word, is ** equal economic
opportunities for all ** (p. 33). Moreover, if a change be effected
in the existing order, **\t is the duty of the State to give an
indemnity to those whose interests will be injured by the nec-
essary abolition of laws contrary to the common good in so far
as this indemnity is consistent with the interests of the nation
as a whole '* (quoted from Liebknecht in the Foreword).
Critics of the author have charged that he is not an ''or-
thodox Socialist '* ; he vindicates his claim in the Preface. But
to what avail will men continue to quarrel about this most
unfortunate wordl The important question is this: Can we
trust the Socialist ? There are thousands of us who think much
as Mr. Spargo does about many things, and who suffer quite
• Th€ Substance of Socialism, By John Spargo. New York : B. W. Huebsch.
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as keenly in oar souls because of the cruelty and injustice
rampant in the present order; and yet we are deterred from
making common political cause with ''Socialism/' because we
do not feel that we can trust its influence in the moral and
religious field. This timidity is unfortunate for the cause of
economic reform, no doubt; but will Mr. Spargo say that it is
without foundation? Tell us, Mr. Spargo, if we were to put
you and yours in power, would you confine your activity strictly
to the economic territory, speaking no word and lifting no
hand against the moral principles, doctrinal truths, or religious
institutions that we hold sacred ?
We have already called the attention of our readers to the
volumes of De Ponte's Meditations ; and we wish now to speak
of the excellencies of three additional volumes of these same
meditations published by B. Herder, of St Louis. The volumes
are in Latin; exceptionally well-printed and bound; and the
merits of De Ponte's writings need no comment— any words
on the merit of these meditations would be superfluous. Learned,
solid, inspiring, they should be heartily welcomed and read
and re-read by every priest. The third volume of the medi-
tations treats of the active and the contemplative life ; the birth,
childhood, preaching, and miracles of our Lord; the fourth of
our Lord's Sacred Passion and Death; the fifth of the Resurrec-
tion, the work of- the Holy Spirit, the conversion of St PauU
the ascension of our Blessed Lady, and the joy of the elect
To the editor and the publishers of this most worthy Bibliotheca
Ascetica Mystica our sincere gratitude is again extended.
This small brochure* was accompanied by a request for a
favorable review. If we could possibly do so, it would have
been a personal pleasure for us to oblige the author. Truth
and justice to our readers compel us to say that a more in-
exact, thoughtless, and altogether foolish pamphlet than this
has never in our memory, which extends over many years*
come to us for criticism.
This novel t gives us much of novelty and of humor, and
its serious side deals capably with the struggles of a man, weak
* 7*A# Esoteric Meaning of thi Stvtn Saerawanis, By Princess Karadja. London :
Messrs. Wooderson.
t Thi Up^Gradi, Bj Wilder Goodwin. Boston : Little, Brown & Co.
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in will power, but in a measure ambitious to overcome that
weakness and achieve better things. The love of a good woman
helps him to success.
The confusion and uncertainty regarding the title and
authorship of this book* are explained in the Preface. The
work is divided into two parts : one historical ; the other crit-
ical. The first part begins with the preaching of Christ and
summarizes the principal phases of the history of Christian be-
lief and unbelief. The second part explains the meaning of
faith and of unbelief^ and seeks to analyze the causes and
principle forms of contemporary infidelity. The book con-
cludes with a chapter by Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, on
'^ Paganism Under a New Name.'*
Among the recent works of fiction we wish to mention
particularly: Trammelings^ by Georgina Pell Curtis, a volume
of short stories attractive in style, wholesome in tone, and
agreeably presented. Two of the short stories particularly
recommend themselves: ''A Romance of Guadalupe'* and
*' Castle Walls.'* The volume is published by B. Herder, of
St. Louis.
W. Woodruff Anderson gives us a delightful book in A
Strain of White. He tells charmingly of the unselfish labor of
.an old cur^ in the spiritual training and development of a
half-breed Indian girl, and how through various vicissitudes
and temptations that training proved successful. The book is
published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
The heroine of So As By Fire^ by Jean Connor, is a mag-
netic little soul, blooming like a wild flower amid adverse
circumstances. She gives to the book vivacious action and is
at once its heroine and its villain. With the trials and struggles
of a perfectly candid nature interestingly presented as a back-
ground the story is attractive and capable and has throughout
a distinctly Catholic atmosphere. The volume is published by
Benziger Brothers, New York.
* Th€ Causes and Curt of Unbelief. By N. J. Laforet. Revised, enlarged, and edited bj
Cardinal Gibbons, with a chapter by the Most Rev, P. J. Ryan, D.D. New York: P. J.
Kenedy & Son.
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jfoteidtt petiobicals.
7h$ Tablet (19 March): ''The French Liquidation Scandal/'
An editorial on the ''affaire Duez/' M. Duez, one
of the three liquidators of the property of the dissolved
religious communities, has been incarcerated on the
charge of enormous defalcations.— Fr. Thurston, SJ.,
contributes the first of a series of papers on "The
Dark Ages of English Catholicism/' This deals with
the "No- Popery Alarm of 1734-5." The Roman
Correspondent gives the views of the Italian Press on
the new Code of Canon and Marriage Laws.— —An-
other step in the process for the canonization of Yen.
Oliver Plunket.
(26 March): "The Joy of Achievement/' Bernard
Whelan describes the new Westminster Cathedral.
The House of Lords has completely vindicated the
claims of the monks regarding the Chartreuse Liqueur.
(2 April): Fribourg and its University," by Wilfred C.
Robinson, " The University of Fribourg, while national
and Catholic, is also international in its character.
Both its professors and its students are drawn from
many lands besides Switzerland.**
(9 April): "The Easter Festival,'* by the Rev. Herbert
Thurston, S.J., deals with the ancient tradition which
teaches that the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension
of our Lord are this year commemorated on the dates
upon which they actually occurred. In "Economic
History for Catholic Women,** Mrs. Philip Gibbs thinks
a knowledge of this branch of history indispensable to.
* those who wish to fulfill their duties to their Church
and their country. She suggests certain Catholic and
non-Catholic works with which to commence, and makes
a plea for an insistence in our convents upon the eco-
nomic aspect of history •-»—" In the Footsteps of Some
Martyrs,** by the Comtesse de Courson. An account of
thirty-two sisters put to death in BoU&ne during the
Reign of Terror.
The International Journal of Ethics (April) : Charles R. Hen*
derson, in "The Ethical Problems of Prison Science,*'
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263 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May,
comments upon the questions to be considered by the
Interaational Prison Congress at Washington, D.C., in
October next. ''Nature in Morals and Politics." W. J.
Roberts. F. C. Sharp and M. C. Otto, in '* A Study of
the Popular Attitude Towards Retributive Punishment/'
by the State or individual, describe an elaborate ques-
tioning by them of one hundred agricultural freshmen
students. It appeared that only two out of the one
hundred utterly opposed the principle of retribution —
that is, punishment not lis a deterrent, but simply for
the sake of getting even.
Tki Irish Ecclesiastical Record (March) : '' The Irish Pastoral
College at Antwerp,*' by the Very Rev. P. Boyle, CM.
— '' Peter, Prince of the Apostles," is an account, by
Rev. James P. Conry, of St. Peter*s connection with
and martyrdom at Rome, based on the testimony of the
Fathers and tradition.— —W, H. Grattan Flood sketches
the life of ''John Walker — a Forgotten Maynooth Pro-
fessor."— —The Editor contributes an article on "Mod-
ern Socialism." He deals at length with the life and
work of Karl Marx, the author of modern scientific so-
cialism. The writer denies Marx's fundamental economic
principle " that manual labor, estimated in terms of time,
is the sole source and measure of economic value or of
wealth," because it takes no account of the mental en-
dowments, the energy, and thrift of the laborer, nor of
the difference in value of the objects worked upon. Dr.
Hogan also exposes " the principle of atheistic material-
ism which underlies the whole system of the famous so-
cialistic philosopher."
Le Comspondani (lo March): Gustave gives an account of the
" Risings of the Seine." ^"The Sentiments of Alsace,'*
by Pierre de Quirielle, reviews the recent discussion of
the Chancellor of the German Empire, M. de Bethmann-
HoUweg, and the answer of the Parliament of Alsace-
Lorraine upon the political conditions prevailing in these
provinces. In view of the sentiments shown, at the re-
cent unveiling of a monument " to the French soldiers
who fell for their country " at Wissemburg, and at the
releasing ofJ'Abb^ Wetterle, who had been imprisoned
for affirming his French sentiments, the author thinks
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that this section is still French at heart.— ^C. Looten
writes of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, *' whose novels are a
school of virility and energy."
(25 March): Under the title "Shall we have a Navy?''
L. de Saint- Victor de Saint-BIancard decries the decline
of France as a naval power, which he attributes to
"France being entirely abandoned to the power of an
ignorant and blundering oligarchy, who are indifferent
to the general interests." Prince Louis d'Orleans et
Bragance gives an interesting account of the ruins and
natural beauties of "Peru and Bolivia."— ^Fcrnand
Caussy narrates the happenings of March and April of
1810 that resulted in "The Marriage of Napoleon and
Marie-Louise."-^—" Souvenirs of Assisi," by Johannes
Joergensen.
£tudis (5 -March) : In a number of unedited letters of de Lam-
ennais to Father Ventura, we find the former to be a
determined opponent of :Gallicanism, and a strong de-
fender of the Pope.— H. J. Leroy maintains, amongst
other things, in defence of labor unions, that they are
misunderstood by the clergy. This explains the manifest
hostility of priests towards, and the lack of sufficient in-
terest in, the movement ^Jean Aicard, the poet of
Provence, is compared to Copp^e.
(20 March) : " The Psychology of St. Francis of Assist,"
by Lucien Roure. The writer maintains that history
gives the lie to Paul Sabatier and the whole Protestant
school who try to see in Francis a reformer of the Refor-
mation type.— —" Aviation," by Pierre de Vregille.
"The Social Status of Catholics in Holland," by P.
Mullen
jStudis Ftanciscaines : P. Egidio M. Gulsta discusses the question
as to who was the "True Architect of the Basilica of
Assisi."— — " Mental Prayer and Contemplation," by P.
L. de Besse. " The Franciscan Spirit," by P. Eugene,
the second of a series of conferences for the Third Order.
"There is no essential difference between the Franciscan
spirit and the Christian spirit."
Revue du Clergi Franpais (i March): "The Primacy of Peter
and the Coming of Peter to Rome," by Ch. Guignebert,
is reviewed. The author tends towards denying the
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264 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May*
strength of the Petrine texts, and attributes the tradi-
tion of St. Peter's visit to Rome to a desire of the
Judaizers to exalt St. Peter above St. Paul. E. Evrard
reviews the works of Robert Hugh Benson, treating in
particular the qualities and defects of the novel entitled
By What Authority. Mgr. Amette, writing of '' Edu-
cation/' considers the necessity of religion in education
and the roles which the family, the State, and the Church
respectively fill therein.
(15 March): ''Orpheus and the Gospel'' is the reprint
of a lecture by P. Batiffol, in which he adduces numer-
ous evidences to show that, contrary to the theory of
M. Reinach in his work Orpheus^ St. Paul's teaching
closely depends on the teaching of Christ— ^P. Con-
veilhier treats of the '' Principal Results of the Excava-
tions of Susa and Their Relations with the Bible."——
'' New Letters of de Lamennais " are reviewed.
La Rivus du Monde (i March): In the first of his articles on
''France and the Holy See," Abb^ P^ret treats of the
preliminary negotiations, confidential and public, respect-
ing the coronation of the Emperor Napoleon the First.
-»— Discussing the "Question of the Orient," Marcel
Joran gives a risumi of the " Treaty of Berlin," signed
July 13, 1878.— "Alphonse Daudet and Provence," by
J. Hugues. "A Robber at the Grand Chartreuse,'*
a brief history of Dom Leonis, by Eugene Grlselle.— —
" A Literary Memory and the Art of Cultivating It," by
Albert Robichon.
(15 March): "Man and God," the first of a series of
conferences by M. Sicard. "The History of Canon
Law in France" deals with the "collation of bene-
fices. " " Father Jean Amoux, \S.J., Confessor to
Louis XIIL," by Eugene Griselle.
Rivue Pratique d* Apologitique (15 March): H. Les^tre writes on
"The Annunciation." The Church, in recalling in its
office the Gospel narrative of the Mystery, concentrates
attention upon the great things done to Mary and the
manner in which she responded to her sublime vocation,
He incidentally comments on the "Ave Maria Stella."
Stimmen aus Maria Laach {II.) : " Russian Mysticism," by J.
Overmans, S.J. Professor Zdziechowski, an authorita-
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tive writer, thinks that Russian genius, with its senti-
mental mysticism, could teach us a truer valuation of
sentiment and thus enrich the powers of our soul. All
Russians have the same mystical faith and glowing
patriotism for ''Holy Russia/' It is unshaken by the
darkest clouds. But such enthusiasm does not stimulate
towards definite political goals. Successful action is
based on calm deliberation and Russian mysticism is
opposed to this.
Civilta Cattolica (19 March): ''A False Concept of Religion
in Dante '' thinks that Karl Vassler, in his study of the
Divina Commidia^ in its genesis and interpretation, has
falsely conceived the idea of religion therein. Vassler lays
down, as requisite for the right understanding and just
appreciation of Dante, the history of Christian dogma
as Harnack and the German Rationalistic school por-
tray it. '' Accusations Against the Catechism *' shows
how the state of affairs in Italy is growing more like
that of France in the desire to destroy everything that
savors of Christianity in the schools.
La Scuola Caitolica (March): A reply to ''An Objection
Against the Miracles of Lourdes," by Fra Agostino Ge-
melli. The instantaneousness of the -cures, it was said,
is only apparent,'' for the influence of the nervous sys*
tem upon the sick person during the time he is think-
ing of the future cure, during the time of preparation
for the pilgrimage, is more than sufficient to determine
a very rapid process of restoring the diseased tissues.
This, it is claimed, is opposed to biological principles.
A second objection is that the cures of Lourdes are but
the result of natural causes; the proof is the fact that
scars remain after the cures have been effected. The
answer is given that the cicatrices correspond in no way
to the gravity of the maladies, and that they are en-
tirely unlike those observed in similar cases; several
cases of cures are cited to substantiate this statement.
RasSn y Fe (March): A hitherto unpublished article by Bal-
mes, entitled : " Persecution and Opposition Suffered by
the Clergy." He attributes this to three causes: the
Church insists upon faith; she will not submit to any
external authority; she fearlessly reproves the wicked.
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266 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May,
-^— H. Gil contributes some notes on ''Catholic Mis-
sions Among the Heathen."-^—'' Modernism and Social
Action/' by N. Nogner, discusses the letter of our Holy
Father to the '' Social and Economic League '' of Italy,
pointing out bow this League is really opposed to the
Church. ''The Historical Method and the Interpre-
tation of the Synoptic Evangelists/' by L. Murillo.
C. Gdmez Rodeles continues his *' Footprints of the
Ancient Jesuits in Europe, America, and the Philip-
pines/' An illustrated article, by E. Ascunce, on
"The Conquest of the Air."
EspaHa y Amirica (March): "Godless Education." P. M. Rod-
riquez H., after outlining the results of such a system
elsewhere, concludes that "Spain will never consent to
destroy herself with that poison," "notwithstanding the
attempts of certain anarchists and political demagogues/'
P. S. Sanz discusses " Halley's Comet" After nar-
rating the history of our knowledge concerning it, he
assures us that the passage of the earth through its tail
will not perceptibly affect us.-^—" Theological Modern-
ism and Traditional Theology," continued, by P. S.
Garcia. This number takes up Penance and Extreme
Unction.' — ^Continuation of the "Description of the
Province and City of Mompds, Columbia." Marques de
Sabuz is of the opinion that [but for the laziness and
"brahminic quietism" of the inhabitants this province
would rival any section in the world in opulence.— ^A
second article upon "Spain and the Argentine Exposi-
tion," by P. A. Monjas.-^—" Patriotism and Primary
Education in the Argentine Republic," by P. C. Fanjul*
The author thinks that the Argentine owes her strength
and prosperity to a system of free education compulsory
upon all children between six and fourteen. By care-
fully arranged books, festivals commemorating historic
events, statues, etc., a fervid patriotism is instilled.
This patriotism, while primarily directed to the Re-
public, also embraces Spain and all Spanish-speaking
countries.
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IRecent Events^
The latter half of April saw the
France. end of the Chamber of Deputies
bjr effluxion of time, and the first
elections for the new Chamber took place on the 24th of the
month; bat as the second ballots are not held until the 8th
of this month, the definite composition of the new Chamber
is not yet settled. The prospects are that there will be a
quiet election with no great change in the relative strength of
parties, nor is it considered probable that M. Brian d will be
displaced. The Duez scandal threatened to shake his position,
but he was able to show that it was to action taken by him-
self more than a year ago that the discovery of the delin-
quencies was due. The appointment of Duez and his fellow-
liquidators was, of course, made many years ago, shortly after
the passing of the Waldeck- Rousseau Law; and not by a
government at all, but by the judiciary. Consequently, they
could not be removed at pleasure, but only by legal proceed-
ings with legal proof. A bill has been introduced to place
the liquidators under the immediate control of the government,
with the hope that similar defalcations in the future may be
avoided; but from the many evidences of the existence of
widespread corruption that are coming to light, this hope seems
to be somewhat sanguine* The navy in particular seems to
be steeped in dishonesty, and some years ago the army was
stained in the same way. Secular upbringing works out rather
in the wrong direction.
Another example of the inability of the secular system to
cope with the situation is the existence in Paris of a little
army of Apaches. In a certain quarter they form the domin-
ating element of the population. A burglar leaves his kit or
revolver with the innkeeper and has no fear that he will be
betrayed. Hundreds of lodging houses are given up to the
worst characters, male and female. Wholesale arrests have
been made from time to time, but without result, for the
humanitarian movement prevents severe treatment and secures
their release or an amnesty. M. Lupine, the Prefect of Police,
pronounces, as a result of experience, that excessive philan-
thropy is dangerous. '' If Paris is not protected it will become
a haunt of cut- throats.''
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268 RECENT EVENTS [May,
A more pleasing aspect of Paris life was presented during
the recent Holy Week and Easter. Church-going, independent
authorities assert, is on the increase. The Madeleine was
thronged on Good Friday throughout a great part of the day,
and in all the churches the celebrations were very impressive,
and the congregations large. On £aster Day the services in
all the churches were attended by congregations remarkable
alike for numbers and for their devout and reverent bearing.
The music performed does not seem to have suffered from re-
cent legislation, for it included works of Palestrina, Bach, Mo-
zart, Beethoven, Schubert, Cherubini, and Haydn, of the older
school, the more modern being represented by Schumann,
C^sar Franck, Gounod, Wagner, and Saint-Saens.
The disclosures above referred to have caused in many
minds somewhat pessimistic views as to the future of the
Republic, and have called forth from the Due d'Orl^ans some
criticisms of the present state of things. He also pointed out
the way in which a monarchy would put an end to existent
evils. Small response, however, has been elicited by his ap-
peal, although it is recognized that it should not be disdained,
and that his censures should be treated as those of a ''wise
enemy,'' and made use of to take the necessary measures to
remove the evils. If the Republic is ever imperilled, it will
be by the errors of the Republicans rather than by the attacks
of Royalists. This is the view held by moderate Republicans,
for modern France, it is declared, has the Republic in its
blood.
The Old-Age Pensions Bill has at last become law, after
various modifications made in the Senate, which is allowed in
France to alter even financial measures ; in this case it lowered
the amount of the pensions of some classes of working-men.
This law is considered to be the most important measure of
social reform that has been made during the Third Republic,
although within the last four years no fewer than twenty-
three social laws have been passed. The Old-Age Pensions Law
will alleviate the sufferings of hundreds of thousands of the
poorest of the French people. It differs from the English
Law in that it requires contributions to be made by those who
enjoy its benefits.
The Tariff Revision Bill has also been passed, and as it
raises duties against Great Britain, notwithstanding the entmts
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 269
cordiale^ proving that business is always business, it has given
to the Tariff Reformers in England one more argument for
the change which they advocate.
The advent of the new Chancellor
Germany. has had upon the foreign policy
of the Empire a tranquilizlng
effect His words and his actions inspire confidence, and it is
felt that he aims at doing justice and not merely defending
German interests, because they are German interests. This
was seen clearly in his treatment of the Mannesmann claims.
These brothers had obtained exclusive mining concessions cov-
ering more than an eighth of the whole territory of Morocco.
Naturally this was gratifying to Germans as a race, and when
the Chancellor refused to lend the support of the Empire he
was violently accused and denounced as not being patriotic.
He, however, refused to recede from the position which he
had taken up, because to support the claims would be to vio*
late the agreement with the other Powers, and would destroy
the confidence reposed by them in the good faith of Germany.
^'To a policy of treaty- breaking I will not give myself,'' he
declared in the Reichstag. '^ Nothing will persuade me to
break the pledge contracted at Tangier at our instance. This
point of view is above every other consideration whatever."
This sounds a new note of fidelity and sincerity, and tends to
the purification of the somewhat pestiferous atmosphere which
has pervaded European Chancelleries ever since Austria's an-
nexation of thet Provinces. Equally clear were his declarations
as to the relations between Germany and Great Britain. '' We
build our navy not for aggressive purposes, but solely because
we are convinced that we require an effective sea-power for
the protection of our coasts and our trade. Our desire is
equally apparent, without prejudice and in sincerity, to culti-
vate friendly relations with England."
Prince Henry of Prussia, who has recently been on a visit
to London, made similar declarations. '* I gained the impres-
sion," he said, ''that sincere and honorable feeling prevails
towards us in England, and that there is absolutely no idea of
aggression in English Government circles. In my opinion the
feeling is mutual. Every attempt should be made to strengthen
mutual confidence between the two Powers. The old expres-
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a7o RECENT EVENTS [May,
sion — confidence for confidence — applies^ here/' The Nortk-^
German Gazette^ an authoritative organ, says that the two
German Socialists in the Reichstag uttered treasonable senti-
ments when they stated that the people who maintained that
the German naval construction was directed against England
were right in this contention. It declares such a view sense-
less, and that the German navy, while meant to be effective,
will always occupy a modest place by the side of the British
navy.
Alsace-Lorraine is at present in the subordinate position of
a Province in the Empire governed by a Statthalter appointed
by the Emperor. At one time it was widely believed that its
inhabitants would never consent to any form of incorporation
with their conquerors. But times have changed, a new gener-
ation has sprung up, and the representatives of the province
in the Reichstag are now clamoring for their recognition as a
Federal State and protesting their loyalty to the Empire. In
response the Chancellor has promised the speedy introduction
of a Bill for the development of the Constitution of Alsace-
Lorraine. The extension of political independence was, the
Chancellor said, absolutely the only way to promote the best
interests of the Reichsland. It would seem that in France
there are only a few who refuse to acquiesce in this incorpo*
ration, or who cherish any hope of a restoration of the Prov-
inces. Such, at all events, is the declaration of close students
of the European situation.
In interior politics the government has to rely upon the
support or to yield to the opposition of a new bloc^ called the
Blue-Black. This means that the dominant power in the Reich«
stag consists of the united forces of the Conservatives and of
the Centre. This is true not only of the Reichstag but of the
Prussian Diet. In the latter this bloc has forced upon the gov-
ernment modifications of the Franchise Bill of some importance.
The Bill, as introduced, abolished indirect voting, the bloc has
restored it. Secret voting was not conceded by the government
Bill, the bloc has introduced it, for the primary elections, the
election of the '* electors." The electors, thus chosen by secret
ballot, must themselves vote publicly for the members of the
Diet. The government has felt itself obliged to accept this
compromise, otherwise the Bill would have been lost. It is far,
however, from giving satisfaction to the bulk of the population.
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for many of the restrictions formerly in force have been re-
tained. But the rulers of Prussia have not yet brought them*
selves to place trust in the people, and still think that safety
depends upon distrust.
The long negotiations with Russia
Austria-Hungary. for the restoration of the normal
relations between the two countries,
which had been Interrupted since the annexation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, resulted in a mutual declaration that the two
Cabinets of St. Petersburg and Vienna were, in Balkan affairs,
in complete agreement in political principles. They both recog-
nize that the era for expansion in that region has closed, and
that the status quo is to be maintained. This declaration does
not amount to an agreement, nor has it caused any large degree
of satisfaction in any quarter. It does not seem likely that the
visits which the Kings of Bulgaria and of Servia have been
paying to the Tsar and to the Sultan have tended to give
greater force to existing arrangements, although nothing but
peace and its maintenance have been upon the lips of the
potentates— in their public utterances, with which it is to be
hoped their private utterances accord. But that Aus1;ria and
Russia should again be on speaking terms is a step in the right
direction.
The life of Dr. Lueger shows that in Austria a career is
open for the talented son of a poor church beadle. By earnest-
ness and sincere devotion to a great cause he overcame all op-
position and won the esteem and even the attachment of his
opponents. During his last illness the Jews of Vienna offered
prayers for his recovery. His funeral testified to the place he
held in the minds of his fellow-citizens. Fully a million rever-
ent spectators lined the streets through which it passed. A
long procession, consisting of representatives of various bodies
too numerous to mention, preceded the hearse. In the Cathe-
dral were the Emperor, the Duke of Cumberland, the Arch-
dukes and Archduchesses, the specially delegated representatives
of the Pope, the German Emperor, the President of the French
Republic, the King of Spain, the King of Rumania, the Prince
Regent of Bavaria, with the other members of the Diplomatic
Corps, the aristocracy, and the chief dignitaries of State. Many
years, it is said, will pass before the memory of the day will
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!272 RECENT £ VENTS [May,
fade away. As Dr. Lueger's successor as leader of the Chris-
tian Socialist party, Prince Alois Liechtenstein has been elected.
It is impossible to form an opinion as to the probable course
of events in Hungary. Not having been able to obtain even a
hearing in the Parliament, the new Premier, Count Khuen
Hedervary, decided upon dissolving it. This was . declared to
be unconstitutional; and, upon his persisting, ink pots, paper
weights, volumes of statutes, and other missiles, were hurled
as more cogent arguments than words. The Minister of Agri-
culture was wounded in the eye, while the Premier himself fell
back bleeding with two wounds on the forehead and cheek.
The sitting was suspended that medical treatment might be
given to the victims of the enraged Magyars. Success, how-
ever, did not attend these efforts to avert the dissolution, and
Hungary is entering upon an electoral campaign. The New
world does not seem to have much to learn from this part at
least of the Old.
Within less than six months two
Italy. Cabinets have fallen and both of
them have failed to pass the meas-
ures of reform for which governments exist. The heavy taxa-
tion under which the country groans calls for readjustment,
and admits of it; in many parts of Italy there are marshy
plains which are capable of reclamation and drainage, while
mountainous districts need to be reafforested. Social legisla-
tion is required to mitigate the conflict between the interests
of capital and labor, many disputes having arisen on account
of the uncertainty of the legal rights of property on the one
hand and of labor on the other. Of this the strike in Parma
in 1908 was an instance — a strike which inflicted very heavy
loss on the province and on its laboring population. The State
system of railways stands in need of development and of a
complete reorganization of its management. A demand also
exists for a complete change in the method of election to
Parliament. To none of these things have the two govern-
ments which have recently fallen found a remedy. The whole
blame cannot justly be thrown on them. They, of course,
depend upon their supporters, and those supporters are more
deeply interested in their own local interests, and sometimes
in their own selfish personal interests, than in the well-being
of the country as a whole.
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 273
The fall of Signor Gioletti's ministiy in December last was
due to the unwillingness of the Chamber to accept a more
democratic scheme of taxation which had been proposed by
the ministry — a scheme which placed upon the richer members
of the community^ a somewhat heavier proportion of the burden
than they had hitherto borne. The taxes and the duties on
sugar were to be reduced, and the loss thereby caused was to
be made good by considerable increases of the death duties
and the taxes on income from bouses and land. In view of
the rumors that are abroad at the present time as to the
policy of the ministry that is just entering upon office it may
be mentioned that one of the charges made against Signor
Gioletti*s Cabinet was that it was too clerical. This charge
rested upon the fact that it displayed some degree of moder-
ation in its dealing with the Church, and that, consequently, it
had the support of Catholic newspapers.
The Cabinet which succeeded Signor Gioletti's had for its
head Baron Sonnino, one of the most highly respected of
Italy's politicians, and he was supported by three members of
his own party, by three of the Right, and by three of the
Giolettian Left. It excluded the Democratic Liberals and the
Extreme Left, and was, therefore, of a Conservative type.
The fact that Baron Sonnino would not admit Into the Cabinet
two politicians who insisted upon certain anti*^ Catholic legisla-
tion as the price of their co-operation shows that he was as
favorable to the Church as it is possible for an Italian office-
holder to be. Members of all parties accepted him as the best
qualified among their number to deal practically and efficiently
with the financial necessities which stand most in need of regu-
lation, and yet within less than four months be has fallen and .
has not accomplished a single point of his programme. The
fall was due not to any merits of the question at issue, which
was the so* long debated Marine Conventions Bill, but simply
to the party manoeuvres of a coalition of seli-seeking politicians.
The Chamber has lost the opportunity of doing that service
to the country of which it stands in such great need. Its
members have proved themselves once more to have their own
interests alone at heart and not those of the country.
The new Cabinet, which with some little difficulty has been
formed, is a coalition but of a different kind. Its members te-
long to the Liberal Right, the Giolettian Left, and the Extreme
VOL. xci.— 18
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274 RECENT EVENTS [May,
Left. It has at its head a distinguished financial authority,
Signor Lazzatti. One of its members is named Signor Catto-
lica, but, from what seems to be the probable action of the
Cabinet, this is another instance of lucus a non lucendo. Signor
Ltizzatti will have to exercise all the skijl of which he is
possessed, for, although Italy is already the most highly taxed
country in the world, there are urgent calls for results, the ac»
complishment of which will involve large additional expenditure.
A new navy programme has been adopted ; large sums are re-
quired for education; and the state railways, so far from pay-
ing, involve subvention from the taxes.
It is to be hoped that the members of the Chamber are not
fair representatives of Italy's place in the rank of civilized na»
tions. The treatment given to Baron Sonnino's ministry shows
that they are destitute of public spirit, while a series of duels
which have taken place shows that they have not yet emerged
from a semi-barbarous period. These duels were preceded by
a scandalous scene in the Chamber and by violent encounters
in the lobbies of the House. One honorable member boxed
another honorable member's ears. It would not be for the
edification of our readers to explain the reason for this sad
outbreak of uncontrolled passion. There were no less than four
challenges but only two duels seem to have come off, with no
fatal result.
Other schemes for the amelioration of affairs, which do not
fall directly within the sphere of parliamentary control, do not
meet with any better success. The Commission for the Zona
Monumentale appointed for the purpose of guaranteeing and
preserving in perpetuity a certain district in Rome, and the
ancient sites and monuments which it contains, has, so far
from carrying out its purpose, confined its energies to the
making of a road« the effect of which is to obliterate the re-
mains of the past and to destroy the whole aspect and
character of the district. This has led to the resignation of
one of its most distinguished members, Commendatore Boni,
who gives the following description of the misery of the poor
of Rome under the secular government, which has now been
established for forty years, a description which shows how
little they have benefited under the new rigime^
** The pigsties dug out of the rocks in the Via Flaminia,
the inside niches and the outer buttresses of the Aurelian Wall,
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IJIO.] RSCEUTT BVEI^TS tfi
the femains of the Temple of Claudius^ and of the Circus
Maximiifl^ the foundations of the Temples of Venus and Rome,
and the vaults behind the Basilica of Maxentius have been in-
vaded by a gypsy race of troglodyte instincts. Mo need to go
to New Zealand or Polynesia; the great centre from which
Litta civilisation radiated can now offer examples of primitive
savagery authentic enough to bring burning shame to the faces
of those who are preparing for 191 1 an ethnographical hedge*
podge of dead things and old clothes. In the tufa cellars,
beneath the stone vaults, between the pilasters of such walls
as the pickax has spared, shut in with pieces of old tins and
fri^^ments of boards, live whole families of ahamdess and half-
naked creatures with their dirty offspring, trained to steal fire*
wood, break street lamps, or turn cart-^wheels for a half<*penny.
While all round Rome, on the banks of the Tiber and Anio,
on the heights of tha Via Cassia, or Via Prenestina, there are,
still unoccupied, uncultivated lands and deserted pastures;
while the banks and institutions of credit capitalize their in*
terests; while, in spite of the rise in rents, the revenue of the
commune decreases, wasted in millions upon works which are
only harmfnl-^all this time these houseless wretches, in the
horrible promiscuity of their asphyxiating cabins, in the dank
darkness of their cellars, are multiplying ever more precocious
recruits for the country's prisons.**
After this description of the state of Romans poor under
the present rule, the Commendatore goes on to indicate what
the government should and could do to remedy the horrible
conditions. "A sjrstematic arrangement of existing tramway
lines could easily be made to open out new suburbs, where
each family would have the means to breathe and earn its
living. Instead of spoiling the Villa Borghese with dens for
wild beasts, let us provide wholesome dwellings for these hu-
man creatures who, deprived of light, air, water, of every*
thing which they need, grow every day nearer beasts within
refuges which are morally and physically worse than any
prison.'*
The present Municipality was elected a few years ago on
a promise for cheaper food and lower rents. It has done noth-
ing for the poor wretches whose state Commendatore Boni
describes. In fact both rents and food are higher. And the
less valuable but perhaps more valued possessions of Rome,
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276 RECENT EVENTS [May,
the ancient monuments of the city, are also suffering from the
treatment of a municipality which has a Jew for its head, and
for its object nothing intelligible unless it be to attract to
Rome the nouviaux richis of the world. More might be said
of the failure of the new rulers of Italy who, although they
have cast aside every religious influence, have not succeeded
in bettering the material aspects of life. Even the funds placed
at their disposal by other nations for the relief of the suffer-
ers from the earthquake at Messina have been so badly ad-
ministered that those for whom they were given have not
benefited to the extent to which they were entitled. The one
set-off on the other side is that the Campanile at Venice is
approaching completion, and that the International Agricul-
tural Institute at Rome gives some promise of becoming a
useful institution. The visit to Rome of the German Chancel-
lor has been the occasion of the renewal of assurances that
Italy is still loyal to the Triple Alliance. This is no doubt
true of the government; but there is strong reason to believe
that a large number of the people would be glad if, so far as
Italy is concerned, the Alliance should come to an end. In
fact, the relations between the governments of France and of
Italy are becoming ever more and more intimate, as is shown,
among other things, by the somewhat unwonted exchange of
congratulations by French ministers on the appointment of the
new Italian Cabinet.
In Spain also there have been re«
Spain. peated changes of government.
When Sefior Maura fell in Octo-
ber last, as a consequence of his having allowed the law to
take its course in the execution of Senor Ferrer, the praise-
worthy attempt made by him to lift Spanish politics to a
higher plane came, it is to be feared, to an end. What is
called in Portugal the Rotavist system had for long, in a
somewhat modified form, been in existence. In Portugal the
two principal parties, by a tacit contract, held office for a
more or less well-defined period, not for the public but for
their own private advantage; and this in a gross, materialistic
way. In Spain the same rotation of parties had been prac-
tised, but from motives of a higher character— the giving to
opponents their fair share in the honors of office. Scnor
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 2J1
Maura, when he resigned, felt that he had been treated so
badly that he declared that he would no longer act in accord •
ance with the hitherto established practice, but would wage
war without quarter on his successor* Indeed, on entering
upon office, he had repudiated the hitherto accepted doctrine
that he was to spend a quiet year without doing anything of
great public utility, and then give way to the Liberals. He
took a more serious view of his duty, and entered upon a
comprehensive work of regeneration. He brought in a bill to
reform local administration in order to take power out of the
hands of the local '^ bosses*' — for they have these creatures
even in aristocratic Spain. By making voting compulsory, and
dispensing with official interference at the polls, he hoped to
restore to the people that power of managing their own affairs
which had practically been taken from them. The list of re-
forms attempted or achieved by himself and his chief coad-
jutor, SeSor la Cierva, included the institution of industrial
tribunals, the regulation of the work of women and children,
the enforcement of Sunday rest and early closing, the building
of hospitals, the starting of anti- cholera and anti-tuberculosis
campaigns, the introduction of open competition for admission
to the police and other departments.
In all these efforts at amelioration he was supported by the
Church, but was opposed by the professional politicians who,
in Spain as in many other countries, live upon the spoils.
Moreover, he entered into a contract with British firms to build
in Spain a war-fleet The mistakes which he made in the con-
duct of the Melilla campaign prepared the way for his fall^
an event which took place shortly after the execution of Senor
Ferrer, after he had been in office nearly three years.
Not being able to rely upon the support of Sefior Maura
and his followers, as would have been the case in former days^
the government of his successor, Sefior Moret, fell back upon
the party which is opposed to monarchical institutions altogether
—the Republicans. This gave a great impetus to the strength
of this party and led to their success at the municipal elections
last January — an event naturally not pleasing to the King, nor,
indeed, to the bulk of the Liberal party. Somewhat suddenly
and unceremoniously the King, in the early part of February,
dismissed Sefior Moret and his Cabinet. A new Cabinet was
formed without delay, which will rely for its support upon the
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Liberal party aloiie> and will have nodiiiig to do witk Repab*
licaot and Socialists. The new Prime Minister is tke Sefior
Canalejas, who is looked upon as the inspirer of the violent
anti-Catholic policy adopted by the Liberal party in 1906^
One of his Cabinet is, however, a strong CsdioUc, and so it
may be hoped that the new government is not committed to a
campaign i^ainst the Church, although the Premier insists that
he has not changed his ideas. He proposes to extend educa-
tioaal facilities, giving more importance to technical education
than to merely learning to read and write. He also proposes
to undertake a more equitable distribution of taxation by ^>*
plying the theory of unearned increment, to institute old<>age
pensions, but on a contributory basis; to suppress octroi duties;
and to institute universal service in the army. Time will show
what success he will have in carrying out this programme. A
general election has to take place, and this may result in a
new adjustment. The Republicans have found a leader in the
person of a Sefior Lerroux, who is said to be well fitted for
the work of agitation, being a fluent speaker, a man of big pres*
ence, and of genial manners. He has been in exile for the past
few years, and it has not improved his temper, for his style is
violent, full of personalities, and of appeals to class hatred and
envy. The credit due to his assertions may be judged from
the declaration which he made at a recent Republican demon-
stration at Barcelona, that Spain was not governed at Madrid
by a Spanish government, but by Foreign Powers who bad
their headquarters in Rome. It seems probable that there will
be a more determined effort to propagate Republican opinions,
to the success of which the reopening of the lay schools^
which has just taken place, will no doubt contribute. During
the past few months several riots have taken place, and it seems
not improbable that Spain may be entering upon a period of
mere or less acute agitation.
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THB irony of fate would seem to have decreed that the illustrious
American whom the Holy Father would desire to welcome,
the one whom his Catholic fellow-citizens would prefer to see hon-
ored by the Holy Father, should fail to obtain what has been freely
accorded to so many undistinguished Americans, The irony is
deepened when Mr. Roosevelt's published cablegrams, in which the
audience was requested, show us how desirous he was of meeting
Pius X. Our late President has certainly deserved well of the
Catholic Church; not because he has granted to Catholics any
special favor, for that he has not done and could not do without
contravening his firmest principle; but because, though he differs
from us radically in religious views, he has stood with us squarely on
the broad ground of our common American citizenship. He has not
been afraid to act on the principle that we are as fully entitled to
our rights and to recognition as any other American citizens. De-
cided in his own opinions, no doubt, he is yet singularly free from
any taint of bigotry — he is honored and esteemed Iby Catholics oi
every shade of political belief. Whether or not he was justified in
his interpretation of Bishop Kennedy's message, all sensible men
perceive that he merely followed his own sense of honor ; and Catho-
lics are as convinced that he acted without the slightest feeling of
hostility or disrespect towards the Holy Father as they are certain
that Pius X. desired to do whatever he could in conscience to grant
an audience to this distinguished man whom he honored for his own
character and for the high office he had filled so illustriously. That
desire was defeated by a conspiracy of circumstances, to the great
regret of the Holy Father and of the Cardinal Secretary of State.
The issue was unfortunate, and is deeply regretted by us all ; but
no great harm can come of it. Honest men will despise the effort of
those who try to make political capital out of it ; they may smile at
them, too, for Mr. Roosevelt has lost nothing by the incident.
Though most Catholics, perhaps, believe he acted hastily, all rec-
ognize his honorable motive.
w
f E reprint here the view of the incident which the Editor of Th«
Cathowc Wori^d expressed at the time in the daily papers :
"In viewing the much-discussed matter of Mr. Roosevelt's
failure to visit the Pope, every honest American will give heed to
Mr. Roosevelt's own words in his cable message to the Outlook:
* The incident will be treated in a matter-of-course way as merely
personal and, above all, as not warranting the slightest exhibition of
rancor or bitterness.*
** There can be no question of the love that the Holy Father
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bears our country and onr non-Catholic brethren. That love has
been proven over and over again in public act and document and in
his cordial welcome of thousands of non-Catholic Americans who
have visited him in Rome. To I<eo XIII. Mr. Roosevelt, when
President, sent a number of volumes containing the messages of
the Presidents, and I<eo XIII. sent in return a costly mosaic picture
of the Vatican. The present PontiflF has frequently expressed his
admiration of American institutions.
^* The Holy Father looked forward with pleasure to the ex-
pected visit of Mr. Roosevelt. The court of the Vatican is a
court, and as such is worthy of respect. Like every court, it has
its conditions, which all visitors must respect. These conditions
are well known, and no prospective visitor — even among the most
notable sovereigns of the world — thinks of violating them. If he
does so he knows that he will not be received, and he knows also
that he will have no one but himself to blame. Only a few days
since the Imperial chancellor of the German Empire took great care
to observe the proper etiquette, and the Kaiser himself, in his latest
visit to Rome, observed it also as a matter of courtesy.
*< The Vatican expressed the great pleasure that it would take in
welcoming Mr. Roosevelt, and, at the same time, kindly intimated
that he should give assurance that he would in no way violate the
etiquette of the court. Mr. Roosevelt was free to accept or reject the
conditions. They were in no way dishonorable to him ; in no way
unworthy. He chose to assert that he would accept no conditions —
that he must be [left free to do absolutely as he liked. There was
nothing left for the Vatican to do but to refase the audience. The
same conditions apply to Mr. Roosevelt as to any other man. Every
American may rest assured that to refuse the audience caused much
pain and regret to the Holy Father, who had expressed his delight
at meeting Mr. Roosevelt.
** And it must be a cause of equal regret to every American that
Mr. Roosevelt did not see his way to accept conditions which the
Vatican out of self-respect had to lay down, and hear from the lips
of the great ruler of Christendom his words of love for America and
its people."
SOME of our readers may be entirely unacquainted with VAsino.
L'Astno is the title ot a journal published in Rome, probably
the vilest sheet printed in the world to-day, and synonymous with
the most unspeakable filth and indecency. It would not be tolerated
for an hour on any news-stand in America ; yet it is publicly sold and
exhibited in the shop windows and on the news-stands of Rome. It
makes a mockery of everything that is sacred and holy in the eyes
of Christians, particularly of CatholicSi and is especially virulent in
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I9IO.] WITH OUR READERS 281
its attacks on the Pope and the Holy See, and unspeakably disgust-
ing in its obscene caricatures. It poses as the organ of enlightened
progress. The assertion has been made that the Methodists are
directly connected with this publication. We do not believe it, and
will not believe it until undeniable proof is furnished us. But it is
beyond question that certain expressions of sympathy have passed
between some Methodists and the directors oiUAsino. Dr. Tipple
writes to the Christian Advocate of this city, in a sympathetic strain,
about the recent Giordano Bruno celebration in Rome. The gross
excesses oi that celebration were graphically described by an eye-
witness in the London Saturday Review :
'' These people were one and all anarchists and revolutionaries,
anti-clerical and anti-everything. The procession passed to the
statue erected to the notorious pantheist, Giordano Bruno. Here
revolutionary speeches of a most violent description were delivered,
notably by Podrecca, the editor of the unspeakable Asino^ and by
Barzilai, a wealthy Jew socialist member of Parliament. These
violent attacks on the Pope, the Church, and the monarchy were
endorsed by Mayor Nathan. In the meantime • • . revolu-
tionary chants were howled in chorus ; and then came the usual
cries of : ' Down with the Pope I ' * Death to religion 1 ' * Down
with Austria ! ' • Death to Christ ! ' ' Neither God nor Master ! *
' Death to the King I ' ' Death to the Queen I '
" After a sort of ritual ceremony performed before the statue of
their idol, Giordano Bruno, the mob wished to pay a visit to the
Austrian Embassy in the Piazza di Spagna, but here the troops .
barred their passage. They were, however, contrary to precedent,
allowed to cross the bridge with impunity and proceed almost to the
very doors of the Vatican, to within earshot of the Pope's windows;
The headquarters of the demonstrators, which have been recently
removed from the centre of Rome to a house near the Porta Angelica
within a stone's throw of his Holiness' apartments, were decorated
for the occasion from top to bottom with black and scarlet flags and
blasphemous and disloyal inscriptions. In order that his Holiness
should hear their approbrious cries several scoundrels used horns and
megaphones, and in the course of the evening a searchlight was
thrown into the windows of the Pope's private apartment the better
to attract his attention to the outrageous illuminated inscriptions
that appeared above their meeting house. The Italian police never
interfered and the beastly crew were allowed to insult and annoy the
Pontiff for over an hour in a manner which would not have been
tolerated had he been a private individual, however criminal and
obnoxious."
No man and no body of men with any pretense to charity,
unless blinded by fearful prejudices, could for a moment prefer to
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ghre their sympathies to a mob of anarchists, hoodlums, and anti-
clericals rather than to any Christian chnrch npon earth. The ^>ixit
of the mob is most appropriately expressed by UAsin^.
Q'
^UITE the most surprising fact of the recent spring elections is the
Socialist victory in Milwaukee. That party will govern the
city for the next two years, through the mayor, two-thirds of the
aldermen, and a majority of the supervisors. Two of the seven
newly chosen civil judges are likewise Socialists. And the majority
received by the c€Lndidate for the mayoralty was the largest ever re-
corded for that office. Everywhere people are asking how it hap-
pened, and what will be the result ? The answer to the first ques-
tion is not difficult. It is to be found in the corrupt government that
Milwaukee has had for several years under the old parties, and in
the practical character and efficient organization of the Milwaukee
Socialists. In Milwaukee, as in so many other American cities,
there has loa^ existed the evil alliance, of ^diich I4ncoln Steffens
tells, between political bosses, the smaller agencies of crime and cor-
mption, such as the disreputable saloon and the disorderly house,
and the ^' big business ** that sedcs to be above the law. When a
continuation of this rigime was threatened by the candidacy on the
Demooiitic ticket of a representative of the old, bad alliance, large
numbers of voters belonging to the old parties revolted, and elected
Mr. Seidel. For the Socialists, though much stronger, in Milwau-
kee than in any other American city, are considerably less than one-
third of the voting population. But th^r are practical and *' oppor*
tunist, ' ' rather than theor^ical ' ' cataclystic. ' ' They believe in ad-
vancing step by step, and reaching their ultimate goal through
partial reforms, rather than in waiting until conditions become so
bad that the Socialist order will be realized almost automatically.
And they have, in the city council and in other offices, fought always
iCM: reasonable measures in the interest of civic efficiency, honesty,
and decency. Hence their candidates were regarded by thousands
of the voters as presenting the smaller of two evils.
Both the fears of their enemies and the hopes of their friends
are likely to remain unrealized. '' A new broom swe^s <dean," and
the Socialist government will probably be a dean and efficient <Mie —
for the first term at least. But its members are too practicalj and
the obstacles confironting it are too great, to permit of anything like
revolutionary achievements.
« « «
THE Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee, it is said, will, when taking
office, add to the oath '* So help me God I " the words " and
I hereby pledge my word of honor so to do.** This, as a daily paper
remarks, sounds suspiciously like : '' I won't bet on itj but I'll take
my oath."
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TH£ current issue of the EcdesiasHcal Review contains a short let-
ter from Rev. Dr. Selinger^ of Jefferson City, on the relation of
the parish clergy to social reform. The plea of the writer for more
active participation by the clergy in social work, merits prompt sup-
port. The suggestion that preparation for this duty be begun in the
seminary comes, with double authority, from one who has had years
of rich experience as both seminary professor and parish priest.
Thb Cathouc Wori«d welcomes this appeal most heartily. Possir
bly one further suggestion might be added to anticipate apparent
difficulty. One long step ahead will be made when a specialist in
Social Sciences, or at least one who has had thorough graduate
training in them, is added to the seminary faculty ; and a second
step will be taken when students with special aptitude will be per-
mitted to arrange seminary work in such a way as to incorporate re-
liable social and economic training into their theological courses.
What is needed in the main, to realize Dr. Selinger's happy
suggestion, is sympathy for social studies in the cletgy at large ; tiie
formation of a good number of specialists and the production by
them of a satisfactory literature offering direction in the work pro-
posed. Many of these students might be able to make university
studies. Tlie Seminary Conference two years ago devoted much
sympathetic attention to this problem.
It must be admitted that many of the debated reform questions
have ditect moral and spiritual bearings, and that the actual leader-
ship of the social forces making for better social conditions is not
now in the hcuids of the clergy. It is true that these questions take
on in tUs country a political color. But, politics or no politics, if
work of women and children, unsanitary housing, constant Sunday
work, oppressive conditions of labor, faulty administration of laws,
insufficient wages, and a hundred similar features of modem society,
affect, adversely and directly, the morals of thousands ; narrow, or
practically destroy, their spiritual outlook, and rob them of their
spiritual birthright — and such is the case— then the cleigy may
speak with authority. What is needed is not more authority, but
equipment that will enable them to speak with power.
« « •
IT seems altogether fitting that Mr. James Bryce should represent
something of English political life to Americans, since none so
well as he has represented American democracy to Englishmen. In
the Yale lectures of 1909, on The Hindrances to Good CiHzenship^ he
has given us a beautifully worded summary of democratic principles,
togetheridth a Uioughtfal though slightly academic commentary
on tiieir practical limitations. There is an introductory lecture fol-
lowed by three others in which the hindrances to good dticenship
are dealt with i^ecifically— Indolence, Private Self-interest, and
Party ^irit, with a final lecture on the method of overcoming these.
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284 WITH Our Readers [May,
DR. JOHNSON, when asked to account for a certain error in his
great Dictionary, thought it sufficient to reply: '^ Indolence!
my dear sir I sheer indolence ! " Indolence, too, in Mr. Bryce's
opinion, is the greatest hindrance to good citizenship. Indolence is
the first mark of a man out of training, of a man not ''fit" enough
to play the game for all it is worth. It is as much an emotional as
an intellectual failure ; it is a lack of sympathy as well as a lack of
intelligence, for to have good citizenship, or good anything else,
Intelligence and sympathy must be yoked together in active partner-
ship. But of these two sympathy is the more important. The rich
man will often, from his greater educational opportunities, be en-
dowed with more intelligence than the poor man ; but for all that
his lack of sympathy, the absence in him of the sense of personal re-
lationship with his fellows, will make him a much poorer citizen.
A poor man, though perhaps much less educated, by this very gift
of sympathy is much more richly endowed with the essential and
positive virtue of citizenship. Just as sympathy is the bond of family
life, so also should it be of civic life.
• • «
BUT, unfortunately, ever since the rise of the laisser faite philoso-
phy, the first principle of business life has been intelligence
without sympathy. This is the secret of profit-making, but it is also
the fons et origo of all our civic maladies. The business man, however
good a father, however exemplary in the relationships of family life,
leaves sympathy behind when he goes to business and becomes at
once indifferent and ignorant of the real human needs of those about
him ; he becomes, in fact, a bad, indolent, private-minded, party-
spirited citizen, and all this, as we say, not from lack of intelligence
but from lack of emotion.
• « •
THE modem Socialist, contemplating this sad state of things, pro-
fesses to explain it by saying that the family is to blame. The
family has made selfish, profit-grinding machines of us all by absorb-
ing into itself all our really human sympathies, leaving nothing for
our neighbors and fellow-citizens but a keen and inhospitable edge
of selfishness. A similar argument is applied to religion and all
religious bodies, they are other-worldly and anti-civic, and must,
therefore, be discouraged if not abolished.
• « •
BUT the Catholic diagnoses the case differently. He says that
the bad citizenship of to-day is due rather to the lack of re?
ligion and true family life than to the presence of it. He is per-
fectly willing to acknowledge that the present age has made great
advance in material knowledge and invention, but in the theory
and practice of citizenship we seem to fall woefully short of the
pasty and the bigger our cities the more marked our shortcoming.
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This cannot be because our intellectual equipment is less, it must be
because our emotional life is less effectively lived, more starved and
impersonal than once it was.
• « •
AS Mr. Chesterton has told us, the only way to improve Pimlico
is to love Pimlico. " If there arose a man who loved Pimlico,
then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles. If
men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is
theirs^ Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence."
Sympathy is the secret of good citizenship, but intelligence without
S3rmpathy is nothing. Mr. Bryce has forgotten that the only sound
basis for democracy is the religious one ; namely, that right feeling
towards our fellow-creatures can only proceed from a right feeling
towards the Creator Himself. And if we would renew that right civic
feeling within us we must go back to the family which is its cradle
and nursery, aqd to the Catholic Church which is the Mother of us
all. Until Social Reformers begin to grasp the importance of a right
emotional quality in citizenship theories may multiply, but practical
solutions will always be wanting.
THE Twenty- first International Kucharlstic Congress, which is to
be held in Montreal from September 7 to September 11, 19 10, is
a matter of great interest to the whole of Canada and the United
States, and, in fact, to the entire world. A large number of Cardi-
nals, the great majority of the Archbishops and Bishops of Canada
and the United States will attend ; and thousands of priests and
thousands more of the laity will gather to make this Congress a
great success. The railways of Canada — the Grand Trunk, Cana-
dian Pacific, and the Intercolonial — have already offered to grant
reduced fare (one-half) to those who will attend the Congress ; and
the railways of our own country, it is hoped, will extend a like favor.
Every large diocese in the world will be represented by its
prelate. Pius X. has appointed Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli to
represent the Vatican. The Archbishop ot Westminster, Most Rev.
Francis Bourne, D.D., will represent the English hierarchy, and the
Duke of Norfolk is coming as the official representative of the laity
of Great Britain. Cardinal Gibbons has just written a letter to
Archbishop Bruchesi, of Montreal, accepting the invitation to par-
ticipate in the services. The cardinal will be one of the preachers.
Archbishops Farley, Glennon, Ryan, Moeller, Blenck, Ireland,
Keane, and Riordan will also attend.
The programme makes known that not only will there be a
public procession of the Blessed Sacrament at the closing of the
Congress, as was the case in Iiondon in 1908, but that there will be
a Pontifical Mass in the open air in Fletcher's Field, at the foot of
Mount Royal.
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Cardinal Vannutelli will arrive in Montreal a lew days prior to
the opening of the Congress. On Tuesday evening, September 6,
he will be officially received by the members of the American and
Canadian hierarchies in St. James Cathedral. The following even-
ing there will be a public reception in his honor at the City Hall.
The ceremonies proper will begin with a Midnight Mass In the
Church of Notre Dame, one of the oldest edifices in North America,
and probably one of the largest. Its dimensions are such that
15,000 people can comfortably stand In it. This Mass will be for
men only, and the entire congregation will receive Holy Com-
munion. At nine o*clock there will be a Pontifical Mass at the
Cathedral. The rest of the day will be given to sectional meetings
of the congress, which will be conducted in both French and
English. In the evening there will be a public meeting at Notre
Dame Church, which will be addressed by bishops^ priests, and lay-
men. On Friday, September 9, will occur the solemn service in
Fletcher's Field, which will consist of Pontifical Mass and sermons
In French and Bnglish. At night the Cardinal Legate win hold a
reception. On Saturday, September 10, there will be a Pontifical
Mass in St. Patrick's Church, to be followed by sectional meetings.
On the last day of the Congress, Sunday, September 11, there wUl
be a Pontifical Mass at the Cathedral, and the congress will be
brought to a close at two o'clock with the solemn procession of the
Blessed Sacrament.
« • •
WHILB we are not unreasonably regardful of the purity of the
English language, we confess to having experienced a shock
the other day from a brand new expression. Our friend, the pro-
fessor, remarked oi some one : •• He tipples In his speech." " Where
did you get that ? " we Inquired. ** Why," said he, •* firom Doctor
Tipple oi Rome, to be sure ; the Methodist minister who made that
extraordinary pronouncement. ' To tipple in discourse ' is to be in-
temperate In your use of language, to be emotional, violent, Inflam-
matory ; to be lacking in Intellectual poise or moral balance ; to
shout against persons you hardly know, but whose face you dislike ;
to shake your fist at them ; then, after storming and stamping, to
close with the remark that you always believe in being considerate
of others' rights ; and in talking as a gentleman. Such a man, I
say, tipples In his talk ; he makes a tippling speech : he's an orator-
ical tippler." We objected: **You certainly put a great deal of
meaning into a single word." •* Not at all, man," he rejoined, ** I
am merely extracting from the word but a small fraction oi its
meaning. The name was predestined. I admit, if you wish, that
few vocal tipplers can hope to equal Doctor Tipple ; there are de-
grees of tippling, and he stands on the tip of the pinnacle of excel-
lence." As the professor is a very learned man and a philologist,
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we feared to argue with him any farther. Our readers will have to
decide the question for themselves.
« « •
TELE Postal Record^ the organ of the United States mail carriers of
Greater New York, states that more than fourteen hundred em-
ployees of the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx alone are engaged
in various post-office duties on Sundays and receive no free day to
compensate for this Sunday labor. In its fight to have Sunday labor
reduced to a minimum and to secure a compensating free day for
those who must labor on Sunday, the Postal Record has our earnest
support.
• • «
THB Cathouc Wori,d announces with regret the death of
Charles J. O'Malley, late editor of the New World, the Catho-
lic weekly of Chicago. Mr. O'Malley was an editor of different
journals since 1882, and went to the New World in 1904. Mr.
O'Malley was a writer, and particularly a poet» of marked ability ;
a staunch champion of the Catholic faitii and of Catholic citizenship.
Because of his death the Catholic press has suffered a great loss. —
X. I. P.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
LOMOMANt, Orxbn ft CO., New York:
BiiU St9ri4S TM to '* ToddUar By Mrs. Hennann Bosch. PHce 80 cenU net. Gcv-
irmment bjf Im/menci: and Otkir Addresses, By E. E. Brown. Price $1.35 net. Bast
Lomdam Visi^ms. By O'Dennid W. Lawlcr. Farcin Missiams. By R.I1. Maiden.
M .A. Price $z.a5 net Amcieni and Modem Imferiaiitm, By the Earl of Cromer.
Price 90 cents net. TaUs ofBemgai. By S. B. Baneijca. Edited by P. H. Skrine.
JOBN Lamb Compant. New York :
The War in Wexford, By H. F. B. Wheeler and A. M. Broadley. III. Price $4 net.
Simum BoUvar, By F. Loraine Petre. Price $4 net.
E. P. DuTTOH k Co., New York :
St, Teresa of S/aim. By Helen Hester CoItIU. Price $2.50 net.
Habpbs ft BsoTHBSS, Ncw York :
TJke Biogr^hy of a Boy. By Josephine Daskam Bacon. UL Price $1.50.
Thomas Y. Csowbll ft Co., New York :
Ckima and the Far-Rast, Edited by G. H. Blakeslee. Price $a net.
f UNK ft Wagnaixs, New Yorii:
The Crowds and the Veiled Wotman, By Marian Cox. Price $1.50.
Thb Macmillan Company, New York :
Lost Fau. By Jack London. IlL Price $1.50 Tower of Ivory. A Novel. ByGerw
trade Atherton. Price $1.50. A Modem Chronicle. By Winston Churchill. Price $1.50.
Chaklbs Scsibnbs's Sons, New York :
Predestined, A Novel of New York Life. By Stephen F. Whitman.
Bbnzigbs Bsothbrs, New York :
The Ught of His Countenance. A Tale of Rome in the Second Century After Christ.
By Jerome Hart. Price $1.35. Practical Hints on MducoHon. To Teachers and
Parents. By Elsie Flury. Price 75 cents net. The Best Stories by the Foremost Catholic
Writers. In 10 vols. Heroes of the Faith. By Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. Price 80
cents net What Times/ What Morals/ Where on Earth Are Wef By Rev. Heniy
C. Semple, S. T. Price 35 cents net. A Handbooh 0/ Church Music, By F. Clement
C.Egeiton. Frice $1.15 net TheYouni Man* s Guide. By Rev. F. X. Lasance. Price
75 cents net.
Fr. Pustbt ft Co., New York:
OJtcium et Missa Fro Dejunctis. Editio Mathias. Price 30 cents. Missale Romanum.
Price $4 net History of Church Music. By Rev. Dr. Karl Weinmann. Translated
from the German, race 75 cents net
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288 BOOKS RECEIVED [May, 19IO.]
DUFFIBLD ft Co.. New York:
Tkg History of Mr. PoUy. By H. G. Wells.
American Book Company, New York:
Tht Human Body and Health, By A. DaTison, M.S. Price 40 cents. Richard oj Jawu$»
town. By James Otis. Price 35 cents.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. JUNE, igio. No. 543.
LIFE AND LITERATURE.
BY JOHN J. BURKE, C.S.P.
G with a man well versed in the history of
it-dajr crimes and criminals, the writer of
aper was astonished to learn that there was
^ a striking increase of crime among young
that seventy-five per cent of the criminals
convicted in the courts where this man gained his experience
were between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age. When
asked what reason, if any, he would assign for such a notable
increase of youthful criminals, the speaker replied that, to his
mind, there was no doubt that such a state of things was ow-
ing to the utter lack of religious training. He had taken the
pedigree and the history of every criminal that came under
his observation, and he always included the question of re-
ligious training, so he was warranted in speaking as an
authority.
It is not our intention here to speak of the necessity of
religious training for the young. In the May number of this
magazine we spoke on the benefits of publicity. We endeav-
ored to show how useful it is to make great evils known in
order that they may be remedied. Every Catholic reading
that paper must have thought at once of what a powerful
agency a Catholic press would be — a press possessing financial
means, supported by an intelligent organization, capable of pre-
Copyright. 1910. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
IN TEH State of New York.
VOU XCI.— 19
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290 Life and Literature [Jtmc,
senting every need of the Catholic body, of reporting from
original sources every question that affects the welfare of the
Catholic Church at home and abroad; a Catholic press that
would constantly give to our people the best of her literature,
the best of her past and present spiritual life, and that would
in the Catholic body find loyal support, attentive hearing,
personal interest, and a ready response.
An effective way to save the children is to save the par-
ents. To him who observes ever so slightly, ominous portents
are not wanting. The powerful forces at work incessantly in
the world to-day — forces that poison the reading matter of our
people, poison it both as to facts and principles, that are de-
nying the need of God for the right growth of the human
soul; forces that practically command the ear of the world,
possess their power and effectiveness because they are ap-
pealing to the masses that are in turn uninstructed, unenlight-
ened, and, weighed down by social injustice and social tyranny,
will listen to and follow the voice that promises them redemp-
tion and happiness. It is not alone necessary that youth be
trained in religious knowledge; it is also necessary, for the
well-being of the Catholic body, that its corporate sense of
the necessity of religious education for children as for adults^-
of the necessity of having hearts and souls freshened contin-
ually by the waters of God's truth, and of keeping in intelli-
gent touch with the needs, the trials, the battles, the defeats,
and the victories of God's Church upon earth — be kept vigorous-
ly alive. In proportion as that sense grows dull, the Catholic
body will grow weak.
They that keep the city must watch by day and by night
else the city may fall. And it is to the honor of every dweller
therein that he has his own true part to play in its defence
and in its glory, a part which, great or small, no one can take
from him ; no one else can fill. But to be faithful to it, head
and heart, one's whole being must be alive to the needs of the
hour; and head and heart must constantly be enlightened, in-
spired, and guided by the spiritual food of Catholic teaching.
Else will they grow ignorant and lukewarm, without thought
of a city to defend or of an inheritance to cherish.
A stock broker well knows that unless he keep himself in
close, accurate touch with the market, unless he feed bis mind
every day with the details of its transactions, be will soon.
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I9IO.] LIFE AND LITERATURE 291
very soon, be incapable of carrying on bis business. The same
is true of every department of business; of every profession,
of every field of human endeavor. Does the service of Christ
ask less? And will the earthly welfare of His Church be pro-
moted while we are deaf to the evils that threaten it ; indiffer-
ent to the problems that we must face; ignorant of the vast
riches that guided and that have been increased by our fathers;
heedless of the words that intelligenti thoughtful, saintly lead-
ers are striving to have us hear to-day ?
The literature of the Catholic Church has played a supremely
important part in the past in the sanctification of souls, the
extension of Christ's Church upon earth, the growth and de-
velopment of the Catholic mind. In a true sense it may be
said that without Catholic literature none of these things
could be.
A comprehensive definition of Catholic literature is im-
possible. It may include in the broadest sense every line of
human writing that is good and true — even though it deal
with the comparatively unimportant things of life, for all
goodness and all truth are from God. To use ,tbe words of
St. Paul, Catholic literature includes ''whatsoever things are
true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy,
whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame.'*
But in its usually accepted meaning, Catholic literature
may be defined as that body of writing informed^ enlightened^
implicitly or explicitly, by the truths revealed to us by Jesus
Christ and preserved by His Church. It extends to the high-
est and to the lowest. There is no thought or act, impulse or
emotion, power or aim, no relation, individual or social, which
it does not embrace. Catholic literature is as large as Catholic
life, and Catholic life embraces the entire man in his common-
place thoughts as well as in his highest aspirations, in his per-
sonal duties as well as in his social responsibilities. Catholic
literature is the detailed expression of the Christian life.
Even in its widest sense it may, in a measure, be called
the word of God. The far-off, faintly- shadowed word at
times; meant, perhaps, only as an interpretation of the gentle
wind; or the quiet sea; or the birds of the wood; neverthe-
less, in its measure, it is His voice. It is again the merely
human word speaking of commonplace things and of the issues
that engage us in every-day life; but this also is, indirectly, of
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293 Life and Literature [Janet
God. In its fullest sense it is God*s direct word, revealed to
His servants immediately by Him, bearing with it power and
light from heaven, and lifting man from the things of earth to
the things of God. It will be seen, then, that Catholic litera-
ture reaches from end to end and *' orders all things sweetly.''
Its various expressions are so many separate rays, differing in
Intensity, differing in power, differing in fruitfulness, yet from
out one Sun they all spring; to the one Sun they owe their
being; and that Sun— is Christ, the Eternal Word.
Rightly, by His eternal begetting, is He called the Word
of God ; and the human expression of that Word, the man
Jesus Christ, is also the absolute perfection of human wisdom,
from Whom all truth must spring and to Whom all truth must
go. We do not say that all literature must be devotional;
that it must always point a moral; that it must always be re-
ligious. Our Lord Himself spoke of the beauty of the fields;
the glory of the lilies, of the harvest, the flocks, and the birds
of the air. As He came to save man and to save him by teach-
ing him and lifting him up to perfection, so He made His
teaching encompass the whole man, every want and every pos-
sible demand of heart and soul and mind.
Christ did not hesitate to dispute with the doctors ; He led
a quiet home life for thirty years ; He had His own particular
human friends; He hesitated not in preaching, in defending, in
condemning; He loved to console, to take the little human
good and lead it to the heavenly better, the heavenly best
He was the Word simple yet infinite ; divine yet human ; God
omnipotent yet the Way and the Life for us. Not the Way
and the Life that we were to follow at certain times and use
only on particular occasions, but the only Way and the only
Life for all men at all times and all places. He will have us
entire or He will not have us at all. No man can serve two
masters. We must be in Christ; Christ must be within us;
and His truth and His commandments must govern all our
thoughts and our purposes — not only our holy thoughts at time
of prayer, but our thoughts of business, of success in the world,
of our relations with our neighbors, of our whole outlook upon
life — this is Christianity, this is the teaching, clear, distinct, of
the Catholic Church.
As Christ was the perfect Word, so every word before or
since, of human lips that has been true and worthy, is an an-
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I9IO.] LIFE AND LITERATURE 293
nouncement or an echo of Him. And the Catholic Church,
from the very moment of her birth, has been restless under the
holy desire to make known that truth to men; to saturate
men's lives with it ; to bring the world and all the things of
the world into captivity at the feet of Christ.
From the day of its birth, under tongues of fire, the Apos-
tles went forth as the preachers of the word. As soon as pos-
sible they put down in writing, under the guidance of God,
the truths entrusted to them. As Christ perfected the law, so
did they perfect the literature of God ; and added the Christian
revelation to that greatest of literary works— the Bible.
From the very first the Apostles realized, and realized under
the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, the necessity of a Chris-
tian literature. That Word of God, inspired as it is, was brought
forth by human emergencies and, so to speak, by the temporal
necessities of the Church. St. Matthew defended the human
birth of our Lord; St. Mark gave evidence for the Virgin
Mary; St. John wrote against the Gnostic heresies of his own
day; St. Luke wrote the acts to chronicle the early labors of
the Apostles, particularly the journeys of St. Paul; St Paul
wrote to prove to the Hebrews that the Christians had an altar
and a sacrifice; wrote to confirm and strengthen newly-made
converts; and to bring home to particular churches particular
truths.
It is impossible to describe, even in the briefest way, how
the Gentile world was led to Christ. The methods that won
the victory are well shown to us in the life and work of St.
Paul — St. Paul journeying over sea and land — the length and
breadth of Asia Minor, and thence to Rome — preaching, writing,
enforcing at every opportunity the word of God; speaking to
the philosopher, the governor, the simple people; versed in
Hellenic philosophy and leading Hellenism to God; a patriot
appealing to Caesar; a citizen faithful in his allegiance; a writer
of unsurpassed literary power; the Apostle of the Gentiles,
and, as the conquerors of old, leading the Gentile world cap-
tive at his chariot wheels to Christ.
There was ever present with the Church this necessity of
expressing, of defending her own life in the written word.
Even when the world was laboring in the pains of rebirth,
and the Church was suffering the i^ony of persecution, her
literature was not permitted to die but Very little of it is left
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294 LIFE AND LITERATURE [June,
to us. But we have enough to show how important it was
considered and how widely it was circulated. Clement of Rome^
Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Papias, the
author of the letter to Diognetus — the works of these have
come down to us. We have in them the outline of future
Christian apologetics. In their day they defended the Church,
they taught the people, they secured converts, sanctified souls,
and begot heroic lives and heroic martyrs.
In the great battle that was waged but two centuries after
the beginnings of Christianity, the great leaders whom God
raised up, leaders capable, brilliant, and the writings which they
produced and which were read by the whole world, strengthened
and extended the cause of Christ. Justin, who, like Augus-
tine after him, had tried every philosophy — Stoic, Peripatetic,
Pythagorean, Platonic — finally found, through the words of an
old man, the true philosophy in the Catholic Church. Justin
showed that pagan philosophy was wrong, that Christian phil-
osophy was right. Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertul-
lian, Pantasnus, Clemens, the schools of Alexandria, Cassarea,
Rome, Edessa, Antioch — all these were great agencies that
sent forth through the world and through every channel of
Christian life the word of Christ.
Through its literature the Church valiantly and triumphantly
reviewed the past, though it was but three hundred years old,
and through such apologists as Lactantius and Eusebius stirred
its children to hope, and pointed to a glorious future. Atba-
nasius, the savior of the Church against Arianism, Jerome,
Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory, were veritable
warriors in the holy cause of God's word. Then, as now, were
charges made against Catholics as disloyal citizens. Then was
it charged, as the Roman Empire began to disintegrate and
fall to ruins, that it was the Catholics who, by their unfaith-
fulness, had betrayed it. And St. Augustine, in his great
work, The City of God^ showed how false the charge was and
silenced the pagan and the Arian.
And if we were to trace the work of the Church through
further centuries we would find that in spreading broadcast the
word of God she never slept. In every age and in every cen-
tury her aim has been not only to preach the direct, revealed
word of God, but to support that word ; to interpret it for
her children; and, under her own guidance, to give them the
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I9IO.] LIFE AND LITERATURE J95
secular wisdom of the world that might otherwise work their
destruction.
But from what has been said it will be evident that the
Church since her very birth has been conscious of her duty
to spread forth her literature — yea, to make literature her own ;
to spread through the world the positive teachings of Chris-
tianity; to make known the principles of true morality; to
convert the world not merely in its religious aspect, but the
entire world in its religion, its morality, its politics, its prac-
tical life, its thoughts, its customs, its whole self to the teach-
ings of Christ. She does not destroy; she builds up. She made
captive the Greek world ; she made captive the Roman world ;
she made captive the barbarian; she will yet make captive the
children who have rebelled against her. As Christ is the
Alpha and the Omega so is she, of all human life, the be-
ginning and the end. She has not only opened heaven, but
she has shown that the things of earth lead to heaven. She
has not only her own literature; she is the mistress of litera-
ture and, as the guardian of truth, has blazoned forth that
truth — which without her the world has forgotten — that litera-
ture, if it is to be an art at all, must be true.
Her children in the past were faithful to her because they
nourished themselves upon her word ; loved it, drank it in,
made it their own. They of centuries ago, when printing was
unknown, shame us who have the printed word at hand. St.
Jerome, as early as the fourth century, might say: ''The
ploughman as he held the handle of his plough would, instead
of love songs, be singing his Alleluias ; the reaper, heated with
his toil, would be solacing himself with the Psalms; and the
vine-dresser, with his curved pruning hook in his hand, would
be chanting one of the compositions of David."
And coming to our own day, the duties and the necessities
that rest upon us as Catholics are as great, if not greater, than
those which rested upon our forefathers. It the printing press
gave to Catholic truth, to Catholic literature, an efficacious
&Uy» it gave to non-Catholic forces a powerful weapon. And
so far have we neglected our duties that the printing press
has practically been made captive, and -the press is, in great
measure, in the hands of the enemy.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the immense outpouring
today from presses and publishing houses all over the coun*
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296 LIFE AND LITERATURE [June,
try. That outpouring fairly deluges the earth. No one can
know its entire force; yet none can remain entirely unaffected
by it. The press is universal in its scope. Adults read till
they lose their power of vision; children become the servants
of the press almost as soon as they can read. The daily paper
is omnipresent. Libraries are scattered in profusion all over
the country. They are crowded indiscriminately with books.
Everybody is eligible for membership and may be supplied
with almost any book he desires. Books are sold at a very
low price. Through booksellers and great department stores
they are brought within the reach of iall^ and the glaring ad-
vertisements in the newspapers are filled with announcements
of book bargains.
This power of the press is to-day a power that has wide-
spread influence in the formation of character, in the welfare of
the individual, of the family, of the nation ; it is the most effica-
cious — the controlling factor. And that press, beginning with
the daily through to the monthly and to the book itself, is
predominantly non-Catholic.
If we are to make ourselves truly Christian and Catholic
in our character, our aims, our principles, then we must be
readers of Catholic literature. If we are to have the true- at-
mosphere of Catholic teaching in and about our homes, then our
homes must welcome Catholic periodicals and Catholic books.
If we are to influence our neighbors as we ought to influence
them, to make them look more kindly upon Catholic teaching,
to lead them to the acceptance of that truth which is their
soul's salvation, then we must have Catholic literature to offer
them and to enlighten them. If we are ever to make our
country Catholic, and the more we love it the more energet-
ically will we try to do this, then we must have an unlimited
supply of appropriate Catholic literature. If we, as Catholics,
are to retain our political rights — to keep from the hands of
the Church those who would despoil her — then we must have
a capable, well-organized, and well-supported Catholic press.
The Catholic Church conquered the Grecian world of phil-
osophy and art because, through her own literature, she showed
that both were vain without Christian teaching, and both in
Christian teaching had their fulfillment and their perfection.
The Catholic Church conquered the Roman world because her
children in family, social, and civic life exemplified Christian
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I9IO.] LIFE AND LITERATURE 297
teaching. Her apologists answered in detail every charge
against her; and when Rome fell the only literature of the
civilized world was that which the Church preserved.
At the present time the Catholic press of Germany is the
support and the strength of the Catholic Church in that empire;
the disasters that have befallen the Church in France were
made possible because French Catholics utterly neglected to
support an intelligent, fearless. Catholic press. The life of the
Church in England for the last fifty years has been her Catho-
lic press. In a wonderful way the Catholics of England have
been alive to the situation, and by persistent effort, by study,
by intelligence, by sacrifice, they have answered every charge,
met every difficulty, and have made the Catholic Church the
most respected institution in that land.
Throughout the entire world to-day the Catholic Church
has an attack to meet more insidious in its quiet, disdainful
way than any she has ever had to meet before. In the matter
of faith she is met by the answer that dogma is a thing of
the past; that the intelligent man now knows dogma to be
but a development of merely human knowledge ; and that we
ought now to put off our swaddling clothes. In the domain
of ethics we have the commonly accepted theory that the
principles of morality are not fixed; that they change as peo-
ple change. .Numerous books have been published of late that
deny any real difference between right and wrong. In the mat-
ter of devotion many laugh at prayer ; deny the communion ot
saints ; and think reverence for the dead to be a foolish thing.
In the field of sociology almost every book published, almost
every article in our secular magazines on the subject is untruth-
ful and false in its principles. All manner of theories are ad-
yanced on the subject of education. Socialism and the advo-
cates of Socialism are more active every day. They are telling
the people that the Catholic Church is opposed to the welfare
of the working classes. They are ceaseless in their watching
and unbounded in their zeal.
In every field of human endeavor there are those who are
opposed and who are opposing the Catholic Church. Whence
is the antidote to come ? It is useless to say that these things
do not affect Catholics — ^that we can live our life and let these
things go by. The philosophy of history contradicts us ; the
example of the Church throughout the ages puts us to shame.
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298 LIFE AND LITERATURE [June,
We, as Catholics, ought to have a press — and we can have
it if we will-^that would, at least, instruct our own people
and enable them to take their place in the world, as their
fathers did, as intelligent champions of Catholic truth. We
ought to have a press that would answer every charge, meet
every difficulty, and be able, through the support of the Cath-
olic people, to meet the non-Catholic world on every field; to
show with regard to all things of this life, all questions of the
human mind, in physical science, in biblical research, in his-
tory, in economics, in politics, as well as all things of the life
to come, that, at the root of all, and the perfection of all, as
the mainstay and foundation of all, are the teachings of
Christ
To give an example. Here is a magazine article, an edi-
torial in the newspaper, a book about the horrible injustice of
the Church in the Spanish Inquisition. Where will you find
an answer to it? Or, again, it is generally said that all
Protestant countries are progressive; that Catholicism is the
ruin of all nations upon whom it fixes its grasp. Or, again,
that the Church is the enemy of physical science and always
has been; or that Catholics can never make good citizens of
a free republic. You know that the whole question of Church
and State in France has been falsely reported in our secular
press. Was there any great eagerness shown by American
Catholics to defend here, before our own countrymen, the
action of the Church there?
Would it not broaden our minds, make us more zealous
Catholics, keener lovers of the cause of God, if we knew that
the Church in Italy was fighting for Christian education; if
we knew that to-day it is introducing Christian education into
Japan ; if we knew that the Church in France is fighting vali-
antly for Catholic education ; if we knew that in South Africa
the Boers are still fed upon Maria Monk literature, and that
many of them have a hatred of the Catholic Church that is
almost inconceivable?
We have in this country question upon question that is
yet to be settled. We should endeavor, as far as in us lies,
to leaven the world of thought with Catholic principles; of try-
ing to make the Church a master not alone in Israel, but in all
the world. If we have not this duty before our eyes; if we
do not arouse ourselves to it ; if the cause of good, intelligent
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Catholic literature continues to be neglected, as it is neglected
now, then God's hand will not be stretched forth upon us and
our children will have to face problem after problem that has
been intensified by our neglect.
We do not deny that our people have been deceived time
and again by undeserving Catholic books and Catholic journals.
But that is no reason why they should take no interest at all
in Catholic literature; no reason why they should not devote
themselves to what is worthy and noble and good.
Are we not, as a people, shutting our eyes and refusing
to stretch forth our hands to a treasure which ought to be
ours? We are fed by the bread of earth. We never enter
to enjoy the fruits of the promised land. Neglecting to read
works that are directly Catholic, we are dead to the inspira-
tion of Catholic faith and love in our every-day life* Many
are driftwood as far as the great stream of human love that
ought to send . itself forth from the hearts of men to the heart
of God is concerned.
We are rational creatures, and we promote our own good and
the good of any cause we would serve by prayer, by devotion,
by thoughtfulness, by a zeal for knowledge. And the cause
of Christ, the cause of our own salvation, is promoted, not by
external service alone, not simply by branding ourselves as
Catholics, but by an internal realization, a bringing home to
ourselves, by absorption into our own life of the truths and
the principles of the Catholic faith. In this way, by this un-
derstanding and welcoming of Christ, does Christ come to live
in us and we in Him; in this way do we fulfill the command
to bring our intellects into the captivity of Christ; in this
way do we begin to understand and to know what is meant
when we are termed the sons of God ; what js r '
Christ tells us that He will no longer call us y
guests, but co-heirs with Himself of the Kingdom
The revelation of God was made with an eterc
The wondrous writing of the fathers and of the
lives of holy men and women, should be a heavei
well-loved by us. The instructive works by cap
of to> day^^devotional, scriptural, doctrinal, ethical,
sociological, of story and of poem — of all those, t
alembic of whose Catholic minds have passed gr
all these are sent to help us and inspire us, that \
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300 Life and Literature [June,
more easily, through them, know the height and the depth of
that wisdom that reaches from end to end.
Books, such as I speak of here, are common and within the
reach of all. Even from a merely human standpoint nothing
could be more efficacious to the building up of character. The
good effect upon the individual who would read them is incal-
culable. The Scriptures, the writings of the past ages, the
writings of to-day, treat every Catholic subject that could be
mentioned; and these treasures are accessible to all. Around
and about us — a veritably omnipresent atmosphere, which will
supply our souls with the highest and best life — is this treasure
of God's word ; the revealed word of Jesus Christ, the Eternal
Truth ; the sacred, inspiring words of His disciples ; the helpful
word of thousands of Catholic men and Catholic women who
have interpreted and preserved for us the experiences and the
lessons of the ages — this unlimited wealth is at our command.
Around about us is a work that the poorest and the sim-
plest of us can accomplish — the duty to know something of that
sacred word ; the duty to know something of the best in litera-
ture; the duty to sanctify our own souls, and sanctification
comes not without knowledge ; the duty to help our neighbors
and to spread, as far as our hands can reach and our word
can go, not only the direct word of God, but the good taste,
the pure, wholesome standard that bespeaks the Christian, and
that will keep the world, and the works of the world that be-
long to God, holy in His sight.
The daily press is filled with accounts of serious offences
against the commandments of God. Upon this press many
of our people feed, sending their children morning and night to
the corner stand to procure a copy of the sheet that tells them
alluringly of the world's sin, and yet never calls it sin. The
great majority of our novels are insipid and sensational; our
magazines are made up of startling, hair-raising articles, or
else of the cheap, attractive pictures of men and women, and
of stories that give an altogether false picture of life. If we
stop to think, we will realize that the printed word of to-day
is predominantly untrustworthy. It preaches the enervating doc-
trine that one religion is as good as another. At times it goes
further. Not long ago one of our great city dailies, which not
many days before had thousands of votes for a popular Catholic
in one of its contests-— that same paper had a picture of the
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I9IO.] LIFB AND LITERATURE 301
Crucifixion and an advertisement that told of a book written
about other saviors that were equal to Christ, and that had also
been crucified. That paper was read and supported by thou-
sands of Catholics. In morality it teaches that there is no
such thing as the positive commandments of an infinite God.
It practically denies free will and personal responsibility. It
never speaks of heaven; it will not hear of hell.
Through the length and breadth of life the popular press
of the day gives pronouncements without fear on every ques-
tion that can concern us from the cradle to the grave: on edu-
cation, on marriage, on the family, on property, on every
phase of human conduct
The pity of it is that, if it does not succeed in sowing the
seeds of these errors in the souls of others, it does succeed in
making them less watchful with regard to Christian truth; it
leads them inwardly to compromise ; it debases their tastes and
destroys their ideals, and robs them of the true Christian spirit.
For the Christian and Catholic spirit is the spirit that
looks to God in all things. The natural man has only what
nature can give him, and nature falls short — infinitely short —
of God. The Christian has the positive word of Christ. The
word that came direct from heaven and that xi not alone re-
ligious in the historical sense, but religious in the sense that
it is the sole source of spiritual life, and is in itself sufficient.
As it embraces the entire man, so does it go forth into all the
actions of man. In his Christian rebirth he has been born
into a new world, illumined by a new sun. He sees things
entirely different from the merely natural man. He sees all
things in the light of God; and for him that light will never
be extinguished. In religion, in morality, in his own individual
conduct, in his business, in his thoughts, in his ambitions, in
his reading, he will be governed implicitly and explicitly by the
light of Jesus Christ
He has been bom a son of God and for none of the un-
worthy things of the world, not even for the slightest, will he
forget that sonship; and as the printed word is the greatest
power for thoughtfulness, for action, for inspiration, and imi-
tation of the example of the ages, so will the Christian not
weaken or debauch his mind by what is unworthy ; but he
will realize with a deep, personal, abiding consciousness and
determination the duty of knowing, and having his children
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302 Life and Literature [June,
know, the great truths of Christianity ; the great truths of the
saints, the great questions of the Church and of the world
she is trying to save.
Our fathers fleeing from the fury of Jew and pagan halted
here and halted there to deliver the word of God — to drop the
seed that would bear abundant fruit. The world pursued them
in hate ; and because they in love gave their life for the world,
the world in turn hastened to love them. Our fathers by land
and by sea, amid deserts and forests, in the din of war or the
quiet of peace, sought to learn the word of God and give it
to others. With the labor of years they transcribed and handed
down thousands of volumes that are the wealth of the ages.
Because the world was made to listen to the word of the
Catholic Church, because the world did listen and drink it in,
the world is civilized and Christian to-day.
The pupil that sat reading at the feet of Alcuin helped
later to save Europe to civilization. The boy that listened to
Peter Lombard afterwards became the Christian Aristotle. Our
fathers in the days of later persecution — in that land from
whence many of them journeyed— in this land when books
were not so common as they are now— taught their children
the love of good reading.
This is our danger, that in the day of seeming prosperity
and growth, we should neglect to strengthen the foundations
that will sustain and advance to further fullness what has al-
ready been accomplished.
The great wealth of our Catholic spiritual literature, the
goodly number of worthy volumes that are being published to-
day, and are adding to this wealth, are in great measure un-
known to Catholics. It is the exception to find a home where
spiritual reading is done to any great extent or in any in-
telligent way. Such reading would open up for every in-
dividual a wonderful vision; inspire him with that delicate,
sensitive conscience which is the mark of every true Catholic;
inspire him with zeal and love, show him the true way to
personal happiness and divine peace, and make him a watch-
ful, faithful member of the visible kingdom of God upon earth.
Under its benign influence the Holy Spirit would, indeed, re-
new the face of the earth. Our own homes are desolate and
our own souls are barren without it. Because we refuse to
bathe in these waters, stirred for us by angel hands, we have
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19 to.] Life and Literature 303
a poor concept of Catholic ideals; we are weak in the pres-
ence of temptation and never have the power to reach out in
confident determination to that positive love and union with
God for which our souls were created.
And with regard to our duty towards others there arise^
as we talk daily with our companions and friends, Catholics
and non* Catholics, a thousand and one questions which we
ought to be able to answer intelligently and capably, and thus
represent worthily before men the Church of the living Christ.
It is unnecessary to mention questions regarding the Church's
teaching and discipline, questions in which the whole world is
interested. There are, besides these, questions of the secular,
political, and social world which materially affect her welfare.
A Catholic should realize that he is not only a member of a
parish, but of a world-wide organization; yes, a living organ-
ism of which Christ is the head, and the Holy Father is His
Vicar upon earth. In every matter that affects her welfare he
should be eager and anxious and sympathetic. He is false to
his duty if, owing to his ignorance, owing to his failure to
seize opportunity, he must stand silent when he hears her teach-
ings and her discipline assailed. They are being assailed to-day,
and assailed bitterly, by journals and books — and what are the
vast majority of Catholics doing to defend her and place her
name in honor before our countrymen?
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THE NOVELS OF MRS. DE LA PASTURE.
BY AGNES BRADY.
EIT is never didactic, does not take kindly to facts,
is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed
outright by a sermon.*' Such, at least, is the
opinion pronounced by Agnes Repplier in one
of her delightful essays. And if, on reading
it, some grave and judicious heads shake a little dubiously,
most readers, we fancy, will agree that the dictum is not al-
together devoid of truth. Unfortunately the majority of our
present-day novelists, the very men for whose benefit this
pleasing doctrine is proclaimed, refuse to avail themselves of
it in practice. They resemble that group of Mrs. Jellyby's
friends, each of whom had a separate and distinct mission in
life, except Mr. Qaayle, whose mission it was to be interested
in everybody else's mission. We ask them for pleasure, and
they give us a problem ; or perhaps they condescend to solve
the problem; or in the overflowing goodness and simplicity of
their hearts, taking compassion on our multitudinous ignorances,
they slip in here and there a little treatise on psychology, or
on ethics, or on economics, or — blest Eldorado of the hourl-^
on sociology. Tired of their grim and determined earnestness,
we sigh for something with the breath of life in it, for a
novelist's world of real human beings with beating hearts that
send the blood tingling through the veins. It is with relief,
then, that we turn from the lay preachers and university ex-
tension lecturers, who have been masquerading as novelists, to
one who has old-fashioned notions of the story-teller's art.
Mrs. de la Pasture devotes herself frankly to the business
of giving pleasure to her readers; their number, therefore, has
become legion in England, and is fast growing among our-
selves. With a dozen or more novels to her credit, she is
now enjoying the plenitude of her powers, master of a sure,
ripened, and agreeable style of fiction. Her most popular
stories perhaps, are: Peter's Mother and Deborah of Tod^s;
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I9IO.] THE Novels of Mrs. de la pasture 305
but others also are wide favorites, such as Catherine of Calais ;
Catherine's Child; Adam Grigson; The Man from America;
and The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square. Her success as a
dramatist has been assured since the unusually favorable re-
ception accorded in London to the presentations of The Lonely
Millionaire^ Peter^s Mother^ and Her Grace the Reformer. Deb^
orah of Tod's was produced very successfully in America.
But it is with the novels that we are at present concerned.
Mrs. de la Pasture offers us bright, wholesome stories oi the
higher classes in England, told with cleverness, a quiet humor,
and a knowledge of the life whereof she speaks.
Another young Englishwoman once took from her busy,
cheerful life some leisure hours to write down a few stories,
which she then quietly locked away in her desk, never dream-
ing of their real value, never guessing how freely future
generations would bestow smiles and tears upon the affairs of
Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins, of Fanny Price and Marianne
Dashwood. With the same happy unconsciousness and growing
love for her task we can imagine Mrs. de la Pasture writing
pleasantly of the second romance of Peter's Mother^ or describ-
ing the pathetic evolution of Deborah of Tod's. Perhaps no
writer since Jane Austen has succeeded better in the portrayal
of family life. Even the Bennets, assembled in solemn council
over the question of getting the girls partners enough for the
next ball, or the frequent entertainments of Barton Park,
which '' supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exer-
cise to the good breeding of his wife,*' are not more real than
the delightful glimpses of domestic affairs in Mrs. de la Pasture's
stories. In The Tyrant we become intimately acquainted with
one household — the sweet little mother, the pretty, romance-
loving daughters, the ambitious sons, all ruled by the miserly,
autocratic father, who is, indeed, lord and master of the house.
One day at luncheon time the two daughters paused on the
staircase while their father was speeding the parting guests to
whom he was too economical to play the host
'''One comfort is, they will get a much better luncheon
at home,' said Sophy viciously. 'They are laughing. Listen.
Papa can't be so very cross. He is telling them a funny
story I '
"'Which?' said Annie with unconscious satire."
Surely this bit deserves to be placed beside those pleasant
VOL. xci.— 20
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306 THE NOVELS OF MRS. DE LA PASTURE [Jane,
annals of the family whose after-dinner conversation was on
the topic of the height of the different grandchildren 1
It is not in plot construction that Mrs. de la Pasture excels.
Her plots are sometimes loosely woven and guilty of occasional
inconsistencies. Her stories, though not carefully planned, do,
of course, proceed in an interesting fashion, but it is in the
character drawing that she is especially admirable. It is usually
asserted that no woman can succeed in making real men of
her heroes ; that hopeless prig, Daniel Deronda, is always cited
as an unhappy example. Such failure, in the case of Mrs. de
la Pasture, must be admitted with a very few of her heroes,
notably that inconceivably august. King Arthurian personage,
Sir Philip Adelstone, who stalks through the pages of Cathe^
tine of Calais^ and that rigid gentleman with uncomfortably high
standards, who gives the title to The Grey Knight^ and who,
after years of cruel neglect of his daughter, cannot forgive a
momentary flash of temper in the same direction on the part
of his idealized fiancee. Yet in general her masculine characters
are convincing; they are individuals, not types. Perhaps the
most carefully delineated and the most amusingly realistic is
the stolid young Englishman in the story of Peter^s Mother*
Peter Crewys, at the age of twenty, returns wounded from the
Boer War to regain his health and take charge of the estate
in Devonshire, which has come into his possession by his father's
death two years before. Peter has a long nose, small, gray
eyes, and a comfortable sense of his own importance. He for-
gets that his mother. Lady Mary, who was but a girl of seven-
teen when she married her elderly guardian and came to live
the tiresomely sedate life of Barracombe House, is still com-
paratively young, and may desire a future of her own. When
he arrives home he expects to find her in deep mourning, and
ready to devote her remaining years to his comfort and ser-
vice. He has nicely planned her rSle as his dear old mother,
and may even have selected the special kind of lace cap that
he would like her to wear. '^ I mean to keep everything going
here exactly as it was in my father's time,'' he tells her. ''You
shall devote yourself to me, and I'll devote myself to Barra-
combe ; and we'll just settle down into all the old ways Only
it will be me instead of my father — that's all."
In a lti9 days, however, Peter makes some surprising dis-
coveries. It appears that his mother, aided by his cousin and
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i9ia] The Novels of Mrs. de la Pasture 307
gaardian, John Crewys, has been occupied in the task of re-
storing and redecorating the house and improving the estate.
Peter does not like changes. He is also beginning to suspect,
very reluctantly, that his mother and his guardian have be-
come seriously interested in each other. But poor Lady Mary,
naturally sweet and gay, longing for love and happiness, still
refuses to marry John Crewys, and, rather than disappoint
Peter's ideals, is ready to sacrifice herself for her beloved son.
The outlook is bad for Lady Mary's chance of happiness, when
the dea ex machina appears, in the form of Miss Sarah Hewel,
a brilliant young beauty with great self-confidence, red hair,
and an admiring love for Lady Mary, whom she determines to
rescue from Peter's selfishness. She therefore brings that young
gentleman completely under her sway. In adoration of her
charms Peter submits to her superior wisdom, learns his own
insignificance in the scheme of things, and becomes reconciled
to his mother's marriage with John Crewys. Finally Sarah
surprises herself by falling in love with Peter, and the story
ends as happily as a fairy tale. In the character of Peter the
author has certainly achieved a triumph of indirect delineation.
No artist uses a label. Thackeray does not tell us that George
Osborne is selfish, nor does Dickens hint that Mrs. Nickleby
is silly — the good woman opens her mouth and speaks for her-
self. Peter does likewise. His quite unconscious selfishness,
his hopeless, stolid narrow-mindedness, are in his own honest
words. His every utterance is weighed down, not by light con-
ceit, but by a ponderous sense of his own importance ; he ex-
asperates, even while he amuses. When he condemns his moth«
er's new way of arranging her hair by saying, '* Why, Mother,
you never used to follow the fashions before I went away;
you won't begin now, at your age, will you ?" we long to shake
him. But when he decides that '^ the sudden joy of my return
has been too much for you, poor old mum," or remarks casu-
ally, '' Women can never take care of themselves," he is so
funny as to be almost likable; and we are tempted to agree
with the opinion of his guardian that ** the lad is a good lad
at bottom, and a manly one into the bargain."
A character utterly dissimilar, but portrayed with the same
subtle touch, is presented for our enthusiastic appreciation in
the novel called The Man From Ametica. The old Vicomte de
Nanroy, '' who had been christened Patrick, and whose family
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308 THE NOVELS OF MRS. DE LA PASTURE [June,
name was O'Reilly, was the son of the brave Chevalier
O'Reilly, a naturalized Frenchman and a soldier of fortune/'
With his corpulency, his lameness, his fierce white moustache,
his baggy trousers, and his yellow linen waistcoat, the Vicomte
combines the elegant politeness of a foreigner of distinction.
In Honeycott Manor, the little homestead nestling among the
hills of Devon, he lives with his two little granddaughters in a
frugal contentment undreamed of by Horace on the Sabine
farm. He feeds his cats and his doves, buds his roses, cooks
his own meals, reads French with his grandchildren, Rosaleen
and Kitty, and teaches them picquet and dummy whist. The
little girls love him dearly, but rather pityingly.
'^The extraordinary thing about bon papa was, as Kitty
remarked despairingly to Rosaleen, that he was always being
surprised at something.
^' The first primrose surprised him regularly every February
or March or April, according to the date when the first prim-
rose took it into its head to appear. The first crocus that
opened its golden cup to catch the golden sunshine surprised
him no less; and he was annually astonished, on measuring
Rosaleen and Kitty, to discover that they had grown.
'^ ' Does he expect us to be little girls forever ? ' said Kitty,
in disgust, to her sister.
''When they presented him with a pair of socks that did
not match~-one being tightly knitted by Kitty, and the other
very loosely by Rosaleen — bon papa was so amazed at their
achievement that he almost fell into a fit ; though he must
have seen them at work upon the gift for months previously."
Perplexed indeed is the Vicomte when Rosaleen and Kitty,
grown older, demand to be taken to London; but more per-
plexed are the Londoners in the big hotel by his plaid shawl,
baggy trousers, and air of distinction. After a visit to the
shops, the Vicomte is much bewildered by the sudden trans-
formation of his Rosaleen and Kitty into young ladies of
fashion, and when a few weeks of society suffice to bring
about the engagements of them both, we suspect him of real
relief at the prospect, not only of their happiness, but of his
own freedom to return to the cats, doves, and roses. In his
charming combination of oddity and distinction, simplicity and
aristocracy, the Vicomte finds an English counterpart in
Colonel Newcome; he is quite as distinct a personality, and
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19 lO.] THE NOVELS OF MRS. DE LA PASTURE 309
altogether one of the finest and most lovable old gentlemen
in all fiction.
With a few exceptions the women drawn by Mrs. de la
Pasture are not individuals. They belong to either of two
types: the ordinary, pretty young English girl, who has color
in her cheeks, but little in her character; the lay figure type,
like Kate Nickleby; and the woman of thirty-five, whose
romance comes late in life. The heroines of the latter class
are fairly well presented, especially Lady Mary in Peter's
Mother. But there are two of Mrs. de la Pasture's women
who^are so unusual and so strikingly depicted as to be quite
unforgettable. The first is Rosamond Evelyn, who gives the
chief interest to the story of Adam Grigson^ she is ** tiny as a
sprite, coaxing and beaming, with a little, delicate face, eye*
lashes too light for pathetic gray eyes, and fluffy, fair hair.''
The shallow silliness which she takes no pains to hide, the
little mind so frankly material, suggest her namesake, Rosa-
mond Vincy, of Middlemarch fame. But she reminds us more
vividly^of another heroine: incapable of passion or affection,
using her inginue charm and sly shrewdness unscrupulously
''to get ahead in the world," Rosamond is very like Thack-
eray's Becky Sharp. After she succeeds in her ambition of
" marrying money," Rosamond's short and checkered career in
the longed-for London society ends as abruptly as did Becky
Sharp's, but not so disastrously, since she is saved from folly
by the good sense and strength of her husband. George Eliot
holds Rosamond Vincy up pitilessly for our scorn, like a but-
terfly on a pin ; and Thackeray, as Mr. Howells points out, is
"boisterously sarcastic" at Becky's expense; but Mrs. de la
Pasture has drawn the character of her Rosamond with a fine,
subtle skill, and has made her shallowness pathetic rather than
despicable. If we have a secret sympathy for Rosamond Vincy,
and an inclination to pity her for being married to Lydgate,
rather than vice versa, we are guiltily conscious that George
Eliot would not approve. We can almost hear her say sternly:
" My poor Lydgate has deteriorated since he married this silly
woman. She is dragging him down I " And in our enthusi-
asm for Becky Sharp we are sure that we appreciate her bet*
ter than her creator ever did. Thackeray painted her faith-
fully, to be sure, but we see through the painting to the
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3IO THE NOVELS OF MRS. DE LA PASTURE I June,
originaL George Eliot was, in mind, almost as much a man
as Thackeray ; Mrs. de la Pasture has a feminine touch. She
analyses the complexities of Rosamond neither pitilessly nor
sarcastically, but with keen insight and quiet truth.
The second, and probably the better known, is Debdrah of
Tod*s. Deborah is a Devonshire maid; from her father, an
officer in the Hussars, she has inherited what she calls with
simple directness her " gentle blood " ; from her mother the
farm of Tod's, which she herself manages. She is described
as majestic in mien, with black hair and eyes, and rich color-
ing; her whole bearing is marked by an air of repos^ and
quiet strength. This rustic goddess General Sir Arthur d'Alton
courts and marries, forgiving her dialect for the sake of her
wealth. Deborah reverences the general for some past act of
kindness toward her (dead) father, but a few months of mar-
riage show him as he really is, a man old in dissipation, the
wreck of a gallant soldier. Yet Deborah never falters in her
direct, uncompromising notions of duty; she manages Sir
Arthur's household, makes friends with his daughters, and
pays his son's debts. Hardest of all, she goes about in a
London society which she is not gay enough to enjoy, and in
which her dignity wins her the name of '* the Sphinx." When
the general is struck with partial paralysis, Deborah says
calmly: '' I was tu be his wife equally in sickness and in health.
What wude yu have me be doing of wi' him lying there suf-
fering ? " — and nurses him day and night with affectionate care
for more than a year. When at the end of that time he dieSj
she puts on the old blue gown in which she used to work in
the cider-press, and goes back to Tod's in search of her lost
youth and happiness. But the farm life is too narrow for her
more mature ambitions. Her own suffering has broadened
her sympathies. Together with the man to whom she has al-
ready, unconsciously, given her love, and who comes to claim
the gift, Deborah resolves to devote herself to the wider in-
terests which will be hers as mistress of a large estate.
Deborah is a character of unusual strength. The story of
her mental evolution, of the slow and reluctant steps with which
«he advances in worldly wisdom, is pathetically told. Her re-
ligious scruples, her absolute lack of humor, her feminine de-
sire to be loved, all are very real and vivid. Her untutored
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IpIO.] HELEN 311
nobility is presented in striking contrast to the shallowness and
artificiality of the vapid ''society folk'' with whom she is
thrown in contact
Mrs. de la Pasture is a Catholict and The Catholic
World is most happy in paying this tribute to her work. We
are grateful — as all lovers of good books must be — for what
she has given us. It is much to have known hon papa and to
have smiled at Peter Crewys; to have become intimate with
many charming characters; and to have carried with us from
her pages the memory of many delightful hours. And we
know that a deep and tender feeling of Catholic piety has not
been without its influence upon our author.
HELEN.
BY H. G. SMITH.
Not she who watched from her gold battlement
The tide of war, the carnage that she wrought
With her wide eyes, and lithesome fairness bought
By I/eda's charm ; not she who could content
Her empty soul with all the vauntings sent
To harass Troy ; she with the sunlight caught
In her pearl-braided hair, for whom had fought
The gracious heroes, brave of heart, war-spent ;
Not she the type of thy sweet spirit's bliss.
But rather that fair Helen, who at mom
By her low casement sees an amber sky
And messengers of God, whose fleet wings kiss
Her lifted brow, within their sure arms borne
The sign of pain and love's immensity.
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H. G. WELLS.
BY W. E. CAMPBELL.
II.
r were considering the shareholder as a none too
healthy factor in modern social life. We must
try and probe a little deeper into this question
than Mr. Wells has done, and with other help
than his.
The mistake which is too often made, both by the opponents
and the apologists of the present system, is to regard pro*
daction and distribution as widely separated processes ; where-
as, in point of fact, they not only take place simultaneously,
but are in a sense one identical process. We cannot study
the production of wealth and its distribution apart The very
payment of money, which we call distribution, is in fact an
order upon goods already produced or about to be produced*
Just as we regard the human frame so must we regard the
industrial organism as a living whole. Just as the human frame
requires so many units of food to keep it going, so too, does
the industrial organism require a regular supply of industrial
energy to keep it efficient — energy which it may be said to
derive from land, labor, and capital. But what leads to so
much confusion at present is the fact that we are obliged to
measure the various kinds of energy supplied to the industrial
organism in altogether distinct and un-correlated units. Land
is measured in acres; workers are measured by hours' or
weeks' work; and capital in hundreds of dollars. We, there-
fore, need a direct measure of units of productive power, for
it is these units that are really bought and sold under the
guise of acre productivity per annum ; laborer productivity
per week; and machine or concrete capital productivity per
annum [cf. U. pp. 78-9). Having once got a clear notion of
the industrial system as an organic whole, using up various
kinds of industrial energy in turning out commodities, we need
now to get a fuller understanding of the methods by which
the inevitable waste of structure is repaired, by which new
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I9I0.] H. G. WELLS 313
and increased structure is created, and by which fresh energy
is poured into the system. The industrial system as a whole,
like the individual factors of which it is composed, works for
its keePt and it will continue to operate productively only so
long as it is kept in constant repair, and the energy which it
gives out in production is constantly replaced. It must have
a maintenance fund. But a growing industrial system requires
more than its keep ; it needs a further supply of energy where-
with to create new tissue in order that more work may be
. done.
First, then, as to the maintenance fund. This does not
consist of wages alone. ''Every sort of laborer giving out
muscular and nervous energy and consuming tissue in his
labor must receive in income the food, clothes, shelter, etc.,
required to maintain him in his working power. Since, too,
he is mortal, this work of individual restoration cannot be
kept up forever. If the suppy of labor- power is to be main-
tained, the material means of bringing up children to replace
aged workers must be provided*' (The Industrial System^ J.
A. Hobson, p. 63, cf. also Leo XIII., On the Condition of Labor).
This gives us the basis of the ''minimum wage/' which will,
of course, vary with different kinds of labor, that which re-
quires a greater exercise of physical energy or mental skill
having a higher "minimum."
But not only must wages have a physical basis, they must
also have a moral one. Man is not a machine but a creature
of will, and in order to get the best quantity and quality of
production from him his will must be properly stimulated.
An engine driver or a compositor will require a higher sub-
sistence wage than a general laborer, and so right up through
the scale of industries. It is clear, then, that " the subsistence
wages, required to maintain the existing supply of labor power,
may be held to constitute a first charge upon the industrial
product on behalf of labor. If there is a failure anywhere to
provide this subsistence, the industrial system is weakened and
diminished in productivity." All "sweating," however much it
may "pay" the employers of unskilled labor, is undoubtedly
a damage to the industrial organism as a whole.
But while this " wage of subsistence " suffices to keep the
industrial system at its present state of efficiency, it makes no
provision for its growth. If production is to be increased in
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314 H. G. WELLS [June,
quantity and quality a greater provision must be made. The
quantity of production can be increased in two ways : first, by
increasing the number of laborers; second, by inducing the
existing workers to give out more productive energy. In either
case a rise in wages will bring about the required result.
It is the same with an increase in the quality of production.
To evoke the finer sorts and uses of human energy we must
have a higher standard of life and a higher rate of payment.
** For each unit of the finer sort of productive power a higher
price is necessary than sufficed for a unit of the ruder power.
It is partly a question of physical, partly of moral motive.
Fine and reliable work cannot be got out of workers living
upon a bare subsistence wage; coarse material surroundings
and the presence of poverty do not support a nervous system
capable of the nicer adjustments of muscle and brain involved
in fine work of any sort ; there is neither the physical stimulus
to acquire and apply such power.''
'' If, then, a trade is to grow in quality and size, this growth
involves a rise in price per unit of human energy. This is the
real significance of the rise in rate of pay which has taken
place in the skilled cotton trade of Lancashire during the last
half-century, as also in many other manufactures where growth
in volume of work has been accompanied by improved skillt
care, regularity, and responsibility. This is the so-called 'econ-
omy of high wages,' assisted, doubtless, in its mode of oper-
ation by the organization of the workers, but primarily based
upon the economic necessity, which is ultimately traceable to
*tbe play of physical and moral stimuli or motives operating
upon individual workers and molding class standards of life."
So much then for labor, the quantity and quality of it, and
the part it plays in the industrial system. We must now turn
to capital and see what it should rightfully and healthfully
claim for itself.
Just as labor claims for itself a fund sufficient for main-
tenance and progress, so does capital — and by capital we just
now mean ''the concrete forms of buildings, tools, machines,
stock, etc., which assist industry, not their financial equivalent
or measure." But capital and labor differ in this respect, that,
whereas labor requires a wage of subsistence dnd a wage of
progress, capital requires, in addition, the cost of initiation*
We have to take into account the costs of bringing into exist-
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I9I0.] H. G. Wells 315
ence this industrial system. " The maintenance fund of capital
must contain a payment for the effort of saving required to
bring into existence the forms of material capital/'
Now, in order to induce people to save, something must
be given them for the effort and inconvenience thereby caused ;
to use the ordinary economic phrase, we must reward ^'the
effort of abstinence or waiting/' But this effort of abstinence
or waiting does not fall on all alike. It is, therefore, valued
at the maximum and not at the minimum inconvenience it
would give to any man in the country~-the inconvenience
caused to a poor man being obviously much greater than that
caused to a rich one. Hence it is that all saving receives the
price which must be paid to the most expensive savers, those,
in fact, who would not save at all unless they received, say,
three per cent.
Thus, for the use of capital required in the industrial sys-
tem, two absolutely necessary payments must be made ; a fund
with minimum interest for the production and upkeep of the
business fabric; and a further payment of interest to elicit
capital for the quantitative and qualitative growth of that busi-
ness.
Lastly, we come to land. Just as in the case of labor and
capita], there must be payments for maintenance and improve-
ment. A third payment, however, comes in in this case, and
that is called rent. This must be left for later consideration.
This, then, is the simple statement of how the industrial
system begins, continues, and grows. Each one of the pay-
ments made to land, capital, and labor is a strictly necessary
cost of production. And, as we have seen, this method of
maintenance and growth is at once quantitative and qualita-
tive, physical and moral.
This brings us to a further and, from the social point of
view, a much more important and interesting consideration.
The industrial sysUm produces mare than its keep ; what becomes
of the surplus f It is conceivable that the whole of the sur-
plus product of the industrial system is capable of being dis-
tributed and consumed in such a manner as to promote its
increased efficiency, and that quite without any regard to the
more human interests of society. But we know, only too well,
that great portions of this surplus product go neither to stimu-
late the growth and efficiency of industry itself nor« on the
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3i6 H. G. WELLS [June,
other hand, to the promotion of the common good. We know,
on the contrary, that large amounts of it are taken as onnec-
essary and excessive payments which help rather to depress
than to stimulate both the industrial and the social systems.
To use the words of a capable English economist, ** the abuse
or uneconomical use of the surplus product is the source of every
sort of trouble or malady of the industrial system^ and the whole
problem of industrial reform may be conceived in terms of a truly
economical disposal of this surplus** {The Industrial System^
J. A. Hobson, p. 78).
Before the rise of our modern capitalistic industry surpluses
were relatively small, and so there remained a very small
margin wherewith to increase industrial progress, on the one
hand, or to pass as '^unearned increment" into the hands of
the landlord or financier. But now the industrial organism
tends more and more to increase and with it the surplus mar-
gin grows greater and greater. It must be clearly understood
that we have no cause for complaint that great surpluses in-
crease or that they are made productive by being applied to
genuinely reproductive purposes, but only that so large a pro-
portion of them are applied to unproductive and socially de-
structive purposes. At present no law exists for the apportion*
ment of such surpluses except the law of superior force. Land-
owners, capitalists, laborers, or combinations of these, can, ex-
actly in proportion to their strength, appropriate as unearned
and excessive gains lumps of this surplus. It, therefore, rests
upon us all seriously to consider any proposals which may be
made with a view to securing that as much as possible of this
industrial surplus should be applied to the purposes of indus-
trial and social progress 'Mnstead of passing in the shape of
unearned income to the owners of the factors of production,
whose activities are depressed, not stimulated, by such pay-
ments."
There can be little doubt that larger and larger shares of
^'surplus" tend to pass into the hands of certain large inter-
ests — the banker and financier, transport companies, city land
owners,' manufacturers of protected or patented goods, brewers
and distillers, and contractors for public works ; and while this
is so these large appropriators can in no way be said to re-
turn to the industrial system anything like proportionate ser-
vices for what they receive — they do little to stimulate either
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 317
indastrial or social progress. ^* Among entrepreneurs the finan-
cier or manipulator of fluid capital and of credit is at present
in a position of such vantage that his share of the surplus is
out of all proportion to his services. Much of the surplus goes
in overpayments, which check, instead of stimulating, efficiency
and progress, while other portions of the system, especially
the lower grades of labor, are deprived of the share needed
to evoke, educate, and support the growing efficiency requisite
for participation in the more rapid march of modern industry *'
{16. pp. 136.138).
It now remains for us to indicate in the briefest manner
certain ways of diverting this ''surplus'' into more suitable
and productive channels. First, we have what is called the
labor movement. This movement owed its early vigor very
largely to the one-sided teaching of Karl Marx that '' surplus,'*
while entirely due to the laborer, had been appropriated by
the capitalist ; and that, in order to satisfy justice and redress
the wrongs of the proletariat, this surplus must return to the
class from which it came. But, without committing ourselves
in any way to the Marxian fallacies, it is clear enough that
the tremendous amount of unproductive surplus appropriated
by the capitalists is entirely due to their strong strategical
position, and this of itself is a quite sufficient justification of
trades unionism and the labor movement. ''Wherever such
surpluses exist they form an object of attack for the labor
movement, for since they are, ex kypotkesi, unnecessary or ex-
cessive payments, taken by capital because they can be £0t, they
can be secured by labor in higher wages and other improve-
ments of conditions, if labor is strong enough. . . . The
economics of the labor movement hinge mainly upon the ex-
istence of the (industrially and socially unproductive) 'surplus'
held by the employing class and distributed as rent, extra
profits, or interest, fees or salaries. The whole or any part of
it can theoretically and in practice be diverted into real wages,
if labor is strong enough to take it" {lb. p. 206).
This, too, can be done, as Mr. Hobson shows us, without
any detriment to the quantity or quality of production. Nay,
rather with great and lasting benefit to both. This is a point
that is so fiercely and frequently debated by apologists for the
present capitalistic system that it will be well to keep it
clearly in view as we proceed.
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3i8 H. G. WELLS [Jane,
Everything depends on the ''surplus'' which remains over
when capital has taken its rightful share. If there is no
'' surplus/' then, indeed, the labor movement has no economic
basis whatever. (Nor, for the matter of that, has capitalism.)
As things stand at present, labQr is the weakest claimant for
surplus, and the labor movement is an attempt to strengthen
its position and so better its chances of obtaining a more
equal share of it. So far capital has had all the best of it;
its better organization, its abler direction, and its wealth have
enabled it to offer a so far successful resistance to the de-
mands of labor* Hence we find labor moving forward into
politics, hoping here, with the help of legislative weapons, to
strengthen its position. There is nothing necessarily socialistic
about all this. // is simply an attempt to improve the bargain^
ing power of the workers. ** The growing disposition of trade
unions to favor drastic land legislation, unemployed relief
works, old-age pensions, wage-boards in sweating trades, as
well as to promote large schemes of public education and
public credit, is not attributable to any distinct theory of
state functions or any preference of public to private enter-
prise. These projects are primarily viewed in their bearing
upon the bargaining power of the workers. Land reform will
help to relieve congestion of the labor market; unemployed
relief and old-age . pensions will economize the financial re-
sources of the workers and their unions; education, poor law
reforms, the repression of sweating conditions, will help to
build up a more solid basis of working class organization.
The ultimate weapon of capitalism has always been and still is
starvation** {lb. p. 210).
The labor movement has, of course, other ends in view as
well, but it is engaged at present, first and before all, in at-
tempting to secure for itself an increased share in the surplus
product of industry, which remains after all necessary expenses
have been met, and is at present distributed between capital,
land, and labor, just exactly in proportion to their respective
abilities to demand it*
What people seeoi so slow to recognize is this, that given
a ''surplus," it is far better that a larger share of it should
go directly to increase the quality and quantity of production,
by being more widely and beneficially distributed throughout
tht '9f\io\t personnel ol the industrial system, than that it should
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I9I0.] H. G. WELLS 319
be narrowly accumulated and unprofitably misused by a very
few in order to oppress the many, Ruskin's words have fresh
meaning in this connection. ''As diseased local determination
of the blood involves depression of the general health of the
system, all morbid local action of riches will be found ultimately
to involve a weakening of the resources of the body politic."
A wise distribution of ''surplus" is, therefore, the true secret
of industrial prosperity.
But although the labor movement has done something, and
may yet do more, to equalize the distribution of " surplus," yet,
after all, it has been and will always be but a clumsy instru-
ment of redress. It is merely an attempt to fight, capital on
its own ground and by its own methods — the method of force.
Is it possible that some method of assigning the surplus product^
more equitable^ regular^ and conducive to industrial progress than
the method of force, can be devised?
There can be no question that modern states are tending
more and more to interfere with the working of industrial op-
erations, with the result, and sometimes with the intention, of
bringing about a more socially advantageous distribution of
wealth. There are three main ways in which the State sees
good to intervene.
1. State regulation of industry.
2. State operation of. industry.
3. Taxation in order to raise revenue for public consump-
tion.
How, then, do these interventions affect distribution?
I. State regulation of industry. "This includes all legal powers
wielded by public bodies in the control of the conditions of
private industry, which have the effect of diverting what would
otherwise figure as interest, profit, or other emoluments of the
stronger factors of production, into wages or other expenses
connected with improved conditions of workers." Take, for in-
stance, wages and arbitration boards, which have powers to de-
termine wages, hours, or other conditions of labor. What they
really do is to convert "unproductive surplus" into wages,
leisure, or other benefit of the employees. And even if this
should lead the employers to tax the consumer by raising his
prices, yet it is found that the increased burden falls mostly
upon those incomes which are best able to bear it. And so with
all other industrial legislation the final effect, whether inten-
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320 H. G. WELLS [June,
tional or not, is to take something from the unproductive sur-
pluses of the capitalist and convert them into some direct bene-
fit for those who need them most, namely, the workers, the
consumers, or even the public at large.
2. State operation of industry. The main effect of this is to
convert private monopoly into public use and profit Hence
we notice an increasing tendency on the f part of states and
municipalities to undertake the ownership and control of ser-
vices of transport and communications-city lands and housest
mining resources and sources of industrial power, banking and
insurance, water, gas, and other routine local services. And in
these cases the considerations of public order are as important
as those of public profit. What the State or municipality does
by such operation is to socialize profits which would otherwise
have gone to the monopolist. These profits may be socialized
in three ways, (i) The State may continue to charge monop*
oly prices and may use part of the surplus to pay wages of
greater efficiency ; or (2), it may lower prices and so allow the
'^ surplus'' to pass to the consumer; or (3), it may retain the
surplus income for public use. In all these cases it is clear
that ** surplus ** is better distributed. The question at issue is
whether the quality and quantity of production is at the same
time sustained or increased. As I have shown before, produc-
tion and distribution can never be separated. At present pro-
duction is maintained at cost of distribution. Under a Social-
ist form of government it is contended that we should have
distribution maintained at the expense of production. It fol-
lows, then, that both the present capitalistic and the socialistic
theories of industrial management are extreme. Just as the
human organism is kept 'Mn training'' by a proper equation
of nutrition with exercise, so should it be possible to keep the
industrial organism "fit" by a proper equation of production
with distribution. I contend, therefore, against Mr. Wells and
the Socialists that the function of the State is in the main
neither to produce nor to distribute, but to ensure that a proper
and socially health-maintaining balance is preserved between
production and distribution. The State should never allow the
individual capitalist to become glutted with surplus profit ; nor,
on the other hand, should it allow him to practice industrial
asceticism to such an extent as to become too weak to sustain
a normal standard of productive energy. The State should in-
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I9I0.] H. G. WELLS 321
terfere by all meaDs, but that it should, except in extreme and
obviously necessary cases, carry its interference to the extreme
of appropriation is wholly Jnadvisable. In so far as the taking
over of certain specific industrial operations^such, for instance,
as the services of transport and communication — is necessary to
national order and convenience, it should be carried out; but
beyond that, no I Where the ** unproductive surplus " of any
individual capitalist increases to such an extent as to become
a public menace it should be subjected to an automatically in-
creasing burden of taxation. And this brings me to the third
and last and most effective method of State interference.
" All property is due to the efforts of individuals^ and belongs
by right to them. But the State^ organized by individuals for
their joint protection^ must have such income as is required to
perform this service. For this purpose^ aud this alone^ it must
be empowered to invade the properly and incomes of individuals^
and take by taxation what is necessary.^* The first bald state-
ment of the right of the State to tax ** surplus '' in proportion
to its ability to bear such taxation sounds like Socialism pure
and simple, but a closer analysis of the statement will disclose
in it a warp and woof of complementary and not antagonistic
principles. All production must rightly have as its first inten-
tion the increased efficiency of individual life. Whatever rights
the State has or acquires are entirely subsidiary to this. The
State is for the individual, not the individual for the State.
The State is merely intended to help the individual to self-
determination, per se movens, as the Scholastics put it, and not
motum ab alio. Men, at any rate for the most part, are not
meant to live alone; for attempting to do so they are more
likely to turn into beasts than angels. Man, then, lives in so-
ciety, because society should help rather than hinder him in
his progress towards self-realization. Society, then, not for it-
self, but only for the benefit of the individual, should be able
to maintain itself in a progressively efficient condition, and in
order to do this it must unceasingly receive, as we saw before,
in the case of land, capital, and labor, a wage sufficient for its
upkeep and growth. Socialists, finding that a few individuals
have accumulated and misused the surplus fruits of production,
have roundly denounced what they call Individualism as a
wholly vicious principle, and have gone to the opposite extreme
of crying out for a complete State appropriation of all the in-
voL. xci.^ai
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322 H. G. WELLS [June,
struments of production and exchange. The problem of dis-
tribution is entirely unsolved by their theories and the whole
Christian principle of voluntary self-determination abandoned
at a stroke. Man becomes a mechanical cog-wheel in an en-
tirely deterministic society. Against such theories no protest
can be too strong. But while protesting we must not forget
that the private accumulation of immense wealth by the very
few, instead of its widespread distribution, is a thing almost as
bad as Socialism itself.
How, then, are we to find a better way ? Our first inten-
tion is to give to every man in the State a free opportunity to
realize his individuality to its utmost capacity. He must be
placed, in fact, at the outset of his manhood, in a position of
unhampered opportunity, economic, physical, intellectual, moral.
He must have, according to his capacity, the best start that
home, health, education, and religion can give him. As things
are at present a very, very few young men can get this
chance. Our business here is not with the Church and the
interior life of the soul. Man lives in society, and the State is
the concrete expression of what society can or cannot do for
him. If the great unnecessary wrongs of our civilization are
to be redressed, even in part, the State must be equipped to
this end. Individualism, self- regarding, materialistic, and ac*
cumulative, has acquired such enormous economic power to
perpetuate itself and all the evils that spring from it that the
only earthly power capable of coping with it is the State. But
the State must have as its end not the intention of abolishing
individualism itself, but that of restraining this enormous abuse
of it. What then is the State to do? In a word, it is to tax
unproductive surplus according to its ability to bear taxation.
Unfortunately the two schools of thought, the capitalistic
and socialistic, which have so far discussed this question of
taxing surplus, have given us more heat than light upon the
subject. The Socialists are so extreme in their doctrines, and
the Capitalists so frankly mammonlstic. Mr. W. H. Mallock,
for instance, contends that ** directive ability '' is the main-
spring of production, and that the only real incentive to "di-
rective ability ** is the possibility of colossal profit. Take away
this incentive, directive ability will droop and disappear, pro-
duction will diminish, and consequently employment, and the
ensuing state of affairs, will be far wotse than anything known at
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I9I0.J H. G. WELLS 323
the present time. The simple answer to this is that the colos-
sal profit gainer is, in the majority of cases, not the man of
''directive ability,'' as I so plainly showed in my last paper,
he is a " sleeper " and not a '' worker/' And even if he is a
worker the quality of his productive work is useless if not
positively harmful. In the financial sense of the terms, it is
so often the fools that invent and the rogues that profit by
their inventions. There is no necessary connection between
profit and directive ability, at any rate between it and the kind
of directive ability which controls and stimulates the best
.quality of production. As Mr. Wells puts it: "Let us con-
sider some of the commoner methods of getting rich. There
is first the selling of rubbish for money, exemplified by the
great patent medicine fortunes and the fortunes achieved by
the debasement of journalism, the sale of f prize-competition
magazines, and the like; next there is the forestalling, the
making of "corners" in such commodities as corn, nitrates,
borax, and the like; then there is the capture of what the
Americans call "franchises," securing at low terms, by ex-
pedients that usually will not bear examination, the right to
run some profitable public service for private profit, which would
be better done by public hands; then there are the various
more or less complex financial operations, watering stock, " re-
constructing," "sharing out" the ordinary shareholder, which
transfer the savings of the common, struggling person to the
financial magnate. All the activities in this list ate more or less
antisocial (and for this reason truly unproductive), yet it is by
practising them that the greatest successes of recent years have
been achieved. Fortunes of a second rank have no doubt
been made by building up manufactures and industries of
various types by persons who have known how to buy labor
cheap, organize it well, and sell its produce dear ; but even in
these cases the social advantage of the new product is often
largely discounted by the labor conditions. It is impossible
indeed, directly one faces current facts, to keep up the argu-
ment of the public good achieved by men under the incentive
of gain and the necessity of that incentive to progress and
economic development.
"One can only appeal," Mr. Wells proceeds, "to the in-
telligent reader to use his own personal observation upon the
people about him. Everywhere he will see the property owner
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324 H. G. WELLS [June,
doing nothing, the profit-seeker busy with unproductive efforts,
with the writing of advertisements, the misrepresentation of
goods, the concoction of plausible prospectus, and the extrac-
tion of profits from the toils of others, while the real necessary
work of the world — I don't mean the labor and toil only, but
the intelligent direction, the real planning, designing, and in-
quiry, the management and evolution of ideas and methods —
is, in the enormous majority of cases, done by salaried in-
dividuals, working either for fixed wage and the hope of in-
crements having no proportional relation to the work done, or
for a wage varying within definite limits'' {N.^ pp. 95-6, 98).
Having demonstrated, then, that the enormous unproduc-
tive surpluses so common at the present time are neither nec-
essary for the individual good of the gainer, nor for the social
good of the State, nor for the preservation of a high quality
and quantity of production — nay, on the contrary, that these
excessive surpluses work infinite harm to every individual in
the State — we may go on to examine with care the possibili-
ties for an equitable scheme by which these surpluses should
be taxed in proportion to their ability to bear such taxation.
It must be continually borne in mind that whatever taxation
be imposed by the State upon large unproductive surpluses,
this taxation has no other end in view than the increase both
of the quality and quantity of production. As I said before,
just as right nutrition is the sine qua non of good training, so
is right production the sine qua non of a healthy industrial or
national organism. As things are at present, the capitalistic
factor of the industrial organism is so strong that, by its very
position, it can forcibly take more than its share of surplus,
and this of course at the expense of the weaker factor, labor.
Then, again, the State, which exists in order to uphold and
protect all those general interests which its individual mem->
bers have in common, may, without injustice, take from capi-
talistic surplus, so long as it does no detriment to the indus-
trial organism as a whole nor to any of its factors, sufficient to
keep itself fit and strong enough to perform all its proper
functions. Lastly, it must take no more than capital can bear ;
that is to say, capital must only be deprived of such surplus
as would prevent it by excess from maintaining its fullest out-
put of productive energy and growth, just as a man in train-
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igio.] H. G. WELLS 325
ing may be beneficially deprived of things that militate against
his ''fitness."
The whole argument of this paper, from its comparative
newness, may seem a little strange, theoretic, and unreal, but
I think that the reader, after exercising himself in it a little,
will gradually become convinced of its extreme and practical
simplicity. If the equity of this surplus taxation is once per-
ceived, its practical application will soon follow. At present
people are so afraid of that word Socialism, that any, even
the mildest, suggestion of State interference is labelled with
it at once. But the whole controversy is raging between ex-
tremes. There must be some workable and just mean be^
tween the present unhampered license which is permitted to
any one with ''money'' to do what he will with his own, no
matter what the social or industrial consequences, and the op-
posite Socialist vision of a State owning all the means of pro*
duction and exchange. Such a scheme as here laid down in
the rough seems to be suCh a mean. Its economic doctrines
are already accepted as unexceptionable by reputable econo-
mists and social reformers, and having thus barely introduced
them I must recommend those who wish to study them further
to read for themselves Mr. J. A. Hobson's Industrial System.
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GREEN WOOD AND DRY.
BY HELEN HAINES.
I.
' is something to have relieved one's mind of a
three years* contract for engine oil, and the
General Superintendent of the Atlantic and
Western, thinking over his decision, had found
it good.
Now that General Manager Catesby was at Hot Springs,
and it was round house gossip he might never return, a feeling
almost of omnipotency took possession of Roger Eldredge.
The contract had gone to the Universal Oil Company. He
was surprised, therefore, to see beside his breakfast plate, a
day or two after the papers had been signed, an envelope with
the superscription of the oil company in the upper left corner.
Omnipotency is not open to correspondence alter the fiat^ and
Eldredge's frown, as he tore the letter open, plainly indicated
annoyance.
" That looks as though it should have gone to your office,"
his wife explained, half-apologetically.
Roger, with a grumbling *' I had hoped this matter was
settled,'' began to read; but Mrs. Eldredge, watching him, as
she kept the maid busy supplying his needs, was relieved to
see his brow clear.
When theyj^were alone he asked suddenly : '' The boy isnH
about, is he ? "
'' He is out long ago, over in the meadow picking bluets ;
do you want him?''
'' I don't wish him to hear just now. Seymour, of the Uni-
versal Oil Company, is sending him a pony."
'' Seymour! Why, Roger, be scarcely knows the child I "
''It is a*compliment to me, my dear," said Roger with a
gratified smile. " We have given Seymour's company a big oil
contract — one^of the things Catesby left to me when he went
away."
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igia] Green Wood and Dry 327
Mrs. Eldredge grew thoughtfu], and there was a moment's
paase before she said : '^ Of course, Roger, we couldn't accept
such a present, if you were just giving this contract."
''Edith, I said we had given it/' Roger looked a little
impatient. " Seymour might have sent me cigars, or a case of
champagne, they often do. You wouldn't want him to send
that sort of gift to the boy?" he asked playfully, his good
humor restored with a second cup of coffee.
''No— o"; said his wife absently. Roger laughed, and she
added more positively: "Don't be absurd, dear, I am in
earnest. Somehow the other things are not so tangible ; while
a pony is an ever present reminder of something.^*
Eldredge pushed his plate aside and looked across the
table at his wife. His voice, too, was positive, as he an-
swered: "Well, Edith, the pony is being shipped to-morrow.
I could wire Seymour not to send it ; but what possible differ-
ence can it make ? Even if a man in my position always refuses
to receive gifts, every one thinks he takes them. Why, look
at Catesby I He owns stock in the Universal, and is going off
for a six months' cruise with its president."
"But Mr. Catesby is a rich man. Everybody associates
him with yachts and Hot Springs and other luxuries."
"Most people associate him with the Atlantic and West-
ern; but, while I admit he's made a good thing out of it,
there isn't any reason why he shouldn't. I certainly would, if
I were in his place"; and Roger closed the discussion by
rising from the table, linking his wife's arm in bis, as together
they stepped through one of the long dining-room windows
on to the porch.
There, in the early June sunshine, a sweet picture was
framed by the honeysuckle vines^a trim lawn sloped gently
to a brook, spanned by a rustic bridge, and on the other side,
in the midst of a wide meadow covered with bluets, stood a
little lad, his wide- brimmed straw bat hanging by its elastic,
his hands and the basket on his arm filled with the flowers
he was still picking; and, with the tenderness prompted by
the loving pride of possession, Eldredge took his wife in his
arms and kissed her gently.
They were interrupted by a cheery voice calling inside the
house, a voice whose owner was evidently dear and expected,
for Roger turned to the window with a welcome for his friend.
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328 GREEN WOOD AND DRY [June,
John Hatton, and Edith picked a fragrant sprig of honey-
suckle to decorate him.
Hatton submitted, but laughed. ''Oh, you can't escape a
chiding by any such blandishments. I'm late enough as it is.
Mother fairly pushed me out of the house. But you, Edith,
are responsible for the Acting General Manager, and he is not
setting his subordinates a very good example this morning."
''Acting General Manager?'' Roger questioned nervously.
" What do you mean, Jack ? "
" Oh, come, you know very well Catesby's much worse off
than is admitted, and this leave is preparatory to his resigning
altogether. It's confidently expected. Madam Edith, your hus-
band is to be -made Acting General Manager."
"Splendid! "cried Edith; but added: "Poor Mr. Catesby.'*
Roger made no comment, but glanced over his shoulder at
the dining-room clock. "Time's up, John, we must hustle
down."
Mrs. Eldredge followed the men out through the hall to
the open front door. "I must go too and tell the boy about
the pony; get Roger to tell you. Jack, about the pony," she
called after them.
Edith stood and watched the men as they walked away;
the tall, nervous figure of her husband, his blue eyes alert and
eager, his blond head slightly held forward, as if searching
for that material advancement on which his heart was set;
and the straight, well*knit man at his side, in whose calm
gray eyes dwelt ideals, saved from an indefinite fulfillment by
a kindly twinkle of humor. They had been boyhood and col-
lege friends, and their first work together had been on the
Lumberton, a road of eighty miles or so, mulcted by a long
and dishonest receivership. Inside of two years, by hard work
and stringent economies, they had made it pay a small divi-
dend to its stockholders. This road had become a division of
the Atlantic and Western, and the men on it had been pro-
moted gradually to the main line. Hatton had not married,
but lived with his widowed mother. He was the godfather
of the Eldredges' only child, and the tie which united the
friends was very close.
" I didn't tell Edith my other bit of news," said Hatton,
as he and Roger walked on briskly to their offices, "for I
know how it will distress her to leave the home; but have
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I9IO.] GJtEEAT WOOD AND DRY 329
you heard the talk of our general offices being moved to New
York?"
<< Yes''; Roger replied. '' It would be a great thing for us."
'' I don't agree with you/' answered his friend firmly. '' It's
poor business; the expense is great, and we only reach tide-
water through pure connection, so there's no reason for it."
'' But every road, including our rival the Midland, now has
general offices in New York."
"Perhaps that accounts for the lax discipline on most of
them. It's not the desirability of being in New York that
makes the move necessary, but it's the desirability of being
near the ticker that has affected all of us."
''I can't see why a man shouldn't use his knowledge of rail-
way affairs to make a quiet turn or two," retorted Eldredge.
''Ah, if it were only his knowledge of actual business; but
since he is buying or selling stock for purely fictitious teasons,
it's all wrong; and I'm surprised to hear you've been taken
in by the apparent speciousness of the newer dispensation."
" This comes naturally from you," laughed Eldredge good-
humoredly, ** your father wouldn't take a railroad pass when
he was President of the Transylvania Central — said he couldn't
complain of anything if he accepted favors."
Hatton smiled; ''I don't mean to be quixotic, Roger; I
mean to be honest; and I hope to stay so. But men no older
than you and I know the real railroad man is now an almost
extinct species, found usually on the sidings, for Wall Street
owns us."
'' Oh, you're old-fashioned, Jack," Roger said easily ; ** it's
a day of big things, and you mustn't forget that."
** Maybe so, maybe so— but what about the pony ? Was it
a pony Edith said ? "
Eldredge explained.
*'Of course, Roger, you won't touch it."
'' Good Lord, man I " cried Eldredge, somewhat nettled,
** the contract was made and signed before I ever heard of a
pony."
''Still you must have known Catesby is a stockholder in
the Universal?"
" Certainly, but that fact didn't influence me — not a little
bit; and the results of the U. O. Co.'s tests — we've been
making tests on the line for two months, and I've been keep-
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330 GREEN WOOD AND DRY [Jnne,
ing close tab on the reports— showed up so much better than
those of any competing company, and for the class of oil their
prices are really lower. Look here, Jack, yon can |[ive me
pointers on traffic any day, b«t when it comes to my part of
the business—"
''You'd like me to mind mine," laughed Hatton; and, their
differences forgotten, the two friends parted at their offices.
Seymour's gift soon arrived, and the little creature became
one of the family. Hatton never again referred to the pro-
priety of Roger's accepting the pony, and if Edith sometimes
had a return of her old misgivings, she said nothing to her
husband. She could not but be happy in the delight of her
little son over his new acquisition, and, as the summer days
flew by, in her husband's pride in the boy's fearless horseman-
ship, for the child had learned at once to ride, as children do
when furnished early with a mount.
So far as Roger was concerned, there had not been any-
thing to discuss, but he was relieved that the actual arrival of
the pony had checked any further expression of such absurd
quibbling. Then, too, as Hatton's prophecy had come true,
and Roger had been made Acting General Manager, the summer
months had proved to be the busiest of his life. He had
worked hard and unceasingly, desirous of making a record, so
when Mr. Catesby's leave had expired, and his resignation
should be made public, Roger would be the only practical
choice for his successor.
Summer had given way to autumn, when Eldredge took
advantage of an inspection trip, he had begun some two hun-
dred miles up the line, to examine on his own account unde-
veloped coal and oil properties between the A. and W. and
its paralleling rival, the Midland. It had necessitated a day's
detour on horseback; in the late afternoon he returned to
inspect his car shops, and a telegram from Hatton, that had
come during his absence, was handed to him.
The Master Mechanic, to whom he was talking, saw him
go white, and for an instant lose his accustomed self-control.
But he soon spoke urgently : '' My son has been injured, and
I must leave at once. If 105 is in, get her ready, while I try
the telephone."
There was but little comfort to be derived from the long
distance, which only confirmed the news in the telegram. *It
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I9IO.] Green Wood and Dry 331
was sapposed that the child, ridiog the pony, had gone out to
a grade crossing, to watch bis father's special go by the after-
noon before; that the animal had become frightened as the
train approached, had partly thrown its rider, then rolled with
him into a ditch by the roadside. Searching parties had been
out all night, and in the morning had found the child uncon-
scious, possibly dying. The maimed pony had been shot.
Up and down the line orders went — "Right of way for
105/' Eldredge, knowing the engine, and sure of the sympathy
of his men, saw there was yet a chance to cheat time. He
sank into the fireman's seat, with a silent signal to his engineer,
and the engine leaped forward, flashing along the track, as a
meteor shoots through the sky. Crouched in his corner, Roger
sat with face set and stern, living over again every precious
moment of the little life of his child. His eyes pierced the
growing darkness, as if to read its secrets, but whirling by,
silent and black, it gave no sign. Night fell, and the great
searchlight flooded the track ahead, revealing flying mileposts,
halting trains. From time to time the yawning fire box at
his feet opened to take into its hungry maw the coal poured in
by the sweating fireman; the indicator of the steam-gauge
climbed up and up. Occasionally there was a short panting
stop for water and fuel; and once a telegram was handed in,
on which were the words — "No change.''
Roger winced, and crushed the paper in his hand. He
thought of Edith alone with sorrow — alone, perhaps, with
death. " Ah, no ; not that 1 " he groaned aloud, " not death 1 "
The engineer, anticipating an order, looked across^ but,
seeing the motionless figure, understood.
Gray and chill the dawn came softly. Eldredge shivered.
Like some great bird, brooding on her nest, it hovered, then
settled on a waking world.
As they reached the city, at the grade crossing nearest
his home, a red flag hung across the track. On the roadside
a buggy waited, a grim and silent man holding the horse's
head. It was John Hatton, and Roger knew, by the pity in
his eyes, that death had won.
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332 GREEN WOOD AND DRY [Junc,
II.
Near the market-place lie the modern gardens of Hesperides.
Its golden fruit falls readily enough to those who, daring
opportunity, snatch it from its guardians; but those who bear
the weight of the world — its poverty, its misery — can watch
only from afar the ingathering.
With the removal of the A. and W/s general offices to New
York, and in his capacity as Catesby's successor, Eldredge
had reached his opportunity. The passing years had more than
justified his appointment, for the business of the road had
more than doubled under his far-seeing management; and
Roger, too, had profited, as Catesby had before him, until he
had reached a position far in advance of his dreams in simpler
days. Indeed, many of the chances to make money had
seemed so obvious, that he felt he had not yet tried his
mettle.
There had been that little diversion of a new branch line
through timber land, acquired by Roger, and where new towns
now were building; and that block of stock, presented by a
railway supply company to Edith, which had enabled him to
purchase more cheaply for the needs of the road than if
forced to buy in the open market. Then there was a sale of
twenty miles of light rail to the Pickering Lumber Company,
with its great mills on the A. and W., when Eldredge, as well
as the scrap dealers through whom the purchase was made,
had received a handsome commission. Always there was the
stock ^market with its fascinating fluctuations. But each round
of the ladder surmounted, only served to show a prospect more
alluring, and Eldredge soon hoped to command sufficient re-
sources to develop the coal and oil lands lying in that rough
country between the A. and W. and their great rival, the Mid-
land — lands that he had examined on that dreadful day which
he had trained himself to forget. The way to accomplish this
dear project was not yet clear, but Roger had grown to have
faith in his star— in his ability to '' make it all up to Edith,"
as he epitomized it.
In memory alone Edith seemed to move, to live, life hav-
ing become a dim unreality. While she flitted through it
gracefully enough, playing her part, cultivating at Roger's re-
quest its social side, where it would best benefit his career,
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I9IO.] Green Wood and Dry 333
she constantly viewed the rewards with suspicion, fearing to
taste the fruit tossed into her lap by her husband's generous
hand, lest she should find it had already suffered blight.
One of the privileges of wealth is its ability to command
the price of genius. From photographs, a golden curl, a
mother's story told with its heartbreak, the great artist Edith
had commissioned to paint her boy's portrait, had taken his
cue. The result had been an inspiration. Mrs. Eldredge had
hung it in a room she sadly called the '^ play-roora," where it
became the only object. Here she still kept a few of her child's
faded books and belongings; here she had furnished with
comfortable chairs and some reminders of the happy past. It
sometimes seemed all that was left to her, for Roger was pre-
occupied, and the house often filled with guests — newJfriendF,
for there seemed no time for the old intimacies. Even John
Hatton, who had also moved to New York as Eldredge's Traffic
Manager, no longer ran in for an informal chat. The com-
plexities of a fashionable city house barred the door, and the
increasing formality bored him. He remembered the anniver-
saries dear to the mother heart, but Edith rarely saw him, and
heard of him chiefly through his business meetings with her
husband.
To Hatton's honest conservatism the changes wrought by
the years had meant not only the loss of this intimacy, but
the subversion of the old order of railroading; and he often
found himself wondering when, according to the standards of
the new, he should be weighed and found wanting.
That time came when Eldredge, comparing month by month
the published reports of the Midland, saw that his company's
showing was unsatisfactory. He felt that the rival road was
getting their business, and although somewhat uncertain as to
the cause of the falling off in traffic, knew the situation de-
manded some change.
The explanation he sought came to him in an interview
he had in his car when he was up the line on a business trip
with Pickering, the manager and chief owner of the Pickering
Lumber Company.
In response to Roger's perfunctory: ''Well, Mr. Pickering,
how's business ? " the mill man responded with an acid attack
on the policy of the A. and W.'s Traffic Manager in holding
up rates.
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334 Green Wood and Dry [June,
«<Whjr, Mr. Eldredge/' he said, 'Mf Hatton had cut that
rate only forty cents a thousand, we'd had that big contract
with the Manganese Dock Co. — three hundred million feet it
amounted to — and the A. and W/d gotten every foot of itl
Three hundred million feet 1 '' he added impressiTely.
''Who did get it?'' asked Eldredge.
" Peyton and Brooks."
** Well they have two mills on our road and ship over the
A. and W."
''You'll get less'n a hundred cars of it and only a fifty-mile
haul on that; the Midland's seen to all that, through their new
short line to Peyton's Siding," growled Pickering. "Why, look
here, Mr. Eldredge, we've got six mills on your road, and we're
good customers of yours, but you folks don't appreciate it.
You don't do a thing to help us. This ain't the first time
we've lost a big contract, because your traffic people have got
their eyes glued to the published tariff. I'm thinking we'd best
extend that twenty miles of track we've got out to Pickering
Mills, and connect up with the Midland ; it's only fifteen miles
across there, and the Midland would sell us rails a sight cheap-
er'n you did."
Roger soon disabused Pickering's mind that he feared any
such threat, but the mention of the Pickering Mills Branch, in
this connection, caught his attention, and there opened out
before him the possibility of realizing his cherished project in
this little lumber road. If it were not extended south to the
Midland, but southwest to the great city of Richburg, which
the Midland had made, it would tap that coal and oil country.
But Roger put his vision aside for future reference, and having
shown his interest in the industrial development of the Picker-
ing lumber business, by a suggestion that Mrs. Eldredge had
some money lying idle which he would like to invest, Picker-
ing's wrath cooled ; and as he needed the money for expansion
and improvements he gladly accepted Roger's offer.
"Come in to see me, Mr. Pickering," Roger said, as they
parted at Pickering Mills Junction," the next time you find the
tariff more than business will stand, and I will see if I can get
our people to let up on you a bit."
The results of this meeting were momentous and far-reach-
ing in their effect upon the fortunes of all concerned. First
there was a "concession" in rates to the Pickering Lumber
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I9IO.] GREEN WOOD AND DRY 335
Company^ of which that concern's rivals knew nothing. Then
there came the incorporation of the Pickering Mills Railway,
as a siparati company; this became the lever by which El-
dredge achieved his plan. The third effect followed a short
conference Roger had with his old friend and Traffic Manager,
John Hatton.
''Look here, John," said the General Manager, when they
met in his office, and after they had indulged in personalities
for a few moments. '' Look here, John, aren't you a trifle old-
fashioned in your business methods ? Our balance sheets, com-
pared with the Midland's, are making a poor showing the past
six months. For instance, I happen to know that the Picker-
ing Lumber Co. would have shipped three hundred million feet
of lumber our way recently, if you'd shaved the price a bit"
Hatton looked at Eldredge questioningly; and for a second
gray eyes met blue. "You know the rates, Roger, as well as
I do," said Hatton.
''We're not playing choo-choos, John; we are running a
big railroad for what there is in it; and you are Traffic Man-
ager to get the business."
" But the Pickering Lumber Co. can afford to pay the reg-
ular rates," argued Hatton; "if we shave on them, there's just
as good reason to shave on the Amalgamated Iron Co. and
the Central Oil Co. and the Western Wheat Growers and the — "
" Never mind their names," interrupted Roger angrily, pound-
ing his fist on his desk. "You understand me, once for all,
Hatton; get the business — that's what you're here fori"
A momentary silence followed this explosion. "And, El-
dredge, you understand me, once for all, I'll never cut a cent
on the regular rates."
As Hatton, with a quiet "Good- morning," left the office,
Roger shrugged his shoulders. He knew his friend, and well
understood he had spoken his final word, and that his resigna-
tion would follow shortly; but the old associations tugged at
his heartstrings, and he felt he could not sacrifice the old
friendship, however much they might differ in their business
point of view.
To meet this difficulty, it was necessary to consult the At-
lantic & Western's President, and after laying the matter before
him« it was decided to offer Hatton the Company's new land
agency, with a title of Engineer of Land^ and a somewhat
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336 Green Wood and Dry [June,
higher salary. Hatton's obstructive policy would be eliminated
and the position of Traffic Manager offered to the Midland's
shrewd General Freight Agent, whom Eldredge vaguely char-
acterized as a ''hustler/'
But the person to whom Roger most dreaded to speak of
this change was his wife, and he broached the subject with
considerable finesse one opera night as they waited in the play-
room for their motor.
Edith took the news silently for a moment, then she re*
marked gravely: ''I can't fancy your side* tracking him in that
way."
''How queerly you look at things, Edith," her husband re-
plied indignantly. " We're promoting him. He will get a larger
salary, and nothing like as hard work."
"But why does he resign his present position?" persisted
Edith. "You said when you became General Manager and
made Jack Traffic Manager the Midland would have to work
to get any business at all."
"What I said then would be true now if John wasn't so
stiff on his rates. As it is, the Midland is getting <mr business."
Edith looked perplexed. "But I thought all the roads
agreed on rates.
"Certainly they agree! I can't go into details, my dear;
but you've often seen the sign, 'Liberal Discounts to Large
Consumers'; in other words, the people who buy the most,
should get more privileges than those who buy little." Roger
picked up an evening paper and scanned the reports of the
stock market.
"But the railroads do not advertise their discounts," rea-
soned Edith, " and what becomes of the small shipper, Roger ? "
Eldredge^ deep in his newspaper, did not answer, and his
wife sat looking dreamily into the slumbering wood fire, think-
ing how far away seemed that meadow by the rippling water,
and the little child standing in the midst of the bluets.
" I wonder what John thinks of it," Mrs. Eldredge said, re-
turning to the subject, as she and her husband were being
carried swiftly down town.
Eldredge gave an indulgent sigh. He was sorry he had
opened the subject, for he had looked forward to an evening's
diversion, and found Edith somewhat exigeanti. " Oh, John is
old-fashioned in his ideas. He seems to have no conception
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I9I0.] Green Wood and Dry 337
of the magnitude of a great corporation's bnsiness. He thinks
we're working still on the old Lnmberton."
''Oht Roger, I wish you were/' cried his wife wistfully.
''Those were dear happy days. I am afraid we have left for-
ever our Garden of Eden ; and if we tried to enter again, we
would find at the gate the Angel of the Flaming Sword. No ;
we couldn't go back," she added sadly. *'I wonder whether
John Hatton could."
'< You've such fanciful ideas sometimes, Edith. Looking
back over the past years, I think my life compares very favor-
ably in usefulness with Hatton's. What has he done for his
neighbor? Why doesn't he turn his money over? He's had
a big salary for years I Look at the A. and W. under my man-
agement! And what does John do for the poor? I have yet
to see his name on a subscription list. You know my list of
charities — and when I'm richer I'll increase them. Wait until
I am president of one of the biggest systems of roads in the
country — and I will be some day—"
'' I hope so, dear, since it is what you are working for,"
replied Edith gently, but the door of the limousine opened
and she was silenced.
III.
Roger's first move towards perfecting his project, was his
quiet withdrawal from the Pickering Lumber Company. In the
division of interests he retained, as his share, the line of twenty
miles, known as the Pickering Mills Railway which extended
southwest from the Atlantic and Western towards the Midland.
This arrangement satisfied the lumber company, whose business
had increased enormously since the freight reductions had been
made, and Eldredge agreed to handle their logs for what it was
costing them. For president of this short line he selected
one of the former mill superintendents, whose chief qualification
for the position was gratitude.
Then, piece by piece, Eldredge secured options on those
large tracts of rich, undeveloped lands between the A. and W,
and the Midland.
The preliminary surveys toward Richburg aroused conster-
nation in the Midland camp, and the feeling of bitterness be-
tween the paralleling lines increased when the A. and W., sup-
voL. xci.— aa
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338 GREEN WOOD AND DRY [J^oe,
posed to be backing the scheme, was warned to keep out of
Midland territory.
Eldredge could not refrain from an astute smile, as he
watched the course of Midland Common, which, at all times a
highly speculative stock, was responding, as he anticipated, to
these new influences brought to bear upon it; and he knew
the time was now ripe to present his plans to the well-known
banking firm he had selected.
** Building one road, while stepping on the toes' of another,
is not altogether a satisfactory proposition,'' was the Wary
answer to Roger's opening remarks.
But Roger was not discouraged. He was certain of the
commercial value of his proposition, and certain of the men
whose co-operation he sought For years he had awaited this
moment of brilliant efflorescence under appreciative eyes. He
patiently unfolded his plan, which was to form a syndicate to
finance the extension of the Pickering Mills Road. He told
just what he would provide in the way of franchise, survey,
right of way. Just what percentage of the stock of the new
company he would expect, what participation in the under-
writing of the bonds. He had not brought with him either
plans or estimates, but he produced a small map, which, while
not drawn to scale, gave an adequate idea of the porition of
the rival lines.
"This Pickering Mills Railway," he said. 'Ms already built
a distance of twenty miles southwest from our line. But if we
announce a plan to extend it into Richburg-^the Midland's
city — Midland Common will jump quickly; and after that an-
aouncement, should the A. and W. determine upon a radical
reduction in freight rates, it would assist the slump tremen-
dously."
There was no doubt now that Roger's proposals had aroused
interest. ** So, beside the financing, the building of this new
line, your idea is that this syndicate might make a quick turn
in Midland securities?" he was asked.
''No"; Eldredge replied positively, " this speculation should
place the means at our disposal to buy in control of Midland
before the Midland people discover what has happened."
. "What then?"
** After my directors have had time to realize their posi-
tion, to consolidate the rival systems."
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I9I0.] Green Wood and Dry 339
*' Ah-^h I So not the Atlantic and Western^ but y^u^ Mr.
Eldredge, own this Pickering Mills Road I ''
Roger smiled assent. He knew that he had won. ''The
coal and oil are well worth development/' he explained; ''but
if we succeed, the building into Richburg — '' he shrugged
doubtfully.
''Hardly necessary. We must congratulate you upon the
ability with which you have handled this proposition. Our
success'' — the head of the banking house smiled contentedly
— "will be due to your foresight."
"Say, rather/' rejoined Roger with affable humility, "to
your wide experience in the market, and my presentation of
salable wares."
The heavy selling of Midland Common, which began almost
immediately after the syndicate plans were perfected, was ap-
parently justified, when the newspapers announced a serious
rate war between the rival lines. The knowledge, too, that a new
line into Richburg had been surveyed through their most prof-
itable territory, made the Midland clique heavy sellers of their
own stock. Heretofore they had found no difficulty in buying
back their short sales at a satisfactory profit; but now, when
they felt the decline had gone far enough, they were amazed to
find the stock reacting buoyantly. Their brokers, receiving
orders to change front, found Midland Common advancing more
rapidly than it had declined ; and the Midland crowd were dis-
mayed when they learned the stock sold by them had passed out
of their hands, and with it the control of the road— the syodi-
cate, of which Eldredge was a partner, held a majority of the
shares.
When the Atlantic and Western directors were in a suffi*
ciently receptive frame of mind, Eldredge placed before them
the plan to merge the long-contending rival lines. He was
careful to point out to them the advantages that would result
if his scheme were effected; but the men who controlled the
A. and W. were not long in realizing that the governing spirit
6f this new consolidation must be their former General Manager,
backed as he was by one of the strongest exponents of the
modem school of finance.
Absorbed in these responsibilities Roger had been working
early and late. He felt a pang of compunction, now that 6uc«>
cess was assured, over his neglect of his wife, who had lingered
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540 GREEN WOOD AND DRY [June,
on in the city, worried over his haggard face and unstrung nerves,
hoping the summer months would bring a respite and a little
of their former companionship.
Flushed and triumphant, he hurried home to tell Edith of
the results of the meeting before she should see the news in
any of the evening papers. He found her before their boy's
portrait, finishing the arrangement of some wild flowers, the
lonely mother heart tenderly relighting the fires of its love be-
fore its sacred shrine.
Edith looked up as her husband entered the play- room.
" I've won the day, Edith," he cried. " I've been made
President of the Consolidated Lines."
She came back from the silent places, where her soul had
been wandering, and as she finished her simple task, the haras-
sing encroachments of their lives never before had seemed so
cruel. She turned with a stifled sigh, for she knew it was a
time for congratulation. '' I know I should be very proud of
you, dear," she said with an effort. She sat on the arm of
the chair into which Roger had sunk; he was sitting with
closed eyes, weary now the excitement was over.
''What have you been doing to-day, Edith?" he asked.
''Ah," he added sadly, noting the flowers for the first time,
•' I know, I know."
His wife wound her arms about him. "John sent them.
The boy would have been twenty-one to-day," she whispered
softly* "I have been thinking over the years, dearest; and I
think it all began with the pony. Oh, husband, could we have
brought him with us on all these triumphal marches, you and
I ? " And kissing Roger gently, Edith left the room, closing
the door behind her.
Roger Eidredge was alone. His thoughts were of the son
who would have been twenty-one that day. What chums they
would have beenl How proud the boy would have been of
his father, the youngest railroad president of one of the great-
est systems in the country! He rose with squared shoulders
and head held high. He glanced about the room, and the
familiar objects became invested with rare import on this day
of days. His eye rested on the little riding crop, which hung
by the fireplace, waiting for the child who had never come
to use it. Roger's chin fell to his chest, and he began to
walk restlessly to and fro« Was Edith right, and had it all
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19IO.] GREEN WOOD AND DRY 34 1
begun with the pony? Had what begun? What did Edith
mean ?
John Hatton had remembered the day and he had forgot-
ten I To him. it had been but the crowning of his own ambi-
tion. Roger, recalling the events of his rapid rise in life, saw
his victory rise to face his questioning soul, and slowly it
emerged a pitiful thing.
Twenty- one to-day 1 Would he have been with his father,
learning from him the tortuous methods of the modern business
man? No; a thousand times Not
Suddenly Roger understood why his little child had so long
ago crossed the river, and had stayed in"" those fair fields on that
far other side. Who was he to have led that little white soul
-^that greatest gift of God — on the longer up-hill world jour-
ney ? How dark and sinuous seemed the path of his own fol-
lowing, which all along had beckoned fair and straight I
He paused in his restless walk before the portrait, whose
childish eyes searched his with wistful tenderness* Kneeling,
he passed his hand over the flowers humbly, as though he
feared their innocent petals would close at his touch. Their
gentle aroma called back to him the joy of life, its spring-
song, its purity.
''Oh, little son,*' he cried. ''At last I know I I'm only
another sort of failure.*'
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THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS.
BY W. H. KENT, O.S.C.
pure intellect usually exhibits to the full its
itonishing capabilities, I think, only on two
ibjects^pure mathematics, which are its crea-
on, and in which it legitimately claims absolute
upremacy; and dogmatic theology, in which it
submits contentedly to the only position allowed it on the
field of morals and religion, the humble and dutiful subserv-
iency to the spiritual nature/'
These weighty words of Dr. William George Ward, in his
once famous work The Ideal of a Christian Church (Chapter V.,
page 28), may be said to serve a two-fold purpose. For,
while they bring before us very forcibly the high intellectual
delights that may be found in the study of dogmatic theology,
they remind us at the same time that the Catholic theologian
must bring something else besides mere intellectual power to
this sacred study. But, apart from its immediate purpose, the
comparison has a curious interest for its own sake. And it
may well set some readers wondering why these two sciences,
which on this showing would seem to have much in common,
are so seldom associated with one another in actual experi-
ence. The sciences themselves appear to move in different
spheres, so that they never come into contact. There is thus
none of the hostility which too often arises between theolo-
gians and professors of other sciences. But, on the other
hand, there is no mutual help or friendly co-operation; and
those who are masters in one of these high temples of knowl-
edge very often know little and care less about the other.
To some extent, we suppose, this fact can be explained
partly by the diversity of natural gifts and tastes and apti-
tudes, and partly by the exigencies of professional education.
Without adopting to the full Dogberry's doctrine, that reading
and writing win by nature, we may safely say that most chil-
dren are born into the world with special fitness, or maybe un-
fitness, for certain lines of learning; and even at an early age
the bent for science or literature may be plainly discernible.
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I9IO.] THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS 34}
This may be illustrated by the words of a French song on the
boyhood of Napoleon:
A genonx, \ genoux, an milieu de la classe, I'enfant mutin t
Avec un cerveau en feu pour TAlg^bra, et la glace pour le
Latin.
The first stages of a schoolboy's education are rightly
made on broad and general lines, for the mere rudiments both
of letters and science may well be within the capacity of most
children. But there will always be many who cannot go be-
yond a certain point, and in some direction they will soon
reach their natural limit. Thus, even with those who have
leisure and opportunity for a full development of their powers^
and love learning for its own sake, many must lain content
themselves with elementary mathematics, and cannot hope to
reach the higher regions of this science. But, in any case^
comparatively few are allowed their choice or opportunity of
full development on their own lines. The great mass of men
meant for active life have but small scope for intellectual cul-
ture of any kind. And those destined for some learned pro-
fession will soon have to specialize their studies at the ex-
pense of other fields of knowledge outside the province of
their own profession.
It is true that in many cases time might be found or made
for other studies. But most men need some other stimulus to
study besides the love of knowledge (or its own sake. For
this reason theological and biblical learning is generally left to
the clergy. And the study of higher mathematics will be
confined, for the most part, to those who require it for their
work in life, or for the purpose of an examination at the out-
set of a professional career. In the latter case it will gener-
ally be relinquished when once the object in view is achieved.
In the same way students of theology, when they come to
the parting of the ways in their educational course, not un-
naturally take the more literary and classical line, which seems
more closely connected with their own sacred science. And
unless they happen to be schoolmasters or have some special
gift and taste for mathematical studies, they will generally
drop them and, sooner or later, lose the little they have learnt
in their schooldays. In this way it may well be that accom*
plished theologians will be at a loss if called upon to discuss
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344 THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS [June,
the metaphysics of the infinitesimal calculus, and many of
them even may never have heard of any quaternions save
those appointed to guard the Apostle in his captivity.
It would be unreasonable to complain of this dissociation
of theological and mathematical studies. For, in the case of
the generality of students, it is natural, not to say unavoid-
able. Many would only waste their time in attempting to
combine the two studies. And in other cases there may be
other branches of science more practically useful to the theo-
logian. Yet here as elsewhere it may be that the division
of labor in the field of science has been carried a step too
far. And, as theology stands to gain from the wider culture
of its professors, it might surely be an advantage if those who
have a natural taste and capacity for mathematics were to
cultivate this branch of study and note its analogy with their
own sacred science. The old Schoolmen, it may be remem-
bered, conceived of all the sciences as an ordered system or
hierarchy, wherein theology was the queen and the others the
ministering handmaidens. Looking at the matter in this light
we may well expect to see some signs of connection or of
sympathy between mathematics and the sacred science of
theology. And though at first sight it may seem that the
two sciences lie far apart, and belong to wholly different re-
gions of thought, a broader and deeper study of their litera-
ture and history will reveal many points of contact.
In the first place, it is a significant fact that, though ordi-
nary students of the one science may neglect the other, it
has been otherwise with many of the great masters. For
reasons already suggested this fact may have attracted little
attention. But those few who happen to be familiar both with
theological and mathematical literature, know that many theo-
ogians have done good service to the science of mathematics,
and not a few of the first masters of mathematical science
have achieved some distinction in the field of theology. Even
outside Christian literature we meet with minds naturally dis-
posed to speculate both on divine mysteries and on numbers,
even if they do not combine them in a curious numerical
mysticism. It will be enough to mention Pythagoras, Plato,
and Plotinus, and Proclus, who, through the writings of Psuedo-
Dionysius and the Book on Causes, had considerable influence
on medieval theology.
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I9IO.] THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS 345
In the scholastic period we find a conspicuous instance of
the association of mathematics and theology in the person of
the Doctor Profundus^ in other words, Thomas Bradwardin,
Archbishop of Canterbury, whose name will be familiar to
readers of Chaucer. This remarkable man, one of the most
original minds among the later Schoolmen, has left some
treatises on mathematics, among them being one, De Quadra^
iura Circuit. And some traces of his predilection for this
science may be seen in the pages of his great theological
work, De Causa Dei Contra Pelagianos. For, instead of follow-
ing the fashion of contemporary scholastics, he anticipates
Spinoza in the application of mathematical method in the field
of religious philosophy. The book is probably little known to
students of the present day. But, as Thomassinus surmises,
it had considerable influence on the course of later theological
controversy.
It is in some ways more remarkable to meet with instances
of this kind in the later period, after the great movement of
the Renaissance and the Reformation. For science and learn-
ing extended themselves more and more among the laity; and
there was, moreover, a general tendency to greater specializa-
tion and division of labor. Yet even here we may find some
of the most important mathematical work accomplished by
members of religious orders, by theologians or amateurs in
theology. Thus, it may be said that the first important step
in the making of modern higher mathematics was the discov-
ery of the method of indivisibles by Father Bonaventura Cava-
lieri, a member of the Jesuate or Hieronymite order. On this
point it may be enough to cite the emphatic words of Carnot :
'' Cavalerius fut le pr^curseur des savants aux quels nous devons
1 'analyse infinitesimale ; il leur ouvrit la carridre par sa Gio-^
metrie des Indivisibles ** (Rifiexions sur la Metaphysique du Calcul
Infinitesimal^ n. J13).
The merits of this religious mathematician are not, perhaps,
so widely known as they deserve to be. But no student of
mathematics is likely to forget how much the science owes to
the painstaking analysis and ingenious suggestions of Ren^
Descartes. And if the father of analytical geometry and the
inventor of the method of indeterminates was not exactly a
theologian, his new presentment of the ontological argument
betokens an intelligent interest in natural theology. Another
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346 THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS [June,
great name in the history of mathematics fills a larger place
in theological literature. And the Catholic theologian will
naturally agree with the mathematician in wishing that Pascal
had given to the science, which was his own peculiar province^
the time and labor he bestowed on theology and Jansenist
controversy. But those who are perplexed by the problems
of apologetics would be loath to part with his Pensdes^ and the
lover of literature could scarcely spare that delicate irony in
the Provincial Letters. Curiously enough, one of the victims
of that irony, ** notre docte Caramuel/* was a master of mathe-
matical science as well as a moral theologian, and he gave
some practical proof of his scientific gifts by his work as an
engineer at the siege of Prague.
Before coming to the great names of Newton and Leibnitz,
it may be observed that Newton's teacher, the Anglican Bishop,
Isaac Barrow, was illustrious as a master of mathematical
science before achieving distinction in the field of Protestant
theology, and anti-Papal polemics. At the present day, no
doubt, he is best known by the memory of bis voluminous theo-
logical writings. But there can be little doubt that he rendered
a more real and enduring service to scientific literature by his
Latin edition and adaptation of the works of Archimedes and
Apollonius. Newton himself, the master mind of modern
mathematics, can scarce be accounted a theologian. But it
will be remembered that he took a keen interest in some theo-
logical subjects, notably the interpretation of prophecy; though
it may be safely said that his writings on these matters are
only remembered for the fame of their author in other fields.
A far higher importance attaches to the theological efforts of
his great rival, Leibnitz. That truly universal genius has left
much that is of permanent value in most of the varied sciences
which engaged his attention. Yet it may be averred that the
volume containing his theological writings is next in importance
to the mathematical works that form the chief foundation of
his fame.
And beyond their intrinsic merits, both alike have historical
significance. For, on the one hand, much of all that is best
in modem mathematics owes its origin to the suggestions of
his genius, and in his first tentative essays we may see the
forms of this science elaborated and elucidated by later writers*
And, on the other hand, his efforts in irenical theology, his
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i9ia] Theology AND Mathematics 347
Protestant approximation to Catholic orthodoxy, seem to fore-
shadow the great movement of Catholic revival. This position
of those two great mathematicians may remind us that in the
eighteenth century the leadership in science was no longer left
in the hands of Catholic ecclesiastics, and in the age of the
encyclopedists and the revolution it seemed to belong to men
yet further removed from Catholic orthodoxy. Yet even in
those days some excellent work was accomplished by religious
writers. Thus, it is pleasant to note that one of the best edi-
tions of Newton's Principia was edited in Rome with illumi-
nating commentaries and appendices by Fathers Jacquier and
Le Seur of the order of Minims. The value of this edition
may be gathered from the fact that it was reprinted in Glasgow
in the nineteenth century. By a curious confusion the editors
of this reprint speak of Jacquier and Le Seur as Jesuits, in
spite of the fact that the title page tells that they were Minims—
an order which somehow seems more appropriate in connection
with the method of fluxions and infinitesimals.
In these later days, when in every branch of learning there
is an increasing tendency to greater specialization, we can hardly
look for so many instances of a literary association of theology
and mathematics. Yet the nineteenth century can boast some
conspicuous examples of men who were masters in both realms
of science. Thus, readers of this review will naturally recall
the name of the late Father Bayma, the mathematician and
religious philosopher, some of whose best work made its ap-
pearance in the early numbers of The Catholic World.
A somewhat different association of the two sciences may be
seen in the pages of that singular volume of mathematical the-
ology or mythical mathematics, Der Gott des Christenthutns als
Gegenstand streng wissenschaftlicher Forschung^ published at
Prague some thirty years since, by Doctor Justus Rei — a book
which irresistibly reminds us of Pope's line,
''See mystery to mathematics fly.**
It may be hoped, however, that it does not fulfill the other
half of the couplet.
A more searching and systematic survey of the history and
literature of theology and mathematics might add many another
name to the list of those who have achieved distinction in both
these realms of science. And it must be remembered tlMtt, be-
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348 THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS [June,
sides those who have written on both subjects, there are many
more whose published work is confined to one alone, while the
other has still remained a favorite theme of study. We have
an instance of this in Dr. W. G. Ward, whose words were cited
at the opening of this article. His writings bear witness to
his proficiency in theology, and to most men he is mainly
known by the part he took in a great theological movement*
Bat it is only when we turn to his biography that we find that
his attainments as a mathematician were scarcely less than his
merits as a theologian. And, though his active work in this
science was confined to the days of his tutorship at Oxford,
to the last he found delight in that fascinating study.
This personal and historical association of theology and
mathematics may well suggest the thought that there must be
some objective connection between the two sciences, or that
the same mental powers are called into play by both. And if
this be so, the cultivation of mathematical study should be of
some service to the theologian, both as a mental exercise and
as a source of argument, or illustrations on suggestive analo-
gies. Thus, to take an obvious instance, the aforesaid associa-
tion and the comparison made by Dr. Ward may serve with
some as an argument in defence of theology. In an age of
materialism some men are apt to regard nothing but hard facts
and objects that fall within the range of their sciences. And
the purely intellectual speculations of theologians and philoso-
phers are often dismissed as idle dreams without any solid
foundation. The evidence of the senses is naively accepted, but
it is doubted whether the reason can arrive at truth and certi-
tude. But this shallow scepticism is confuted by the fact that
the purely intellectual speculations of mathematicians arrive at
results which can be safely tested by the evidence of the senses.
In this way the analogy of higher mathematics may rebuke
the sceptic and the materialist and show how intellectual spec-
ulation and discursive reasoning may be a sure means of reach*
ing a certain knowledge of necessary truth. But may not some
theologians and apologists in their turn find wholesome lessons
in mathematical analogy ? There are some of us, it may be
feared, too apt to conclude that a line of argument with which
we happen to be familiar, or which appeals to us most power-
fully is the one only and necessary way.
Thus on the great question as to the arguments for the ex-
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I9I0.] THEOLOGY AND MATHEMATICS 349
istence of God, we have, on the one hand, the familiar scholas*
tic arguments set forth by St Thomas and his followers, the-
ontological argument of St Anselm, and Newman's argument
from the testimony of conscience — to name but these few.
And, unfortunately, we find that many, who very naturally
prefer one or other of these lines of argument, are almost as
anxious to demolish the other arguments as to defend their
own. Some who take their stand by St. Thomas roundly re-
ject the arguments of St Anselm and Cardinal Newman as
fallacies. Others, who agree with Newman in preferring the
argument from conscience, go on to say, what Newman never
said, that the scholastic proofs are invalid and unconvincing.
Here the student of mathematics may find some help in the
analogy of his own science. For are there not many mathe-
matical truths that can be firmly proved by many and various
independent lines of argument, by geometry, by ordinary
algebra, by the method of indeterminate coefficients, by the
differential calculus? The modern mathematician may remem*
ber, moreover, that though he may see the force and cogency
of all these lines of argument, the old masters knew nothing
of the last two methods, and there must still be multitudes to
whom they are unknown, and some who would in any case be
unable to appreciate them. For this reason he will be dis-
posed to welcome a like abundance of independent arguments
in natural theology, and though he may find one more help-
ful and satisfying to '.himself, he will have no desire to de-
molish the others. Nay, even though he may fail to see their
force and cogency, he may modestly surmise that the fault
lies in himself and not in the argument.
Cardinal Newman, it may be remembered, incidentally
touches on the analogy of the differential calculus in illustra-
tion of his own attempt at a new method in his Grammar of
Assent. But the remark is merely made in passing, and he
does not, apparently, think it worth while to pursue the sub-
ject It would seem likely, however, that a careful comparison
would show not a few curious points of analogy between the
new methods in mathematics and theology. In this connection
it is important to observe that though the infinitesimal calculus
at first sight seems to be content with probability and ap-
proximation, as Carnot has shown in his admirable reflections
on its metaphysics, it really issues in rigorous accuracy. And
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350 Theology AND Mathematics [June.
the same may be safely said of Newman's methods in religious
apologetics.
Another point in which some help may be ionnd in the
analogy of mathematics is the present tendency to deny dis*
cnssion and synthetic reasoning, and to exalt the method of
intuition and analysis. The classic instance of this in mathe*
matics is the proof of the celebrated Pythagorean proposition.
Euclid (I. 47) established it by an elaborated argument, based
on several preliminary propositions, resting, in the last re^
sort, on the primary axioms and definitions. In the modem
method, discussed by Schopenhauer {DU Welt als Wille und
VorsUUung^ B. I., sect 15) we take instead the particular case
of the isosceles triangle and the truth of the whole proposition
is seen at a glance. As the philosopher remarks, it is super*
^nous to prove it by other propositions or axioms. For its
truth is so evident, that one who denied it might just as well
deny the axioms themselves. At first sight this seems to
support the current rejection of synthetic reasoning. But a
further examination of the mathematical example will serve to
correct this impression. For it must be observed that Euclid's
arguments are not rejected as invalid, since they do in fact
arrive at the same truth which is seen more speedily by the
other method. The point is that the longer way is needless
and superfluous. And the most strenuous advocate of dis^
cursive reasoning would not wish to waste words in proving a
self-evident proposition. But, on the other hand, it must be
remembered that many important truths are not attainable by
the direct and intuitive method, and most of us mutt be con*
tent to take the humbler path instead of the '' high priati
road.'' Some 'minds, it may be added, can see more at a
glance than others ; just as some have the power of seeing a
large number, as thirty or forty, without having to count it»
We have an instance of this in Archbishop Temple, who once
remarked after a confirmation that there were forty-three boys
present, and being asked if he had counted them, he said*
''No; I saw them." The high powers of intuition possessed
by some great mathematicians, may remind us of the scholas*
tic distinction between understanding and reasoning, and of
the teaching of St. Thomas, that angels in one idea see what
men can only see in many. And that is another instance of
the sympathetic harmony of mathematics and theology.
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A DYING MAN'S DIARY*
EDITED BY W. S. LILLY,
December 20, i88o«
T is now just one week since I heard my sentence
of death pronounced. ** My dear M , I must
tell you frankly that you are very ill; I fear we
can do nothing; it may be a matter of several
months— -or of several weeks; but it can only
end in one way/' Every word is graven in my memory as in
letters of fire. I had expected to be told of a slight indispo-
sition and to receive a prescription and an assurance that in
a Tew days I should be myself once more. Instead of that I
have been told that I am dying.
I hardly realize it even now. And yet I have been look-
ing it straight in the face these seven days; I whose new-
born happiness seemed so perfect I But I hardly dare think
of that; and yet I must write and tell her. A day or two
longer, when the figure of the grim shadow who is waiting
for me has grown more familiar, and' I feel absolutely sure of
myself. Until then I must continue my daily letters to her,
poor child, in the old strain ; talk of the hopes which to me
are the saddest mockeries, of our future life together in years
when I know I shall have been long in the grave. It was only
a fortnight ago (that our marriage day was fixed: her last
letter is full of our plans for our wedding tour. And to-day
I must answer it I Ah, God I I think my heart will break.
No; I must play out this horrible comedy to the end.
Already I know something of the tranquillity of the eternal
silence, at which I have been gazing so intently, has passed
into my soul. I can think calmly enough of quitting my place
here ; another will fill it better ; of looking for the last time at
* This yMdtf Interesting document has been in my possession for more than a quarter of
a century. I am now permitted to publish it— suppressing those parts that ought to be sup-
pressed, that is to say, omitting names and all details which would give any clue to names.
^[W. S. Lilly.]
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352 A DYING MAN*S DIARY [June,
the few kindred faces that are left to me; they have other
and nearer ties; of the coldness and decay which will seize
these limbs, now so full of life; of the impenetrable darkness
into which I will follow the generations of my fathers. If
it were not for her, if this decree had gone forth only a year
ago— when in my sadness and solitude — it would have been
almost welcome. But now« that a light I had never hoped for
has sprung up for the future in her dear face, a world of
hopes which I had thought dead has been revived by one lit-
tle word, the sweetest those dear lips ever uttered^it seems
too hard to bear.
And yet, for her sake I must bear this burden, and bear it
lightly; for it will fall on her, too, and I must support her«
With that iron which has entered into my soul I must wound
her gentle breast; and then, as best I may, try to heal that
wound. This is my appointed task. Let me strive manfully
to perform it.
December 27.
Another week of the few remaining to me has passed and
my task is still before me. Each day has brought her letter
and carried away mine. It seems I have not been quite able
to conceal from her the sadness of which my heart is full
''Dearest Arthur,** she writes-^it seems a solace to me to
transcribe her dear words — ''I am going to give you a little
wee scolding to-day; I think you are too grave, sir; you do
not think enough of; me. Hav*n*t you told me that my smile
had chased away all those dark clouds of melancholy from
your heart and made a bright day spring there? You see I
remember your very own words. I do so want to think you
are quite happy. I know you are when we are together; but
when you are away from me, I am afraid you brood too much
over your sad past. You know, dearest Arthur, I could never
wish to deprive that love and that sorrow of their proper
place in your heart. Do I not share in them, as I want to
do in everything of yours? But God has given you a future;
and I want you to look to that, for I shall be by your side
then; and three happy months have taught me that I can
make you happy. So, sir, when you write to me, you are to
put my picture before you and think of the days when, instead
of that deaf and dumb shadow, your own little wife will be
iaiways by your side, ready to chase away all those black
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I9IO.] A DYING MAITS DIARY 353
phantoms which try to sadden a heart she intends to make
always glad." Poor child, and I must write and tell her that
the fttture she so trusts in is an idle dream, that the sadness she
tries to charm away, by her gracious ways and pretty sayings,
is inseparably bound up with herself. If she only knew the
bitter irony of her words — '* God has given you a future 1 **
And she must know in a few hours. Time is fast flying; and
the days have sufficed for me to gather together all my
strength, and do the hard duty which remains to me. I have
resolved to tell her to* morrow; to-day will be my last letter
of sweet hypocrisy ; my last baseless vision of hopes in which
I half believe as I write of them. To-morrow I must tell her
the stern truth ; and then a few days of ever* increasing gloom,
until the valley of the dark shadow altogether enshrouds me.
December 28.
I sat a long time this morning thinking how I could tell
her. Her picture lay before me, her last letter beside it. Ah I
what an unconscious irony there seemed to be in that soft,
sunny face, shadowed with that rippling, velvety hair, over which
my hands had so often glided, and which I shall never touch
again but once. For I have resolved to see her only once be-
fore I die. Not now; but after weeks, when she has learnt
to bow herself to the will of the iron fates, and all future de-*
lusive hopes have passed away. For she will hope ; her young,
fresh heart will rebel against the decree of science ; she will
pray ; and will believe that her prayer may avail I And far be
it from me to attempt to shake her simple faith. She will learn
soon enough that no miracle will intervene to arrest the prog-
ress of the malady, which is swiftly sapping the foundations
of my life.
I sat a long time thinking how I could tell her, and at last
I wrote very slowly the letter which I copy here. I have oot
sent it, but it must go in two hours; she must not have a
blank post to-morrow. Would to God I could make it only
a blank post!
** My own dearest Beatrice : What I have to say to you
to-day is so inexpressibly sad, that I would rather die than
write it. Diet Ah, that is not so hard; I have looked at
death steadily since he came so near me and took away a por-
VOL XCI.^33
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354 ^ DYING MAN'S DiARY [June,
tion of my own heart. 'The common road into the great dark-
ness' lies before us all, and it demands no great heroism to
resign oneself to tread it. But to tell yon, as I mast to-day,
that all oar hopes for the future are vain, that I can never
claim you as my wife, that instead of bridal robes, garments
of mourning await you, dearest Beatrice — it is a task which
I can hardly perform, although for the last fourteen days I
have scarcely thought of anything else.
'' You will hardly understand this, darling. You will remem-
ber the letters I have written to you daily, and you will think
me mad. No ; those letters were lies. I have known the truth
since the day after I left you ; but I have not been strong
enough to tell you until now. You know it is a fortnight ago,
last Monday, that I left B— ^ for London. The next day I
saw my old and kind friend. Dr. L He received me very
gravely, looked at my letters, talked to me for a long time,
minutely examined me, and at last rose from his chair and
walked about the room, very slowly, regarding me earnestly.
I thought there was something wrong, and [said to him: *Do
tell me what is passing through your mind. It is only fair to
me, and I assure you the simple truth will be the kindest thing
to say.' And then be told me that I was laboring under an
altogether hopeless affection of the heart; that my life was
only a thing of a few months, or it might be only a few weeks;
that all science was impotent to help me. I thanked him and
went away ; and since then my chief trouble has been how I
could tell you. And now I have told you. But you will only
half understand it. You will think there must be some mistake.
Alas 1 there is no mistake. L does not make mistakes; but
since then I have, at his desire, seen Sir W. J—— and Dr.
P , and they both agree that I am a doomed man.
'' My darling, the part which is saddest is that I must leave
you. Everything else is comparatively easy to quit. But you,
my latest found treasure, not yet fully mine, my sweet hope
for the future, my bright and true comforter — to leave you I
'' I do not think it will be wise, dearest, that we should see
each other at present. It would unman me and would be too
sad for you. And do not write to me for a day or two, until
you have thought over this letter, and carried it to Him to
Whom you carry everything. But ask your brother Charles
to come to me. Ah, my own tender and sweet Beatrice, the
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN'S DIARY 355
pain it has cost me to write this is worse far than death ; but
I wottld bear it ten times over rather than cause you the pang
which I know it will give you to receive it."
I think I must have hardened very much, for I wrote this
without a tear, and a few days ago my eyes would fill at the
bare thought of her. The words, too, seem very cold; that
is only as it should be, for the chill of death is upon them.
But it is time the letter went; and with it goes my last gleam
of sunshine.
December 29.
I was seized with an intolerable restlessness yesterday even-
ing, as soon as I had sent my letter. This place was unen-
durable to me. I seemed to j stifle in it. The damp, foggy
night without looked more congenial than the bright, warm
room in which I was sitting; I went out into the raw, dark
atmosphere and walked rapidly through street and square, not
heeding the direction I was taking. At last I found myself in
a quarter I had never been in before. The streets were very
parrow and full of squalid shops and crowds of wretched look-
ing men and women. I looked up at a turning and found it
was one of the most miserable parts of Soho; lean, ragged,
hungry- looking women, men whose countenances seemed to be
less human than a well-kept dog's, unkempt children with keeut
old*looking faces, surrounded me. I stopped to look about
me and to think which of ^several converging streets I should
follow, when my attention was attracted by a whining voice,
soliciting alms. The beggar wi^ a bent old woman, in tattered
clothes, and shivering in the sleety wind. I took a certain
pleasure in listening to her piteous supplications: *'Dear kind
gentleman, for God's sake, help a poor creature who has had
nothing to eat to-day,'' was the burden of her petition. At
last I said : *' Why do you want to eat ? If you don't eat for
a few days you will die, and be out of your misery ; that will
be better for you, I think; and the pain isn't great after the
first forty- eight hours, they say." She answered: ''No doubt
you are right, sir; it would be better for me to die; and I
don't care about living ; only give me six pence to get a little
gin to stop the pain." I put a shilling into her hand and hur-
ried on. I thought of a fresco I had seen at Pisa years ago:
Orcagna's terrible Triumph of Death. It is a horrible mystery
—the young, the happy, the loved, cut down by the inexorable
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3S6 A DYING MAITS DIARY TJone,
scythe; the old and miserable and solitary left, against their
will, in a world they would gladly quit.
I had not walked far when I heard the sound of chanting.
I listened, and distinguished one of those beautiful Gregorian
tones, which I always thought the perfection of Church music.
Following the direction from which the sound came I found
myself before a small chapel, in which the Psalms were being
sung. I remembered, then, that Beatrice had spoken to me
of a mission in this district in which she was interested; in-
deed, I think I had given some small sum towards it at her
request. A sort of curiosity to see a place which had this
slight association with her, led me to push open the door and
to enter the building. The Psalms were finished as I entered,
and the ist Lesson was being read. It was from one of the
Apocryphal books. I did not listen for a time until the words
fell upon my ear: *'For God made not death; neither hath
He pleasure in the destruction of the living.*' Any word that
spoke of death seemed to have a message for me. And I
started when I heard the saying: ''God made not death*';
I think I heard nothing more until the sermon began. I stood
up, sat down, and knelt mechanically with the rest of the
congregation, but the words "God made not death" went on
ringing in my ears. The agony I had suffered had incapaci-
tated me from thinking; only the sound of the words echoed
in my mind. At last one of the clergy ascended the pulpit
and began to preach. He was a spare, sickly looking man and
it seemed to be an effort to him to speak. His text was: *'So
He giveth His beloved sleep." His sermon seemed to me to
be a panageric of death. It seems it was Innocents Day.
The blessedness of their death was the chief theme of his
discourse. I thought of a picture of Guido's I had seen at
Bologna : The Massacre of the Innocents. I recalledtthe shriek-
ing children in the hands of the butchers who took their lives ;
the agonized faces of the mothers, vainly endeavoring to screen
their offspring; the horror and desolation and infinite sadness
of the scene; and my mind revolted against the preacher's
talk of the blessedness of martyrdom.^ He went on to speak
of death as one of God's best gifts — a delivery out of the
miseries of this sinful world — granted to those whom He would
take into His immediate presence. I thought of the deathbeds
I had stood by: when the truest and tenderest and best of
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19 lO.] A VYING MAN'S DIARY 357
the human race I have known had been severed from all they
most loved ; I remembered the agony of grief with which they
relinquished the world, where their nearest and dearest re-
mained behind them; their faces, full of the most mournful
tendernessi rose to my view, and seemed to give the lie to the
words of exultation and triumph which fell from the wan
preacher's lips. No; I thought, there is some mystery deeper
than that enthusiast knows of. The old writer spoke the truth
when he said : '' God made not death.'' There is a curse on
the race. Divine goodness and love — if they exist — have been
baffled ; we are the sport of a malignant, resistless Fate, which
snatches us from the sight and sound of all we love, all we
hope in. And upon me the iron doom has fidlen. I go-
hurried away from my dawning happiness. But I will go as a
man, erect, unconquered; no conventional lie shall stain my
lips as I yield to the inevitable doom. The wreck of my hopes
is not from the all-merciful God. *'God made not death."
I hurried from the church when the service was over, and
retraced my way towards the western quarter of the city. The
stream of life I met in every street seemed to mock me. I
cursed the firm step and ruddy cheek of the strong man who
walked past me. The blasphemous oath of the half-drunken
rough, the loud, coarse language of the vulgar, no longer
disgusted me, but seemed rather to be in harmony with the
frame of things. I traversed street after street, until I came
to a square which had for some months been a sacred spot
to me. It was there that I had first spoken of love to Bea-
trice, and had learnt, from her downcast eyes and blushing
cheeks and trembling lips, that a happiness I had hardly dared
hope for — the love of her pure young heart — had become mine.
I stopped and looked up at the window where we had stood
together, so short a time ago, looking out on the trees rich in
their autumnal tints and the flowers whose brightness had not
altogether faded. It seemed to be the supreme pang — to stand
there and think that never more should the hopes which then
burnt so brightly revive for me; never should the light of
those dear eyes again cast their sweet lustre upon my solitary
path; the goal of that path is set; the light which shone
upon it has turned into a lurid gloom, showing more vividly
the blackness in which it is lost. I stood, not thinking so
much as suffering the weight of ^y misery to press upon my
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3S8 A DYING MAN'S DlARY [June,
brain, when a hand was laid upon my shoulder and a familiar
voice inquired what was the matter with me. I turned and
recognized an old college acquaintance, whose intimacy with
me had survived the many changes which had happened to us
both since our Oxford days. I hardly distinguished what he
said at first. He looked at me curiously, fancying, I think,
that I was not quite sober; and a sort of pride prompted me
to show him that he was wrong. He wanted me to come with
him to his rooms he said, where he expected a large party to
supper to meet an old mutual friend who was coming up to
town by a late train. The notion of assisting at such a gather-
ing at first seemed horrible to me, and I at once refused. But
his question: *'Why won't you come, if you have nothing
better to do? You look in rather bad form; it will do you
good to meet some old friends,'' seemed hard to answer. Why
not go ? What difference could it make ? What else had I to
do ? So I went.
It was a large room, brilliantly lighted and luxuriously
furnished, into which B led me; some halt- dozen men, of
most of whom I knew something, were assembled when we
arrived, others came in one by one; and at last the hero of
the evening having arrived from his journey supper was served.
I had tasted nothing all day, and ate and drank heartily.
Gradually I was drawn into the conversation which went on
around. I forgot for a time my misery. There was no phys-
ical pain to bring to my mind my frightful situation. The
disease under which I labor does its work silently, giving no
signs except to a doctor's experienced eye. Several of the
guests were brilliant talkers. In particular one man, whom I
had never met before, seemed possessed of an inexhaustible
fund of anecdote, which he poured forth apropos of every-
thing. I found myself laughing with the rest at his stories,
and making from time to time my contribution to the amuse-
ment of the table.
At last the conversation assumed a more sombre tone.
G— -, the guest of the evening, was on his way to India, to
take a judgeship. He had hesitated to accept it for some
time, he said. His only brother had died in Bombay a few
years before, and he had a vague feeling that evil awaited him,
too, in the land with which this was his only association. The
talk turned on presentiments, and weird stories were told, as
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN'S DIARY 359
tisttally happens when subjects of this kind are discussed
among men whose imaginations are heated with wine. One of
the guests, a hard-headed Scotchman, ridiculed the tales in a
style of superiority which displeased me. I remembered to
have read in a book of Alfred de Musset's of a man who
boasted that he was proof against all superstitious terror, and
feared nothing, and whose friends put his fortitude to a fright-
ful test They placed a human skeleton in his bed, locked his
room, and stationed themselves in an adjoining room to watch
the effect. They heard nothing; but next morning when they
entered the room they found him sitting up in his bed playing
with the bones with the vacant smile of madness on his lips.
I told the story. And the Scotchman acknowledged that the
trial was a terrible one, which he would not willingly en-
counter. A gloom had fallen on the party; and our host by
way of a diversion suggested cards. A few men sat down to
whist. Others, of whom I was one, to poker. I played reck-
lessly, but fortune favored me ; the stakes were high ; and I soon
found a heap of gold before me. At the end of an hour I was
the winner of nearly a hundred and fifty pounds. The rest
declared that they had lost as much as they cared to lose;
and play was given over. One of them, whom I had known
intimately in earlier days, began to congratulate me on my
good fortune. He was not ignorant of my success in life, and
had just heard of my engagement, it seems. "Everything
goes well with you,'' he said. '*You have won a position at
thirty which few men attain until twenty years later in life;
you have won a prize in love which more than one man I
know would have given 'all other bliss' and 'all their worldly
wealth ' for ; and you have a rich man's luck : as soon as you
touch a card, money pours in upon you. You make one en-
vious." His words recalled me to myself; their bitter, un-
conscious irony stung me to the quick. ''Envious of me," I
said. " There is not a man who would change places with me
All you have said is true enough: I am rich, successful, and
loved; but I am a dying man. No; I am neither drunk nor
mad; listen" — and I told them my sad secret. There is a
Spanish story, which I once read, where a marble statue sud-
denly becomes animated in a gay company, and taking the
hands of the guests sends through them a mortal chill. Such
was the effect of my words. There was a moment of deep
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36o A DYING MAN'S DIARY [Jane,
silence ; then I took my hat and went otit into the damp, cold
night in silence.
I walked rapidly through the deserted streets to my rooms.
It was nearly 3 a. M. when I entered them. I was overcome
with fatigue, and« throwing aside my clothes, hastily lay my-
self down in my bed. I closed my eyes, but the phantoms of
the day came up to mock me; and an uneasy succession of
vague, distorted dreams flitted through my brain. At last I
thought I was in the little mission church again; the clergy
and choristers were kneeling before the altar weeping; the
stalls were filled by the friends with whom I had supped;
the congregation had been augmented by the motley crowd I
had passed in the neighboring streets. I stood in the pulpit
and preached a Gospel, which was not a gospel. *^ Fools I'' I
cried, '^who hope to pierce, with your prayers, that heaven
which has become as brass. Fools who turn from your bitter
miseries to seek comfort from an all* merciful God, not know-
ing that^he irrevocable law of an iron fate presses hopelessly
on all. For eighteen Christian centuries the prayers and tears
and groans of men have gone as they go up now ; for eighteen
Christian centuries the world has trusted in a vain hope; for
the story on which the world's faith has been fixed is an idle
tale; the life which was its hope is death. Silence has coldly
dissected the records you call sacred and has found them un*
true. Only one thing is true — death, which God did not make."
Then I thought a little hand, so unspeakably dear to me, was
laid upon my lips, and a soft low voice, which thrilled through
me, bade me not sin nor charge God foolishly. With a great
start I awoke and saw the light from my fire fall faintly upon
the picture of Beatrice. The clock struck five. I turned wearily
in my bed, endeavoring to avert my thoughts from the visions
which her voice had interposed to break. I remembered that
I had broken my word to her. In the earliest days of our
engagement we were walking among the falling leaves, talking
of some papers I had written, in which I had glanced at more
than one religious question in the tone a man of the world of
liberal opinions usually employs. Beatrice hardly touched on
this part of my essay. But I had shocked her simple faith;
and I was vexed that the articles had come into her hands.
We paused by a bridge; she was never tired, she told me, of
looking at the clear, rippling water as it glided smoothly by.
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN'S DlARY 361
We stood in silence for a few minutes. At last she said in a
very low voice : ** I want to ask yon a favor ; it will make me
very happy if you will grant it to me. There are some sub-
jects which seem almost too sacred to [talk about. Will you
promise to say this every night? It is a little prayer of
Madame Swetchine which I have copied out for you.'' I took
the paper she gave me« raising her little hand to my lips, and
said : ** I promise, dear Beatrice.'' Last night I broke that
promise for the first time. And as I remembered my omis-
sion, the familiar words came to my lips : '' O Good Jesus ! true
God and true man. Thy two natures, united yet distinct, make
us a twofold object of Thy mercy. Because of Thy Godhead
forgive our offenses; because of Thy Humanity remember our
miseries. As God draw us always, raise us to Thee; as man
accompany us on the hard road of exile ; be our companion in
good and evil days. O Good Jesus I as a King pardon us ;
as a friend sympathize with us." I do not know that I at-
tached much meaning to the words as I murmured them; but
they seemed to diffuse a. sense of calm and peace over my
whole soul; the prelude of some hours of welcome uncon-
sciousness. It was not till noon that I awoke from an un-
broken, dreamless sleep.
(to be concluded.)
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A NEW "HISTORY" OF RELIGION.
HOW Af. REINACH WOULD DESTROY CHRISTIANITY.
BY F. BRICOUT.
(T offering bis book, Orpheus^* to tbe public M. S.
Reinach modestly declares that for the first time
there is here presented ''a complete summary of
religions considered simply as natural phenom-
ena*'' M. Reinach further states that his book
is suitable for '* ladies '' as well as gentlemen, and that even
careful mothers ''may give his book to their daughters." And
to this end he has imposed a certain restraint upon himself,
particularly in the descriptions of some of the rites of the
oriental religions.
Orpheus, after whom the volume is named, was, we know,
the ''interpreter of the gods," a poet, and a musician. M.
Reinach, by the very choice of a title, would charm refined
minds and lovers of fine literature, for he is not merely a
scholar and a savant, he is also an artist, an appreciative lover
of ancient Greece. He has imbibed copiously the teachings of
Voltaire. His unbounded admiration of the notorious French
atheist may be known from the fact that he states that "to
Voltaire's incomparable talent as a narrator we owe the most
spiritual and the least pedantic of general histories." From
the Greeks and from Voltaire the author has learnt a lightness
of touch, a charm of style and of wit, a happy command of
brilliant phrase and cutting word. With these, and frequent
citations of the classic in literature, he, after the manner of
Orpheus, is apt to mislead and even hypnotize his reader.
Orpheus has already met with much success in France.
The book has gone through many editions in that language,
and there are in preparation further editions in German, Italian,
Spanish. Russian, and perhaps Japanese. The government of
France is completing its attempt to ruin the old religion by
^Orpheus, A General History of Religions. By Solomon Reinach. Sixth Edition.
Paris : Alcide Picard, 1909.
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I9IO.] A NEW ** HISTORY'' OF RELIGION 363
making Orpheus a text-book and enforcing regular school
teaching on its lines. M. Reinach is a director of music at
Saint- Germain and a professor zt^TEcoU du Louvre. He has
already won a certain popularity because of his previous works
^^Apollo and Cults ^ Myths ^ and Religions. His latest work will
be seized upon as a rare opportunity by superficial minds who
love to be ^'learned'' in the fashion of the day, and to know
the latest word in the '' science '* of comparative religions.
But, unfortunately, believers in any religion at all may well
deplore the success of such a book, for it means disaster to
many souls.
The Catholic Church, according to this author, is an odious
machine of oppression, which an unscrupulous clergy govern
skillfully for their own enrichment and the increase of their
own power. He quotes the words of Channing: ''An Estab-
lished Church is the tomb of the intelligence." This, M.
Reinach writes, is particularly true of the Roman Catholic
Church. He is considerate enough to think that the Catholic
Church was not invented by the priests; but he maintains
that the priests always take advantage of human folly and
human incredulity. That traditionally sane judgment of the
Church, which has ever been the cause of admiration to the
historian and perplexity to the adverse critic, the just medium
preserved by her teachings between mysticism and rationalism,
this, to M. Reinach's eyes, is but the right understanding of
the Church's own temporal interests.
He lays great stress on the intolerance of the Church. He
says that Voltaire, because of his hatred of fanaticism, became
himself intolerant. We fear that the same fate has overtaken
M. Reinach, for he makes an urgent appeal for the suppres-
sion of liberty of instruction. He is the bitter enemy of every
form of religion and turns a flow of ridicule, raillery, and
gross insult against all Christian belief and worship. Non-
Christian religions are not spared. But his bitterness, his un-
restrained abuse, reach their climax only when he speaks of
the Catholic Church. His appeal to a certain class of minds
will be the more effective because he pretends to have made
certain his knowledge and to have weighed well his judg-
ments. He is most dogmatic on essential points. He is mod-
est, hesitating, frankly admitting his ignorance on matters of
detail that are of no importance. Now and again, in the gen*
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364 A NEW ''HISTORY'' OF REUGION [June,
erosity of his heart and the liberality of bis mind, he conde-
scendinj^Iy pays a tribute to Christianity or to the Catholic
Church. ''I embrace my rival, but only in order to strangle
him'' — such is M. Reinach^t method.
It will be evident that M. Reinach is the apostle of the
most radical free- thought. An atheistic evolutionist, he
preaches his chaotic gospel at every opportunity. He wishes
to make Orpheus the universal creed of future generations. It
may be said at once that the author is the slave of an arti-
ficial system. He is absolutely blind to any fact, any evi-
dence, that does not square with his thesis. His absolute
confidence in the basis of his system, the hypotheses of taboos
and totems, is truly stupefying. Of these very hypotheses he
himself wrote some time ago: '^I frankly confess that mine is
an edifice built not with materials substantial, solid, tested,
veritable, but out of possible or probable hypotheses, which
reciprocally support and buttress one another. And this style
of architecture is well known, for in it card*castles are built"
{Cultes, MytheSf et Religions).
M. Tontain, director of VEcole des Hautes^Etudes^ repeatedly
stated that ''in the actual state of our knowledge, to make
totemism the foundation of a mythological and religious exe-
gesis is to disregard the most elementary rules of historical
method.* Nevertheless M. Reinach persists in riding his hobby
— a word of his own coining.f
Historians, all equally conscientious,' often differ in the
interpretation of facts. They will propose various, and at
times almost contradictory, explanations. Now historians are
by no means in agreement with regard to the meaning of the
terms animism^ totemism^ etc., and beyond the bare meaning
there are vast fields in the history of religions still obscure,
yea, all but unknown. There are wanting, and doubtless
always will be wanting, the necessary documents that would
enlighten us with regard to all this unexplored territory.
But, lo ! M. Reinach appears with his little book, and with
imperturbable assurance tells us that he can answer all ques-
tions of importance in the entire field of the history of reli-
gion. The extravagance of his claim is sufficient to lead one
♦ Siudiis 0ftk* Mytholoiy and History ofAncUnt Religions, p. 80. Paris, 1908.
t Transactions of the Third IntemaUonal Congress for the Histoiy of Religions, t.
IK, p. zz8. Oxford, 1908.
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I9IO.] A New ** History'' OF RELIGION 365
to suspect his worth. We have further reason to distrust him ;
and we shall see that the scientific value of Orpluus is but
small.
The first six chapters of Orpheus treat of the non* Christian
religions. The author claims that it is easy to see the rise of
all of them from savagery. To his mind every religious belief
of uncivilized peoples to-day is reducible to animistic con-
ceptions and practices, to taboos, totems, fetiches, and magic.
Among the Mongols and the Finns, in China, in Japan, as well
as in India and Thibet, these same beliefs and practices are to
be found ; and they are found even among those peoples who
have embraced, in part at least, the teachings of a native re-
former (Budha, Confucius, etc.), or of a foreign religion (Chris-
tianity or Islamism). Moreover the ancient religions, the dead
religions, all resembled the beliefs of the savage people whom
we can now observe. This, M, Reinach maintains, is true of
the religion of Arabia before the coming of Mahomet, of the
primitive cults of the Gauls, Germans, Slavs, and also of the
religions of Greece, of Rome, of ancient India, of the Syrians,
Phoeaicians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians.
It will be seen that M. Reinach is not modest, nor does he
set limit to his knowledge. The world, since the days of crea-
tion, is under his searching eye. Suffice it to say that he does
not prove his statements nor come anywhere near proof.
We feel that every scientific historian of the rise and growth
of religions will agree with us that such statements, on ac-
count of the absence of data, record, document, and tradition,
are impossible of proof and will always remain so. But M.
Reinach must ride his hobby, or rather his hobby rides him.
What matter if his conclusions mean despair and chaos to the
human race. Let the wild orgy of unsupported hypotheses
go on I
We may state here that even though the case were as M.
Reinach claims it to have been, though the uncivilized peoples
of the present day were authentic specimens of what all or
almost all men have been in times far remote, our faith need
have no cause for alarm. Catholics are not obliged to believe
that primitive revelation has always been preserved intact, since,
as P&re Lagrange* remarks. Sacred Scripture, which teaches
us revelation, adds that revelation was itself obscured anH that
•StudUsofPrimUiviRili^Ums,^,U Paris 1903.
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366 A NEW ''HISTORY'' OF RELIGION [June,
the immediate ancestors of the Hebrews themselves were poly-
theists.*
Let it be granted, for the sake of argument, that present,
day savages are in almost every respect similar to the prehis-
toric man of whom traces have come down. It by no meens
follows that such prehistoric man is necessarily the original
father of the human race, or that he is a true picture of man as
God created and formed him. Nor may it be said that these
savages, or these prehistoric men of [whom we have record,
have no good human characteristics; no reasoning powers ; no
moral sense ; no praiseworthy idea of religion. Even in anim-
ism and tabooism there is some vestige of a belief in God, of
a living God and an overruling Providence ; something of moral
obligation and ot duty. Savages are not beasts; and God, the
common Father of all humanity, has at His command and em-
ploys a thousand means, outside His ordinary course of action,
to secure their salvation. And among uncivilized people of the
present day knowledge of the true God is not entirely wanting.
Mgr. Le Roy, who lived for twenty years among the Negritos
and Bantu, and who is a most competent scholar, does not
hesitate to affirm that these poor blacks know and adore a
Supreme Being, the Ruler of the universe.f
M. Reinach is equally inaccurate and untrustworthy in the
statements he makes in Orpheus regarding Judaism and the
beginnings of Christianity. He does not, of course, believe
in the inspiration of Holy Scripture; he restricts to very nar-
row limits its human authority. He does not understand even
the meaning of inspiration and has evidently taken no pains
to understand it. He scoffs at miracles. ''The Gospels," he
says, ''are worthless documents in so far as the real life of
Jesus is concerned"; and he adds: "we do not know how
Jesus died."
Since he has made taboos and totems the basis of his sys-
tem, M. Reinach must find these in Judaism and Christianity.
" The idea of taboo," he says, '* common to all primitive races,
has left many traces in the Bible." Even he must admit, how-
ever, that the moral teachings of the Bible are independent of
all taboos. An idea of what extremes he must go to in order
to prove his point may be gained from this statement in £7r-
pheus : " The Hebrews abstain from killing and eating animals,
* Josue, xxiv. a. t TMs Reli^^iom o/PrimUive PeppUs. Paris, Z9o8«
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i9ia] A New *' History'' OF Religion 367
like the hog^ because wild boars, from which the hog is de-
scendedy were totems among their ancestors/' Extremely clever
and deep reasoning, is it not? Again, instances of totemism
are found in the role played by the ass in Zacharias (ix. 9);
also in the account of the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem;
in the descent of the dove upon Jesus, etc., etc. And with
all this childish reasoning is combined an ignorance of the
Catholic Church's teachings, particularly with regard to the
sacraments, that is really pitiable. Indeed, this work gives us
reason to believe that M. Reinach has taken the trouble to
trace out various unimportant resemblances, not so much for
the purpose of making a scientific study as of casting ridicule
and mockery upon Christian teaching.
The last four chapters of Orphtus^ covering two hundred and
fifty pages, are devoted to the history of the Catholic Church.
The enemies of the Catholic Church charge that Catholicism
is a corruption of the Christian religion.* They make this
charge, even though they also assert that they do not know
what the religion founded by Christ was or is. M. Reinach,
who also says that we know nothing of the life of Jesus from
the Gospels, still boldly charges that Catholicism is a corruption
of the religion of Jesus Christ — which religion, according to
the same M. Reinach, is founded upon totems and taboos.
The saints are, with him, but *' successors to the gods,"
and the Blessed Virgin is a goddess. He gives but little space
to the external history of the Church. He appeals to the pas-
sion of hate by indignantly denouncing the suppression of
heresy and the means used in such repression. He exagger-
ates, he is bitterly partisan always. The Catholic Church, he
says, has fought only ^* for authority, privilege, and riches."
In the long combat which, during the Middle Ages, the Church
waged against the tyranny of kings, and because of which
Europe was saved to civilization, M. Reinach sees only the
unbridled ambition of the Roman pontiffs. In conclusion he
states that the Catholic Church is absolutely decadent and is
surely advancing to a more or less speedy ruin. The Director
of the Historical Review^ M. Monod, put it mildly when he
* With regard to the origin and growth of the Catholic Church we would refer our
readers to the series of articles in the Revue du Clergi FtanfmiSt published in answer to a
challenge made by M. Loisy, *' The Truth of Catholicism/' October z» November i. Decem-
ber z, 1908, January i, February z, March z, March Z5, Z909. A rismm/oi these articles is to
be found in La VirUidm CaHUliciswu, Chapter IV., par M. Bricout, Paris, Bloud et Cie., Z9Z0.
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368 A NEW *^ HISTORY'* OF RELIGION [Jane.
said: ''Ofteii« in that part of his book which treats of Chris-
tianity, prejudice has led M. Reinach to distort facts" {Revue
Historique^ November and December, 1909).
Before we close we might consider jnst for a moment what
the idea of religion represents to M. Reinach's mind. His very
definition of religion is nothing short of ridicnlons:
I propose [he gravely writes] to define religion as a collec->
tion of scmples forming an obstacle to the free exercise of the
faculties. This definition eliminates, from .the fundamental
concept of religion, every idea of God, of spiritual beings, of
the Infinite — in a word, all that has been considered as the es-
sential object or objects of religious feeling. The term scruple
is faulty in this — that it is somewhat vague and, if I dare say
it, too " laicised." The scruples . . . are of a particular
nature. ... I shall call them taboos (Orpheus^ p. 4).
Religion, therefore, in the mind of M. Reinach, is simply a
matter of taboos or religious prohibitions. It will easily be
seen how false and inadequate this definition is. In the first
place, the taboo itself is only explicable on the ground of an
antecedent belief in gods, spiritual beings, etc, and the men-
tion of this belief is a necessary part of the definition. How
can we adequately define a thing by giving but a few of its
notes,Z and excluding others equally important and equally
essential ?
Bat such failure to treat the question fairly and thoroughly is
characteristic of M. Reinach. His book is pseudo-scientific and
will be harmful only to the weak-minded. As P&re Lagrange
wrote: ''Taking into consideration the talent of the author,
his learning, his scientific authority, his position, it must be
acknowledged that Orpheus will not add honor to his name.
It is unscientific and contentious ; it breathes contempt for the
only institution that has labored to make mankind better.''*
^ BibliccU Review, 19x0, p. Z4Z.
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A CORNER OF THE BLACK FOREST.
BY E. C. VANSITTART.
fN ideal place for a holiday — a place where we
may, to use a French word, retremptr (re-dip)
our being, soul and body, with God in nature-
is to be found in the Black Forest, at the village
of Schonwald, which lies between Freiburg and
Furtwangen, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Up, forever up,
winds the road all the way, for Schonwald stands at a height
of over 3,000 feet The village itself consists of only 30 or
40 houses, though there are scattered homesteads for miles
around, and comfort and plenty are to be found at the excel-
lent old Gasthof zum Hirschen. Up to the present Schonwald
has not been spoilt by tourists; its summer guests are, for the
most part, German families who spend their holidays here, and
for two months enliven the solitude of the village, which is de«
serted during the remaining ten months of the year. There
are no entertainments at Schonwald, nor shops, beyond those
of a cobbler and a grocer, and the workshops where the local
industries of clock-making, wood-carving, and straw-plaiting
are carried on. Those who come here must suffice unto them-
selves.
For lovers of peace and beauty nature here spreads an
ample feast. The village stands high in a wide open country
but there are pine woods on every side. The air is wonderful-
ly invigorating as it sweeps across expanses of moor, scented
with the fragrance of pines and a thousand aromatic herbs.
It is the bracing atmosphere of wild, free spaces untainted
by factory smoke or the dwellings of men.
Before the hay is cut the fields are covered with oxeye
daisies, dandelions, golden -yellow arnica, buttercups, bluebells,
forget* me- nots, scabious, and feathery grasses; in the boggy
districts the white bog-cotton waves like tufts of silk; down
by the river yellow irises lift their flags, and bulrushes and
sedges raise their heads. The delicious sound of running
water tinkles on every side. The trout leap up out of the
VOL. XCI.— 24
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370 A Corner of the Black forest [June,
streams as the patient fisherman follows the meandering course
of water which swirls and eddies here and there. Storks
parade majestically by the banks of the streams, and the water-
wagtails fearlessly poise on any overhanging log or np*stand-
ing bowlder.
One may wander for miles through the pine woods, where
the ground is carpeted with fallen pine needles or springy
heather. Cranberries, bilberries, and wild strawberries grow in
profusion in the clearings, bracken and fern form a miniature
underforest, and the sunlight, filtering through the hoary,
lichen -covered trees, throws flickering shadows on the green
moss and junipers. During hours of wanderings in this place
one will not meet a human being; but when one suddenly
steps out into the open, and looks down over the valley and
upland, he will see many a cozy homestead nestling under
its broad eaves and overhanging roof, and, far away, the
rang^ of blue- black hills from which the Black Forest takes
its name.
Or one may lie on a hillside, laxily watching the wondrous
effects of rapidly passing clouds casting swift and ever-changing
shadows over the fields, the great moss-covered bowlders, and
the pine woods, producing marvelous gradations of green. A
blue mist is thrown over all like a veil ; but gradually the light
breaks through and the gray changes to blue, and a flood of
golden sunshine glorifies everything far and near. Round about
the bees hum in the clover, and the tinkle of cow bells, some-
where below, echoes far up on the slopes. Far out of sight
the mowers are at work in the hayfields; the rhythmic swish
of the scythes rustle through the grass; while from nearby
a lark suddenly soars up into the blue and pours forth a
wondrous flood of song. As the evening shadows &11, the
smoke rises from the peaceful homesteads, the cattle turn towards
their byres, the spaces in the valleys are filled with translucent
golden mists, and the pine trees, clearly defined, stand out like
black silhouettes against the sky ; the hills rise one beyond an-
other in softly*curving ridges, and the great peace and qpiet of
it all remind one of the visionary pictures of the Celestial Land
in Pilgrim's Progr§ss.
There are strange grey days, too, when the clouds hang
low, and the whole atmosphere is colorless; the pines and firs
are sharply outlined, the very birds are silent ; the houses look
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ipia] A Corner of the Black Forest 371
{[hosUlike aod hot a breath of wind stirs ; yet it is all beauti-
ful in its way. The people are worthy of their land: frank,
kindly, hardworking, clean, and self-respecting, with a free gait
and an independent air. The blue-eyed, flaxen-haired children,
universally barefoot, walk miles to the nearest school, their
knapsacks on their backs. They salute the passing stranger
fearlessly with the words ; ** Gruss^* or '* Gutontag^* generally
abbreviated to " Tag.''
The women wear a peculiar headdress, consisting of a small,
gold-embroidered crown, with broad black silk ribbons hanging
down in long streamers to their heels, a black velvet bodice^
and full white linen sleeves. In winter the staple food consists
of bacon, sausages, flour, potatoes, milk, and home-baked rye
bread.
They are a deeply religious people, too, with a simple, child*
like faith ; Sunday is strictly observed ; one side of the church is
reserved for the women; the other for the men. On the feast
of the patron saint of Schonwald, June 18, a procession started
from the church, and made the round of the village. The
Sacred Host was borne under a golden canopy surmounted
by white plumes. The whole population followed reverently,
walking two and two. The choristers were robed in scarlet
and white and the girls wore white wreaths and devoutly re*
peated the. litany, while bells chimed and guns were fired.
Every dwelling was decorated with pine branches and flowers.
The little cemetery on the hilltop is a feature of Schdnwald.
It is absolutely treeless, and lies free to wind and sun. Each
grave has its stoup for holy water, in which a sprig of whor-
tleberry or rosemary is placed for use as aspersoir^ and the
dove^ who wheel overhead with a great flash of silvery wings,
come down to drink out of the little vessels. A strange
characteristic are the streamers of white net or lace which
drape the crosses on the graves. These wave gently in the
breeze, and the effect is most singular. At a distance the
stranger would think these floating white visions were seraphs*
wings, and especially is this true in that portion of the ceme^
tery set aside for children, where each tiny grave is watched
over by the statuette of an angel.
The farmhouses in the Black Forest are very picturesque*
They are built of wood which, in nearly all cases, is black with
age. A large painted crucifix usually hangs over the door.
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372 A Corner of the Black Forest [June,
with a motto beneathi such as: ** Dieses Haus ist in Gottis
Hand; Gott bewakre es vor Feur und Brand.*^ The roof is
heavy and slopes low down ; there are rows of small windows^
bright with flowers growing in wooden tubs or broken crocks^
and a carved gallery runs round the front of the building,
with numerous doors opening on it.
The type of house that we see in Schonwald to-day was
practically fixed in the sixteenth century; as the houses were
built then, so are they built now. The stube^ or common
dwelling room, is invariably situated on the ground floor, it is
a large room with a big tile stove. A genuine old-fashioned
Black Forest stube is a curiously picturesque object. At the
door there is the stoup for holy water; from it family and
servants alike (for living in the Black Forest is still patriarchal)
sprinkle themselves. Close to this stoup is the handgiessle^ a
water-vessel made of tin, in which all who enter wash their
hands. Religion does not end at the door; the room has its
Herrgotteswinkelf God's corner, in which stands the KUnsterU,
or house*altar, at which family prayers are offered. It is draped
with gay, cheap finery. In this corner also the big oak table,
which is handed down as an heirloom from father to son, finds
a place. The wall of the room is lined all round with wooden
seats, under which are fixed handy chests.
Outside is the veranda, or tfippel^ a most useful as well as
ornamental feature of the house. It is used for pleasure, and
also serves as a general drying-place. The bright-colored bed-
ding is hung out on this balcony to air, while poppyheads,
fennel, and other kitchen plants, are put out to dry. Where
straw- plaiting is in* vogue, bunches of green straw may be seen
hanging from the balustrade, and below this the ladders, pitch-
forks, and other long implements used on the farm find place.
Pigeons abound; they are kept as pets, and are looked
upon with affection by the peasants, and even drink out of the
same trough as the cattle. Swallows return year after year
to their nests under the eaves, and it is a popular superstition
that where they build no thunderbolt will strike, and that their
presence means peace and quiet in the home.
Watch-making and straw-plaiting are the two chief indus-
tries of Schpnwald; all through the long winter every man,
woman, and child work steadily. Children begin to learn
straw- plaiting at four or five years of age, and even in summer.
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I9IO.] A Corner of the Black forest 373
when most of the time is taken up with field labor, one will
constantly meet a girl or woman with a wisp of straw tied to
her waist, her fingers busily plaiting in odd moments. The
pay is pitifully small, but it is not disdained by these thrifty
people. The plaits are sent to the factories in the towns to
be sewn up into hats. Cuckoo clocks, in fact all kinds of
clocks, are produced in Schonwald, and at Furtwangen, which
may be called a ''town of clock- makers." It was a Furt-
wangen glass-blower who originally set his townsmen on the
way of making clocks; the first striking clock was produced
in the Black Forest in 1740. These home- industries keep
families together in a sacred way. So attached are the Black
Forest peasants to their district, that they have been known
to die of homesickness while serving their term as soldiers.
Everywhere tall wayside crucifixes are to be found : in the
silence of the woods, by dusty roadsides, in the midst of green
fields, by running streams, beside happy homesteads, on green
hilltops, in sunshine and shadow, wind and rain, the Figure of
the Crucified is reared aloft, and, though often of the rudest^
roughest workmanship, its pathos never fails to appeal, and
bring its message to the passerby.
Perhaps the lesson taught by these symbols so constantly
before the people's eyes, has something to do with the simple,
old-world, pious customs the peasants about Schonwald still
observe. For instance: a prayer is offered before the sickle
is put' to the corn; the farmer's wife makes the sign of the
cross over the great loaf of bread which she is about to cut*
The salutation on meeting with a priest is : ** Praised be Jesus
Christ 1 " On Christmas morning neighbors greet each other
with the words: ** Ick wiinsche dir Chr%stkindle*s Herz** a
beautiful wish, with a deep meaning underlying the words;
the ringing of the church bells on that day is called Kindle^
ariegen; they are, on this occasion, swung in a peculiarly
gentle, soft way.
As we leave Schonwald, bearing with us the memory of a
** haunt of peace,'' we echo the words of a great writer, him-
self a son of the Black Forest : " He who has never been alone,
day alter day, in the summer-time, in a German forest, who
has not learned its language and listened to its many voices,
knows not the power of quiet nature on the restless human
heart."
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ARE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE?
BY THOMAS GAFFNEY TAAFFE.
II.
AlT the college play is worth while is a thesis
that must be accepted with a distinction.
Viewed as an abstract proposition there seems
to be no question. In the schools the drama
is at home; it is maintaining there one of its
oldest traditions; there it is fulfilling one of its most impor-
tant purposes. But it is possible for even a wholesome tradi-
tion to degenerate, and for a good institution to fail of its
purpose when that purpose is lost to sight. So much depends
on the spirit in which the tradition is carried out that in the
concrete it becomes a debatable proposition.
The practical working out of the theory underlying the
college drama demands a watchful eye and correct standards
of taste. The very fact that its results are indirect, that the
good to be derived from it is bound up in the pleasure it
affords, complicates the problem. It is so easy to lose sight
of the ultimate good in the contemplation of the immediate
enjoyment that constant vigilance is essential to the achieve-
ment of any benefit. The gravitation toward the lower levels
is so easy that nothing but the most rigid care can guard
against it Appetite grows with what it feeds on, and the re-
straint once removed the decline is imminent. Nick Bottom,
with the fairy music ringing in his fair large ears, longed for
''the tongs and the bones,'' and Nick's taste, like his ass'
noil, much as we dislike to admit it, is in a great measure
typical. Though the fairy music ring in our ears, the ears
are none the less long and flexible and the taste for the tongs
and bones equally pronounced.
If, then, this particular form of student activity is to
achieve its end it must be something more than a mere stu-
dent activity. If it is to play a part, even a small part, in
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i9ia] -4i?* College plays Wouth while t 375
the formation of the student, some measure of guidance \z
necessary. Mature judgment and scholarly taste are needed to
offset the weaknesses to which youth is prone. For youth if left
to itself will follow strange gods. Hence the absolute necessity
for some supervision on the part of the faculty, if the play is to
serve any other end than mere foolery. This need is recognized
in many quarters, although in far too many instances the authori-
ties, blind or indifferent to the opportunities at their hands^
hold aloof, giving to dramatics even less attention than they
give to athletics. In our Catholic colleges, it must be said*
this is rarely, if ever, the case. There, especially in the Jesuit
colleges, dramatics are kept under the direct control of the
faculty. It is true that, even with this supervision, there are
sometimes sad lapses from the standard that should be main-
tained, but it is equally true that they are few and far between.
At no stage of the preparation of a college play is the
need of mature judgment more urgent than in the initial stage,
the selection of a play. If the play is to serve its legitimate
end there is but one field open — the classic drama. Of that
which is frankly ephemeral, which sings the song or tells the
tale, not of a period or a generation, but merely of a day,
there is nothing to be said. That has no place in scholastic
surroundings. For the more serious efforts of modern writers
hardly any more can be said. It takes time to try the worth
of a play and none of us can hope to live long enough to
follow it through its period of trial. The classic drama alone,
then, which has stood the test of years and has survived the
accidental peculiarities of its own generation, is worthy of aca-
demic auspices. Nothing ejse is in keeping with the dignity
of the school; nothing else has any place in college halls.
What time has consecrated, and the judgment of successive
generation has approved, is the only matter worthy of presen-
tation under scholastic auspices.
But this limitation is by no means narrow. The field is
well*nigh inexhaustible. The Elizabethan period alone is a
mine rich in material, and, with the comedy of the eighteenth
eentury, eliminating, for obvious reasons, the comedy of the
Restoration, can furnish plays enough to carry a college dra-
matic organization through more than a generation. There
is no literature, ancient or modern, so rich in drama as the
literature of the English-speaking people. In every branch.
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376 AHE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE? [June,
^' tragedy, comedy, historyi pastoral, pastoral* comical, historical-
pastoral,'' and so on down through Polonius' tedious catalogue,
its riches are practically inexhaustible. There is the dignity
and sublimity of tragedy, the gayety of comedy, the stately
march of historical pageantry — matter that will move storms
or compel laughter. There is that which will serve every end
of the college player — it will please; it will instruct; it will
uplift; it will inspire.
Outside the fteld of the classic drama there is no justifica-
tion for the college drama, as the college drama. A group
of college students may, of course, like any other group of
amateur performers on recreation bent, assemble to present a
modern farce, a musical comedy, or even a minstrel show, but
in doing so they are doing nothing that any haphazard as-
semblage of persons in search of recreation might not do as
well or, perhaps, better; and their efforts are entitled to no
more serious consideration. But if they rescue from oblivion
some forgotten or half- forgotten masterpiece which a thought-
less generation has relegated to the dust covered bookshelf; if
they direct their energies to the adequate and intelligent pre-
sentation of some quaint conceit of a more poetic age, which is
impossible from the viewpoint of the speculative manager,
they are doing a scholarly work that is deserving of commenda^
tion. Their effort is more praiseworthy even than that of him
who tenders a similar work within the covers of a book, with
learned note and comment; for they are presenting the play
as it was intended it should be presented, and enhancing its
beauties with the interest that the living voice and the scenic
presentation always bring to it. And even if they have no claim
to discovery; if they are content with the familiar plays of
Shakespeare ; their efforts are none the less commendable. In
producing these they are delivering a message that is ever
new; they are uttering thoughts that are immortal; they are
speaking with the voice of the master dramatist of all time,
and they need no excuse of antiquarian interest.
The Elizabethan age is obviously the most fruitful field for
the labors of the college player and the best suited to his
purpose. That was the golden age of the English drama. It
was the age of greatest dramatic achievement, and therefore most
worthy the attention of players prompted rather by scholarly
interest than by a gainful purpose. Its remoteness, too, lends a
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I9IQ.] ARE College plays worth while? 377
charm, and there is about its archaic flavor an attractiveness
that even indifferent playing cannot destroy. It was an age
of poetry as well as an age of drama, and the poetry in its
drama is sufficient to make good many of the shortcomings
of the unskilled interpreters. It will carry itself by the sheer
force of its poetic beauty and the intensity of its dramatic in«
terest.
The comparatively recent movement toward restoring, with
the plays, the manner of presenting them in the Elizabethan
age has brought with it a practical advantage of great value
to the college player. The impossibility of adequately mounting
a play of Shakespeare in the modern manner has always been
a barrier to the colleges. Even the most costly of the recent
elaborate professional performances, with all that money and
skill could do, have failed to realize the scenes that the dra-
matist has pictured. What, then, can the colleges do with
their meagre equipment, and with the necessity facing them
of being obliged to make that meagre equipment serve again
and again, irrespective of time or place? But even the most
elaborate equipment, were it within reach, would be a detri-
ment to their purpose, for every added detail of setting means
a corresponding inroad on the text. The play is cut to make
room for scenery, and poetry is sacrificed to upholstery.
But the return to the Elizabethan simplicity, to the ** naked
room with a blanket for a curtain," has in a measure solved
the problem. It may be, and it has been, criticized as a pose,
an affectation; and at first glance there may seem to be some
justice in the criticism. It is argued that were Shakespeare
alive now he would use all the devices of the modern stage to
gain his effects, as he used everything that his own paltry
stage afforded; and that, therefore, we should, in presenting
his plays to-day, make the same use of every available device.
But the argument is hardly relevant. We must bear in mind
the fact that his plays were written for the Elizabethan stage,
where imagination was not hampered and circumscribed by
painted cloth and electrical effects; where, with nothing to limit
it and the poet's lines to stimulate it, it could roam through
time and space and see visions which no scenic art could vis-
ualize. And these very limitations furnished a stimulus to the
poet; because of the exigencies of his stage he was obliged
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378 ARE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE t Unne,
to rely on his text to realize the scese for his audience. His
the task to fill eye and ear and *' lead men's minds the rounda^
bout.'' Why, then, should these plays not be presented as they
were in their own day and allowed to make their own appeal ?
It is no pose, this return to Elizabethan simplicity, but a sdiolar«*
ly effort to restore, as far as possible, a condition that has
passed away. If we consider as an added reason the fact that
under these conditions it is possible to present the play unim-
paired, in its original completeness, there remains no further
room for adverse criticism.
The practical value of this method, too, is not without its
strong arguments. What simpler equipment can we find? It
is true we have little definite knowledge of what the Eliza*
bethan stage was like. De Witt's picture of the Swan, the
specifications of the Fortune, and a few passing references in
contemporary writings, are practically all we have to guide us.
But if our knowledge of the accidental features is limited, we
do know what the essentials were, and these essentials are well
within the reach of any college company. A simple platform,
without footlights or border lights, extending into the audi-
ence, a screen to hide the actots from view while they await
their cues, an outer and an inner stage, separated by traverses,
a few set pieces to suggest the scene — and our stage is equipped.
It is the ''naked room with a blanket for a curtain"; and it
needs only Shakespeare's winged words to make it ''a field for
monarchs."
There is another tradition of the Elizabethan stage that
lends itself admirably to the college drama, a tradition derived
from a condition parallel to that which prevails in the colleges
to-day. Women were unknown to the English stage until after
the Restoration, and in the golden age of the drama the female
parts were played by boys. And our college players are lim-
ited in a similar manner. Exactly the same conditions drive
them to the expedient that the Elizabethan actors were obliged
to fall back on; and the result, when the other Elizabethan
conditions are complied with, is a reproduction that is remark-
ably accurate. This detail, it is true, is not adhered to uni-
versally. In many of our Catholic colleges, especially in the
Jesuit colleges of this country, a strange prejudice prevails
against the assumption of female parts by boys. What is the
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I9IQ.] AXS CQLIMGM FLAYS WORTH WHILE t 379
origin of this prejudice it it impossible to say, but that it exists
there is no doubt It may have had its origin in France, for
the French stage has no such tradition as that which has come
down to QS from Elizabethan times. In France and in Italy,
as Car as we know, the female parts were always played by
women, a custom which shocked Coryate and many another
English traveler of Elizabethan days. Many of the Jesuit com-
munities in this country trace their lineage back to the French
province, and the prejudice may have its root in France, for
the English custom was as offensive to French taste as the em-
ployment of women was to Elizabethan taste. This explanation
is largely a matter of conjecture, but it takes on some color
of truth from the fact that, as far as the English-speaking col-
leges are concerned, it is purely local. There is no Jesuit leg-
islation on this point, except with respect to the houses of
study for members of the order. The ratio is silent as to the
practice, and there is no ruling of any Father- General forbid-
ding it. Moreover, in the Jesuit colleges in England and Ire-
land, in accordance with long-established custom, the female
parts in the plays are all assumed by boys, without any ques-
tion of good taste being raised.
Whatever the origin of the prejudice, it has been and still
is a serious detriment. It has marred many an otherwise ex-
cellent performance, and it has set narrow limits to the number
of plays available for production. For in order to present a
play it is necessary either to eliminate the female characters
or to alter them to male characters. It is ol>vious that this
tampering with the classics works inevitable mischief. Then,
when we consider how few plays there are that are susceptible
to this adaptation, we can realize how pitifully narrow is the
field of selection. And this in a dramatic literature which is
perhaps the richest the world has ever known.
It is true that many devices are resorted to to offset this
difficulty, but it is so great that ingenuity is sorely taxed in
the effort The most ingenious way out of it was exemplified
in the very excellent performance of ''The Merchant of Ven-
ice,'' which the students of St. Francis Xavier's College, New
York, gave during this year. There the play was so judicious-
ly cut as to eliminate those elements of the play which ne-
cessitated the presence of Portia, Nerissa, and Jessica in fro-^
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380 ARE College Plays worth While? [June,
pria persona^ and to retain those scenes in which they appeared
disguised as men. The result was a coherent story, artfully
fitted and joined at the points where the excisions were made,
and satisfying even to one who was unfamiliar with it But
the number of plays which are susceptible of this treatment
are lamentably few, and the adapter is frequently put to the
choice of a play broken into disjointed fragments, or altered
with a crudity that would make the judicious grieve. It is a
pity that this should be so, for it is a noteworthy fact that in
the Jesuit colleges, where this prejudice is strongest, the dra-
matic performances are otherwise notable for the high standard
of excellence which they maintain.
Something more, however, is demanded of a dramatic per-
formance than the mere good taste and intelligence that pre-
vail among men of education. Something of technical skill
and a knowledge of the niceties of dramatic presentation ia
necessary if an adequate presentation of a play is desired. It
is not sufficient that your student actors individually should
deliver their lines with precision and intelligence. A group of
individual impersonations, no matter how good, does not con-
stitute a dramatic performance; some attention must be given
to the ensemble. There must be some unifying force in the
direction which will harmonize the individual parts and sub-
ordinate them to the whole. And this involves a host of de«
tails of management. The importance of dramatic situations
must be emphasized. The pictures must be well composed;
the action must be easy and natural; in a word, action must
come to the aid of dialogue and help to tell the story. It
must be remembered that a dramatic production is a work of
art and the twofold purpose of every work of art must be
kept in mind — to please and instruct, or rather to instruct by
pleasing.
It would be unreasonable, it is true, to look for the same
degree of technical excellence in a college production as that
to be found in the work of skilled actors, but a certain meas-
ure of technical skill is within the reach of your college play-
ers, and enthusiasm may be relied upon to supply some of the
deficiencies. Moreover, the average of intelligence and scholar-
ly knowledge of the play is 'higher in a. group of college
players than in a corresponding group of professionals, and
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I9IO.] ARE COLLEGE PLAYS WORTH WHILE t 381
this will go far to offset the lack of facility in interpretation.
At any rate, it is always possible, with a well- chosen play, to
develop a sufficient degree of this technical skill to quicken
the interest of the spectators and create a measure of illusion.
All of this, of course, supposes competent direction. But
competent direction is always possible where judgment and
good taste go hand in hand, and the dramatic instinct that is
bom in every one of us is fostered and developed. The feel*
ing for the dramatic, like the feeling for any other form of
artistic expression, is not a matter of equal possession. Some
have a more generous allotment than others. But where a
tradition like the college drama has flourished for so many
centuries a certain degree of skill is bound to be the heritage
of those whose charge it is to perpetuate that tradition. The
mantle descends from prophet to prophet. At the worst,
technical skill can always be enlisted, should the necessity
arise, in the service of scholarship, and with this relation rigid-
ly preserved, instruction, supplemented by entertainment, can
be provided without recourse to ''the tongs and the bones.''
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flew Sooks.
To write the history of one's own
HISTORY OF THEiCATHOLIC times is an attractive, hot a danger-
CHURCH. ous task. The facts Ue at one's
hand, under one's eyes. Their
interest is present, personal, absorbing. But it is hard to judge
great ideas and movements, to which the only ultimate test
must be brought by time; hard, also, to avoid the personal
point of view; and easy to offend susceptibilities and make
trouble. It is a delicate task, requiring balance, prudence, and
tact It has twice been accomplished successfully in our own
day, and in both instances by Irishmen. Justin McCarthy has
done it for the history of Great Britain and Ireland, and Dr.
MacCaffrey for the history of the Catholic Church during the
nineteenth century.* The Maynooth professor has not the
striking literary gifts of his distinguished countryman, espe->
daily his power of lively graphic narration and characteriza-
tion. But knowledge, balance, and prudence he certainly pos-
sesses, as his two large volumes show in every page.
His breadth and discernment may be judged from the
questions which he notes in his preface as being the most im-
portant ones which have arisen during the century. These are:
the rise of Constitutionalism and of national feeling (with both
of which movements he is in sympathy), the relations between
Church and State, the struggle for religious education, the
conflicts between faith and science, between capital and labor,
and the spread of the Church abroad, whether by missionary
activity or by emigration.
Volume I. is devoted to the history of the Church in Con-
tinental Europe. It begins with the French Revolution of 1789.
The overturning of accepted ideas and the changes of bound-
ary-lines, which the Revolution effected, make it the proper
starting point for a history of the nineteenth century. French
history is brought down to 1848; and then the ecclesiastical
history of Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and
Italy are successively treated as far as the same year. The
year 1848 makes a good dividing point, not merely because it
comes so near the middle of the century, but by reason of the
•History of HU Catkclic Ckurek in HU NvuUaUk CnUwy (nS^-r^oS). By James Mac
Caffrey, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Maynooth. In two volumes. Dublin : M. H»
'""' •- Son; St. Louis: B, Herder.
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19IO.] New BOOKS 383
new social and political movements which date from it. From
1848 to 1898 the Continental peoples are considered in the
same order. The final chapter is devoted to ''The Papacy.''
There is a good account of the political misfortunes of the
Papal States, and an excellent history of the Vatican Council.
The second volume opens with the repeal of the Penal Laws
in England. The Oxford Movement, the establishment of the
hierarchy, and the recent history of the Church in England
and Scotland are surveyed succinctly and accurately. The
history of the Church in Ireland, at least as a whole, is given
only down to the Act of Disestablishment, forty years ago.
In this instance, one may judge, the author found the task
of writing the history of his own times too difficult even for
his prudent pen. He had less need of reticence in giving the
account of '' Education in Ireland,'' which has a chapter to
itself and which is completed down to the Irish Universities
Act of 1908.
Chapter IV. treats of the Church in America, a generous
share of it being accorded to the United States, and much
might be quoted to show the author's friendly attitude towards
the Church in America.
A strange error has crept into this chapter which we can-
not help but notice. On pp. 294, 295 the Rev. A. P. Doyle
is named as the Superior of the Paulist Fathers. It is well
known that the Very Rev. George M. Searle was Superior
from 1904-1909 and that he was succeeded by the Very Rev.
John J. Hughes in July of last year. Moreover, the organ of
the Paulist Fathers is not The Missionary but The Catholic
World.
After considering the general history of the Church in
Canada, South America, Australasia, and in the foreign mission
fields, the author devotes six interesting chapters to special
topics : Religious Orders, Theological Errors and Developments,
Ecclesiastical Studies During the Nineteenth Century, Ecclesi-
astical Education, Socialism, and The Catholic Labor Movement.
The knore one studies these two volumes of Dr. MacCaffrey,
the deeper becomes one's appreciation of his special fitness for
the difficult task to which he addressed himself. Out of the
tnass of data at his disposal he selects the essentials with sin-
gular and unerring felicity. He rather avoids the characteriza-
tion o! individuals; it is in the summary of events that he is
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384 New books [June,
at his best; here he moves with rapid but with steady step.
He is always calm and well-poised. He points out evils where
they exist, but he never scolds. His history of Catholic ac-
tivities never degenerates into a mere indictment of the age
and of humanity. He is in sympathy with all sane pro*
gressive movements towards political equality, economic bet-
terment, educational advance, and improvement in practical
religious methods. He has the faith in divine Providence and
the hopefulness about the future which distinguish the Catho-
lic and the Celt; and, in addition, a broad and clear outlook
as an historian over the field of human history, which makes
his judgments broad-minded, equable, and sane. We warmly
recommend The History of the Catholic Church in the Nine*
teenth Century.
Western Canada is to-day the land of promise. In fact, it
bids fair to be to-morrow the land of fulfillment. The great
continental ''trek** is moving northward, and the broad lands
on both sides of the Canadian Rockies are attracting thous-
ands of settlers. The pioneer days of savages and mitis^ voya^
geurs and counurs du bois^ Hudson Bay officials, and mission-
aries, are fast passing away, to be succeeded by a civilization
of railroads, churches, schools, and courts, settled farms, and
well-equipped mines. The earlier conditions are well within
the memory of the devoted Catholic missionaries who labored
so valiantly to plant the cross in that vast region, stretching
from Lake Superior to the Pacific and from the American
border to the frozen North. It is well that some of them
have been moved to write for posterity the history of the
earlier times before the last vestige of those times has become
obliterated by the foot of progress. It is fitting also that an
Oblate of Mary Immaculate should essay the task,* for where-
ever the traveler may go throughout that whole region he
will come across the evidences of the heroic toil of that de-
voted band of missionary priests. Father Morice is no novice
in historical work. He comes to his task with the added
equipment of years of experience in the country whose history
he is writing. And it is a moving tale he tells — of missionary
adventures, successes, and tragedies, of Indian lore, of settle-
* History of tlU CaiJkolu Church in Western Canada from Lake Superior to the Pacific
(1659-1895), By Rev. A. G. Morice» O.M.I. In two volumes. With Maps and lUustra*
tions. Toronto : The Mosson Book Company,
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I9IO.] New books 385
ments, rebellions, massacres, of the beginnings of towns and
churches, the whole drama of civilization in the making. His
main interest is in the progress of religion; but he often
touches on points of more general history, and always with
the sure touch of the man who has a first-hand acquaintance
with the facts, persons, places, and circumstances. His account
of the two insurrections with which Louis Riel was concerned
should be read by every fair-minded historian before a final
verdict is pronounced on that unfortunate leader. The auto-
graphs and portraits of eminent pioneers form a valuable fea-
ture of the work.
We have any number of books treating of the work of the
Catholic Church in general, and its influence on civilization,
on the individual, the family, and society. But there has been
felt the need of some book treating of the Church in our own
particular country. We have the histories of the church in
different dioceses and in different sections of the country ; we
have volumes on the work done by various individuals and
various religious societies; but as yet no one has given us a
general survey of the position and influence of the Church in
the United States. The present volume* is a step in the
right direction. It does not, of course, pretend to be exhaus-
tive; it is only a general, a very general, survey of the work
of the Church in this country, just barely touching on the
most prominent topics. A good idea of its contents may be
gleaned from the headings of the chapters: ''The Past'';
''Missionary Heroes''; "In Colonial Days"; "The Church in
the Nation"; "A Little History on Religious Lines"; "The
Science of Irreligion"; "The Philosophy of Unbelief"; "Im-
migration"; "Education and the Bible"; "The National
Church." The value of the book is enhanced by some statis-
tics and tables given in conclusion.
Some years ago a large class of col-
THS SOUTH IN OUR GREAT lege graduates, all natives of this
^AR. country, were seeking admission to
an institution of professional train-
ing. One of the questions submitted in the written examination
^ TJu Quuiwn of tki Hour. A Survey of the Posidon and Influence of the Catholio
Church in the United States. By Joseph P. Conway. New York: The John McBride
Company.
VOL. XCI.— 35
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386 NEW BOOKS [June,
was this : '' What general was in command of the Union forces
at the battle of Gettysburg?** The answers were in several
cases quite wide of the fact, and one of the young gentlemen
wrote down: ''General Grant, of course/' This was by no
means the grossest error about American history, and is but
a specimen of the condition of minds under tuition, higher and
lower, in matters of the sort. Hence the good of such works
as Mr. Eggleston's on the War of the Rebellion.*
The reader here has the advantage of an old soldier's ex-
perience as to narrative, as well as of a practised writer's
power of condensation and smoothness of description. The
author served in the Southern army all through the war.
Therefore his treatment of army operations is graphic and
piquant. That it is critical in the stricter sense, as claimed on
the title page, some will question. For example, the strategy
of Stonewall Jackson's brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah
Valley in the spring of 1862, is credited mainly to General
Lee. That great leader profited greatly by the Valley cam-
paign, and personally approved of it ; but its whole scope and
purpose, no less than its detailed execution, was Jackson's own,
as is fully shown by Colonel Henderson in his classic work on
that eccentric hero. General Joseph E. Johnston, however,
aided Jackson, not only largely but essentially, being his im-
mediate superior and granting him every soldier he could spare
from the lines in front of Richmond. Lee held no actual
command at the time, and was placed on the waiting list with
the complimentary title of ''Military Adviser" of President
Davis, a sort of cbief-of-staff.
Another lapse is the failure to mention the two little war-
ships, the Tyler and Lexington^ in the account of the battle of
Shiloh, which, barring that omission, is one of the fairest and
most interesting we have ever read.
Taken as a whole, the work is accurate enough to be re-
liable. Audit has such high literary merit as to redeem many
such defects as we have noticed. It reads like a novel, clear
as crystal, sparkling everywhere with the epithets of earnest
feeling and the adornments of pure literary taste.
Since the war Mr. Eggleston has resided in the North en-
gaged in literary and notably historical labors with well-earned
applause. Therefore his introductory chapters on the origin of
* Tk€ History o/iJU CanftderaU War: Its Causes and Conduct, A Narrative and Critical
History. By George Gary Eggleston. Two Vols. New York : Sturgis & Walton Company.
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I9IO.] New Books 387
the conflict, demand an attentive consideration from Northern
readers, apart from their intrinisic merit. We cannot quite
allow ourselves to be led into his view of Southern rights ; yet
they are shown to be historically plausible, if not probable, are
well arranged for reference, and offered in a literary dress
superior, we think, to any other portion of the work.
American history still lacks a distinctive and powerfully writ-
ten account of the strictly political affairs of the Confederacy.
Some of the ablest of American statesmen led the South out of
the Union and organized the new and short-lived nation. It
is now generally conceded, and is repeatedly affirmed or implied
by Mr. Eggleston, that the diplomacy, the finances, the legisla-
tion of the Confederate States, were each and all a lamentable
failure, nearly all the more important measures being unwisely
conceived and blunderingly carried out Especial interest at-
taches to this condition, when it is just as universally admitted
that the military achievemeqts of the Southern people were of
the highest order of excellence. Our author has notably contri-
buted an intelligent and very enjoyable study of the whole
epoch.
To the popular imagination one
SIMON BOLIVAR. of the most picturesque characters
in the history of the Western
Hemisphere is Simon Bolivar, "The Liberator.'' Most of us
know very little of the facts of his life, but bis name bears
with it mingled associations of the dash and daring of the
early Spanish conquistadores uxA the democratic self-abnegation
of a Cincinnatus or a Washington. But the grave writers of
history have passed him by. This has been due to the dis-
turbed and backward state of the republics which he freed from
the dominion of Spain, and which, under better conditions,
would have been the proper agents for the keeping of his
deeds before the tyt% of the world. The digging of the
Panama Canal has of late turned our eyes in the direction cf
South America, and Mr. Loraine Petre deems it the psycholo-
gical moment to present once more the story of the Liberator
to the English-speaking world.
His work * presents every evidence of being a carefully studied
* Si$iton Bolivar,** SI Libtrtador" A Life of the Chief Leader in the Revolt against Spain
in Venesuela, New Granada, and Peru. By Fr. Loraine Petre, London and New York :
John Lane.
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388 NEW BOOKS [June,
and impartial document. It is rather difficult reading on ac«
count of the agility with which its subject keeps skipping over
a large and to us unfamiliar map. The ever- changing kaleid-
oscope of Spanish American politics does not help to clearness
of view. But we do get a fair idea of Simon Bolivar. When
all is said and done, it must be acknowledged that he is not
the ideal that our fancy had painted him, but he is pretty much
of a man notwithstanding. To state the worst first, he was
vain, ambitious, and lacking in power to govern the territory
which his arms had won. But he was brave, resourceful, un-
daunted, and indefatigable. The vice of avarice has not
smirched his name as it has so many of his successors. He
possessed the perseverance and courage of a Hannibal, but not
the administrative genius of an Alexander or a Napoleon, and
only in outward show the deep patriotism of a Washington.
But he was the liberator of his people, and is deserving of
their gratitude. His native land, Venezuela, has given birth to
no nobler son, and has borne the yoke of much less worthy
rulers.
Of late the ''devil's advocates''
PORFIRIO DIAZ. have been doing rather effective
By Godoy. work in undermining the popular
reputation of the President of our
neighboring republic. That he is jealous of the good opinion of
Americans has been shown in various ways, one of them being
a legal action, which resulted in the imprisonment of a clever
cartoonist. The present work* bears evidence of being part
of a campaign of rehabilitation. It may possibly be the en-
thusiastic tribute of a whole-hearted admirer; but it reads at
times like a campaign document. Half of the book consists
of an account of the life of Porfirio Diaz. The main events
of this really remarkable career are narrated with lucidity and
directness. The only objection is that Diaz is pictured as
being so unhumanly and monotonously right. A few dark
lines would make the picture more artistic — and more credible.
The latter half of the book consists of an impressive array
of '' Opinions of prominent men regarding President Diaz as
a soldier and statesman," and various appendices containing
documents, statistics, etc. The ''opinions" were written at
• Porfirio DioM, Pruidont of MtaHco: \TJu Master Builder of a Greai CommomweaUk.
By Jos^ F. Godoy. New York and London : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
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I9I0.] New books 389
the request of the author, who does not over-state the facts
when he says that the list of the writers contains the names
of '* some of the most noted men in the United States and
Canada, including most eminent statesmen, diplomats, govern-
ors, federal officials, army and navy leaders, newspaper writers,
successful bankers, men from all leading walks of life/* The
unanimous verdict which these men render will, no doubt, be
the verdict of history. It is that Porfirio Diaz is one of the
greatest men of our times. This, however, does not modify
the fact that history will insist on a more detailed and scru-
pulous estimate of the man and his achievements than can be
found in the present work.
Dr. PauUin, the author of this
COMMODORE JOHN ROGERS, book,* is a resident of Washing-
ton, and a graduate of the Catholic
University of America. He is an authority on American naval
history, having already published the Navy of the American
Revolution and the Administration of the Continental Navy of
the American Revolution. He has selected Commodore Rogers
as a subject, partly on account of the interesting career of the
man himself, and partly because his activities were so closely
connected with the history of the old navy, his years of service
extending from 1798 to 1838. The whole narrative is graphic,
and, to our modern eyes, picturesque. It brings back the days
when a sea-fight was a romance, the days of wooden ships
and sailing manoeuvres, of pirates and privateers. Commodore
Rogers took part in the war with the Barbary pirates and in
the War of 18 12. He was associated with such men as Decatur
and Lawrence, the Perrys, Porter, Bainbridge, and MacDonough.
He played a part, too, in the more pacific home and foreign
affairs of his country, and, during his long period of land
service, had an important share in developing and systematizing
the naval department. Among other things he advocated for
many years, planned, and later secured, the Naval Academy
at Annapolis.
Dr. Paullin has had full access to all the official documents
bearing on the period, and in addition he has made use of
family and private papers which have not hitherto been access-
* Commcdan John RogtrSt Captain^ CowtiH§dore, and Sinicr Offiarof thi Atmruan Navy
irnj-'S^S). A Biography. By Charles Oscar Paullin. Clereland: The Arthur H. Clark
Company.
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390 New BOOKS [Jane,
ible to the historian. He also furnishes an extensive bibli-
ography of sources and a careful analytical index, as well as
numerous portraits, facsimiles, and views. The large volume
is gotten up with the exquisite care which always marks the
publications of the Arthur H. Clark Company.
A collected volume from the pen of
VERSE. Edward William Thomson* comes
to us, containing verses both pa-
triotic and sentimental, translations, and some interesting Cana-
dian ballads. The Lincoln poems have powerful sincerity and
many a heart- reaching touch of war-time color; although the
persistent coupling of our martyr-president with the crucified
Son of God is open to the charge of bad art as well as bad
taste. Mr. Thomson has inclusive sympathies and a felicitous
trick of phrase : his philosophy will scarcely make serious ap-
peal to the Catholic mind.
In a volume t upon many themes, and of unequal merit,
Mr. Wilson Jefferson gives us two or three really beautiful
lyrics. ''After Death'' is a fragment of poignant and perfect
simplicity.
The Haunted House t contains verses, narrative and other-
wise, distinctly fervid for the most part, and given to experi-
ments in rhythm. It is scarcely reassuring to confront upon
the first page a phonetic effusion concerning
'' the nasty, sickly wheezing of lost souls.''
There is no tremendous intellectual
LADY MERTOH, COLONIST, problem in the latest novel of
By Mrs. Ward. Mrs. Humphrey Ward,§ and the
story is the better for the lack.
The scene is in Western Canada, the country of big things,
and Mrs. Ward is enthusiastic about everything in that new.
and vigorous land. The main characters are a Canadian of
the dynamic type that our own Frank Spearman loves to de-
* WJUm Lincoln Died; and Other Poems. By Edward William Thomson. Boston and
New York : Houghton Mifflin Company.
t Venes, By Wilson Jefferson. Boston : Richard G. Badger.
X The HannUd Houst. By Henry Percival Spencer. Boston : Richard Q. Badger.
$ Lady Merton, Colonist, By Mrs. Humphrey Ward. New York : Doubleday, Page ft
Co.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 391
pict, and Lady Merton, an Englishwoman of refinement, who
finally elects to give up old-world comforts and culture and
take her place in the life of the western country. There is one
Catholic in the story, a French- Canadian who represents spir-
itual ideals. More might profitably have been made of him.
Winston Churchiirs American por-
A MODERN CHRONICLE, trait gallery contains specimens
By Churchill, f^om each generation, beginning
with Colonial times. In the pres-
ent volume* he depicts modern people and conditions. The
scenes are laid in St. Louis, New York, and across the Atlantic,
There is a winsome but difficult heroine, and a sturdy, patient
hero of the ''Peter Stirling" type. The story does not hold
one's interest to the same degree as, for instance. The Crossing
or Coniston^ but it is, like all the author's work, well worth
reading.
Not long ago Professor Mtinster-
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF berg attracted considerable atten-
LUTHER TRANT. tion, and not a little ridicule, by
suggesting that the methods of
psychological research should be used for the detection of crime.
The idea has been taken up by the authors of The Achieve^-
ments of Luther Trant.f The book contains half a dozen good
detective stories, in which there is a fine blending of the scien-
tific and the human interest. The methods used for testing
the credibility of witnesses, registering the emotions of the
guilty, etc., would hardly be admitted in court according to
the rules of evidence; but it is evident that they can serve,
in competent hands, for aids to the detection of crime.
Mr. Crawford's posthumous work }
THE UNDESIRABLE will hardly add to his fame. It is
GOVERNESS. a simple story of English country
By Crawford. life, with a decidedly old-fashioned
plot — kidnapped heiresses have
gone out of fashion in fiction. If it were not that a balloon-
*A Madim CMromuli. By Winston Churchill. New. York: The MacmiUan Company.
t TJU AekUvimints of JLuthet Trant. hy £. Balmer and W. MacHarg. Boston : Small,
Maynard & Co.
I Tk€ UtuUsirabU Govinuss, By F. Marion Crawford. New York : The Macmillan
Company.
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39' NEW BOOKS [June,
ing adventure plays a prominent part in the denouement, one
would surmise that the story was an old and suppressed ven-
ture of the author, written before Mr. Isaacs had shown him
what he might expect of himself. However, it is a clean, sim-
ple little tale, told with grace and humor.
Mrs. Atherton's Tower of Ivory •
TOWER OF IVORY. is not a great work. A young
By Mrs. Atherton. Englishman meets a pritna donna
in Munich. She arouses him to
the level of the best in him— a poor best^and under her stimu-
lus he passes his examinations for the diplomatic service. She
saves him from the clutches of a designing woman, and, in
self-denying vein, refuses to marry him herself. But the char-
acter of the man is unattractive ; indolence and self-indulgence
are the main qualities depicted in the book. Of course the
story is well told, for Mrs. Atherton is a master of craft, but
at times it is heavy.
Daisy plaited Jeannie's long white
THE FASCINATING fingers in with her own. •• I think
MRS. HALTON. it*g one of the nicest things that
By Benson. ^^^r happened,*' she said. ''Ifs
like some old legend of a man
who has — well, racketed about all his life, and then suddenly
finds his ideal, which, though she is quite out of reach, entirely
satisfies him. . . • It's just what the man in the legend
would do.
And the reader of The Fascinating Mrs. Halion;\ supposedly
a novel that pictures English social life of the '' upper '' classes,
particularly in their country house parties, will also say that
it is a legend pure and simple, a mythical thing that lacks the
ring of true life. Some of the people are wicked; others are
on the way to be wicked; and the virtuous heroine does not
hesitate to employ wicked methods that good may come. In
the old yellow-backs the good hero was always triumphant;
the villain, persisting in his villainy to the last, was utterly
vanquished.
In Mrs. Halton we feared that vice, so threateningly ram-
pant, might, in the end, conquer. Our fears were vain. Vice
» Tower of Ivory. By Gertrude Atherton. New York: The Macmillan Company.
t Tkt FascinaHu^ Mrs. HaUon. By E. F. Benson. New York : Doubleday, Page & Ca
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 393
does not conquer. Not even the villain dies. He lives — a de-
voted servant of all things good and proper. No wonder
Daisy said it was '' one of the nicest things that ever happened."
In its ending at least this tale would adorn the library of a
Sunday-School. Without fair warning and with a complete-
ness that is inexplicable Tom, the wretched villain, turns to
Jeannie and says, in the virtuous accents of a most conscien-
tious man : '' I love and I honor you " ; and though Jeannie
will not, cannot accept him, the tender yet powerful influence
of that love to which he aspired, yet never attained, changes
utterly his life and character, and is equivalent for him to per-
severance, pitched virtuously high. And Daisy, for whom we
worried without cause, is also won and transformed by the
wondrous virtue of Jeannie.
All this Mr. E. F. Benson relates in his attractive, conver*
sational way, and his plot has at least the merit of novelty.
In this volume * we have twenty-
STRICTLT BUSINESS. three stories from the pen of one
By 0. Henry. of the most industrious of present-
day fiction writers. We expect
to find humor and keen^characterization in, everything from the
pen of O. Henry, and^we are not disappointed in the present
book. The themes of these varied tales have, one and all, to
do with the energetic, restless, materialistic life of^ proletarian
America. They bring us in close contact with the strange,
surging city of ''Bagdad-on- the- Subway.'' The realism of the
presentation flashes upon the reader things which, through
dreaming inattention, we have missed, and we are led into
questioning why we have not looked out upon this common
life with our own eyes open in observation and sympathy.
Three or four of the stories are of exceptionally good quality,
though it is also true that many chapters reveal the strain of
hurried work. But Strictly Business will give to a reader a few
hours of very pleasant entertainment.
English-speaking Catholics owe a
THE PAPACT. deep debt of gratitude to Bishop
By John S. Vaughan. Vaughan for his literary activity.
He has already given us many
books treating of spiritual and doctrinal subjects, almost all
• StrUay Busmas. By O. Henry. ;Ncw York : Doublcday, Page ft Co.
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394 NEW BOOKS [June,
of which have passed through many editions. The discharge of
his manifold duties as Auxiliary Bishop of Salford does not
seem to lessen his literary activity. The present volume * was
not originally intended for publication, but many who had
heard these lectures wished to see them in a more permanent
form. They treat of the Infallibility of the Pope. In clear,
concise language the Right Reverend author gives the doctrine
of the Catholic Church and shows how reason demands an in«
fallible authority in the Church of God. The second part
deals more particularly with Papal Infallibility in connection
with the Church of England, and especially with the Continuity
Theory so much in favor among modern Anglicans.
The book will be of great service to all who wish to study
this important question, since Bishop Vaughan has a happy
iaculty of popularizing theology. We wish it the success it
deserves and such success as has justly come to Monsignor
Vaughan*s previous volumes.
We cannot have too many books
THE HOLT EUCHARIST, of popular devotion on the Holy
Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass. The Blessed Sacrament is the fundamental devo-
tion of the Church; all our spiritual life revolves around it;
and the better it is known, the more will it be loved and the
deeper will be our union with Christ. Hence we extend a
hearty welcome to this production of the learned Jesuit.f It
is a book full of deep spirituality based upon dogmatic truths.
The subjects treated are '' The Idea of Sacrifice''; ''The Beauty
of the Eucharistic Sacrifice''; ''The Miraculous Multiplication
of Bread and Communion " ; " The Perpetual Presence of Our
Lord in the Blessed Sacrament " ; " Visits to the Seven Churches
in Rome." The author has handled his subject-matter in a
masterly manner, and priests will find in his work much ma-
terial for sermons on the Holy Eucharist.
Dom Bede Camm needs no intro-
HEROES OF THE FAITH, duction; he has already won a
By Dom Bede Camm. lasting place in the hearts of Eng-
lish readers. He now emphasizes
* TJu Pufpost of tht Papacy. By the Right Rev/John S. Vaughan, D.D. London :
Sands & Co.; St. Louis : B. Herder,
t TJu Sublimity of tht Holy Bmckarisi; also, A ViHi to tht Sivon Chunhes in Rowu om tk$
Occasion of tht [Jubilee, Five Essays by Father Moritz [Meschler, S.J. Authorized transla-
tion by A. O. Ciaf ke. London : Sands & Co. ; St. Louis : B. Herder.
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I9ia] NEW BOOKS 395
that claim by a new volume * dealing with the English martyrs.
He has already told as something of this subject: in 1904 he
published a volume dealing with the causes for which the Eng-
lish martyrs died; in 1906 a second volume was devoted to
the martyrs of the Seminaries of Douay, Rome, and Valladolid,
The present book gives some account of the sufferings and wit-
ness of members of the Religious Orders and of the laity.
The various chapters of this series were originally delivered as
addresses at Tyburn Convent and at Westminster Cathedral.
They tell the story, in Dom Bede Camm*s interesting literary
style, of the sufferings undergone for the faith in England in
bygone days. The narratives are graphic, touching, and in-
spiring.
This is a new book on the priest-
THE PRIESTHOOD. hoodf and a welcome addition to
our library of English books deal-
ing with the subject. The editor tells us that he has been ac-
quainted with the manuscript for some years, and thought *' that
its burning, eloquent words and thoughts on the sacred office
of the priesthood might prove a source of strength and inspira*
tion to many priests in these days of stress and storm, with
the absorbing claims of external things pressing upon them,
threatening to occupy a larger place in the priest's life than is
their due/* So he prepared the manuscript for publication.
The volume contains chapters on '' The Church Student '' ; '' The
Public Life''; "The Mass"; " Calvary Priests " ; "The Blessed
Sacrament " ; " The Beloved Disciple " ; " Renunciation " ; " The
Way of the Cross"; "Perfection"; "Making Saints." It is
full of deep spirituality, frequently recalls the need of medita-
tion, insists over and over again on mortification and self-denial
and renunciation ; in fact, these last points are, as they should
be, the predominant thought which actuates the entire book.
Another point we are glad to see insisted upon is the lead-
ing of souls in the higher paths of perfection and sanctity ; in
other words, the office of direction. Here and there the prac-
tical side of the sacerdotal life is touched upon, but only in a
passing way. These reflections contain much that is edifying
* Hiroisqftkt Pmith. New Conferences on the English Martyrs deliTered at Tyburn
Convent by Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B., Editor of the St; Nicholas Series. New York : Ben-
dger Brothers.
t Man MUrrofing Mis Maktr, Thi Friai of God's Church, Edited from an unpublished
manuscript by F. C. P. Westminster : Art and Book Company.
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356 ifEW BOOKS [June,
and inspiring. Yet, in spite of all this, the style of writing
will appeal but slightly to the average English-speaking priest
It is written in the high, ecstetic spirit of the Latin ferverino ;
the subjects are not logically worked ont ; it is difficult to fol.
low the general theme of the chapters; and the entire volume
is interspersed with prayers and appeals to the Blessed Virgin
that have no apparent connection with the immediate text.
On account of its defects of style and plan, it will never have
the success that our classical volumes on the priesthood have
attained. However, it is a book worth having, since its lessons,
if learned, will give us a deeper appreciation of the sublime
dignity of the sacerdotal state.
Mr. Carmichael has undertaken
FRANCIA'S MASTBRPIECB. the unusual task of writing a smaU
By Carmichael. volume on a single picture, and
yet he addresses not the learned
but the well-intentioned multitude, who admire religious re-
presentations, though ignorant of their history or specific pur-
pose. In his treatise on the altar-piece in San Frediano, at
Lucca, the author is really presenting us with an essay on the
beginnings of the Immaculate Conception in art. The lower
portion of Francia's charming picture represents four mystical
foreseers of this dogma, David, Solomon, Anselm, and Angus*,
tine, and the volume is appropriately dedicated to the memory
of the Venerable John Duns Scotus, its ardent champion in
later times. Mr. Carmichaers bookf is a complete answer to
Mrs. Jameson's statement that the Immaculate Conception does
not appear in art until the seventeenth century. It also proves
that many " Conceptions,'' " Assumptions," and " Coronations,"
have been misnamed because the critics did not investigate
the purpose of the altar for which the paintings were in-
tended.
Predestined^^ by Stephen French Whitman, is a story of New
York life with nothing to recommend it. The man lives an un-
principled and undisciplined life, and dies alone, a physical and
moral wreck. He has no claim to birthright in a book — nor any
promise of a long existence.
» Praneia*i MasUrpUct^ By Montgomery Carmichae]. New York : E. P. Dutton & Co,
t PrtdtsHmd, By Stephen French Whitman. New York : Charles Scribner*8 Sons.
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19 lO.] NEW BOOKS 397
From Beoztger Brothers, New York, we have received the
Life of Mary Ward. Ai we are told in the able introduction,
by Abbot Gasquet, the publication of this short biography is
singularly opportune. Quite recently, by the decree of the
Sacred Congregation of Religious, the nuns of the Institute of
the Blessed Virgin Mary were once again allowed to acclaim
Mary Ward as their foundress. This they have not been per-
mitted to do for the past one hundred and sixty years. Many
editions of the life of Mary Ward have been published, it is
true, but such a life will ever bear repetition. The earnest
purpose, the life-long labors, the constant journeying and per-
petual perils, the successes and the failures of this heroic wo-
man, make her life read like a romance, and furnish encour-
agement and inspiration for every one of us.
The liturgical works issued by Pustet & Co., of New York,
are always excellent. We wish to call special attention to their
Solesmes edition of the Officium et Missa pro Defunctis^ trans- ^
lated by Dr. F. X. Mathias. It is carefully edited and pub«
Ushed at a reasonable price.
Worthy of exceptional praise is the Missale Romanum, which
the same publishing house has sent to us. In size it is ad-
mirably suited for missionary priests and also for private de-
votion. It is complete in every particular and may be used
for low or solemn Mass. In type, binding, durability, and
general usefulness we heartily recommend it as a most worthy
piece of book-making.
The children of years ago read with pleasure and profit the
stories contributed to The Young Catholic by Mrs. Herman
Bosch. It is with particular pleasure, therefore, that we chron-
icle the fact that Mrs. Bosch has not ceased her labors, but
bas given us in permanent form, through Longmans, Green
& Co., her Bible Stories Told to '' Toddles:' As stories that
will interest and gain the love of little children for that treas-
ury of divine wisdom, the Holy Bible, we recommend them to
priests and teachers and mothers and to the children them-
selves. May they meet with the success they deserve and ac-
complish the work for which their author has labored.
The Kindergarten in the Home. By Carrie S. Newman. 111.
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398 NEW BOOKS [June,
(Boston: L. C. Page & Co.) The mission of this attractive
volume is a high and worthy one. It is a book to help those
who have the sacred responsibility of training children. The
author's work is sympathetic and personal and she presents
many valuable suggestions. A happy intimacy with the life
and ways of children of tender years is evident in the work.
Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. have issued in attractive
pamphlet form the two valuable sermons preached at the open-
ing of the Newman Memorial Church, Birmingham, by the Rev.
Joseph Rickaby, S.J., and the Very Rev. Canon Mclntyre;
also a pamphlet entitled : The Angelus and the Regina Cceli.
This last is another evidence of the increase of devotion to the
Blessed Virgin among Anglicans. May it lead them to a knowl-
edge and a speedy acceptance of all the truths of Christ's
Church.
A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. By Bernard
Berenson (New York : John Lane Company). Those who have
found in the Giotto paintings of Assisi the best communica-
tion of the early Franciscan spirit meet in Mr. Berenson a
steadfast opponent. He says : '' In so far as Giotto is respon-
sible for these works, it may be said that he was still young,
and that his sense for spiritual significance was still undevel-
oped.'' Mr. Berenson's thesis is that Stefano Sassetta, of Siena,
in nine panels, once forming the front and back of a single
altar-piece, has, of all painters, left us the most adequate ren-
dering of the Franciscan soul. He compares the works of the
two artists picture by picture. The volume is embellished with
twenty-six illustrations in collotype.
School Room Echoes^ by Mary C. Burke, is a good sized
volume of verse suited to class and assembly room recitatioiu
A large variety of subjects are to be found in the table of
contents and the volume will be helpful to both teachers and
pupils (Boston: The Gorham Press).
The Story of a Beautiful Childhood is a tribute, by Kiithe-
rine E. Conway, to the memory of a young boy whose short
life of fifteen years contains a lesson for men and women of
every age (Boston: C. M. Clarke Company).
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 399
The Place of Religion in Good Government, by Max Pam,
is the title of a discourse delivered at the University of Notre
Dame and published by the University Press. The House of
Mourning is the latest addition to the Marooma Library series
— reprints of stories and article from the pages of the Ave
Matta.
Echoes of Naples is a collection of thirty songs gathered to-
gether by Mario Favilli. The majority of these songs have
appeared in different previous collections. They are, as a rule,
well selected. For those organists and choirs not fully ac-
quainted with Gregorian notation, an arrangement of the Re-
quiem Mass, Vatican edition^ made by Eduardo Marzo, will be
helpful. Mr. Edward Quincy Norton has prepared a very help-
ful manual on The Construction^ Tunings and Care of the Pianos-
Forte for tuners, dealers, musicians, and owners in general of
pianos and organs. He has put into it the results of years of
study and practical experience. He writes in a simple manner,
without attempting any technical explanation of the theories
of sound. His directions are clear and concise. All these
publications are issued by Oliver Ditson Company, Boston.
At the close of fast year there passed away from this earth
the soul of a fine Catholic layman of Boston, Charles Francis
Donnelly. His wife, with the aid of Katherine Conway and
Mabel Ward Cameron, has issued for private distribution a
memoir of his life.* The portion of this book devoted to Mr.
Donnelly himself is all too short It is a revelation of a sin-
gularly noble and religious soul. The main part of the book
is taken up with an account of the most striking of his ser-
vices to the Church, his conduct of the Catholic side against
a Bill for the Inspection of Private Schools which was intro-
duced by the Massachusets A. P. A« in 1888. The account
of the hearings on this Bill contains a lot of valuable matter
for any one who is interested in the questions of constitutional
religious rights and religious education.
P. J. Kenedy & Sons have issued a very well presented
edition of Faber's Translation of Blessed Grignon de Mont-
* Char Us Francis Doniulfy. A Memoir. By K. E. Conway and M. W. Cameron. New
York: James T. White.
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400 NEW BOOKS [Jtme,
fort's Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. The
work contains the preface written by Cardinal Vaughan, late
Archbishop of Westminster, and also the introdoctions of
Father Faber and of the saintly author himself.
Oar republic has never had a
AMERICA OF TO-MORROW, critic at once as kindly and as
By Abbe Klein. shrewd as Abb^ Klein. He is so
generous in his praise of our suc-
cesses and merits that we might be tempted to think that
he has an eye only for our good points. Yet he has a
way of indicating, by a little shrug and a smile, his per-
ception of our exaggerations and defects. He has now produced
four books treating of our American Republic: Au Pays de la
'' Vie Intense ** ; La Dicouverte du vieux monde par un itudiant
de Chicago ; La Siparation aux jStats^Unis; and the volume
under review.*
M. Klein was not satisfied with the knowledge of America
which he had attained in former visits, he wished to see more
of the country, and accordingly it was not difficult for his
American friends to induce him to visit the ** America of To«
morrow,'* the land of the West The book which registers his
pilgrimage is a traveler's diary, jotted notes and impressions.
But it is not a mere reflection of the guide-book. M. Kllein
has a mind of his own — and an eye — and a tongue. And what
he sees and says is somehow fresh and interesting, even though
the facts seemed commonplace enough to us before. His itin-
erary brought him into touch with such a variety of places,
persons, and interests as the Catholic Summer- School, Chautau-
qua, Chicago and its University, Peoria and St. Paul with their
famous bishops, the Canadian West, Seattle, and San Francisco.
It must have been a rare pleasure to make that journey in his
company, unless indeed he was saving all his shrewd observa-
tions and piquant remarks and judicious praise to delight the
readers of his book.
The present volume f is an exam-
EPISTLBS OF ST. PAUL, pie of true Catholic critical exege-
sis. Since the modern study of
the sacred books lays such constant insistence on philological
•VAwUriquitUDimaim. Par M. TAbM F^liz Kldn. Paris : Plon-Nonrrit et Cie.
iB^itru d€ Saint Paul, Lefons iTExi^hi, Par C. Toussaint. Vol. I. Litires amx
Tkissaioniciams, aux Galatgs, aux Corinikiatu, Paris : Beauchesne et Cie.
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101 a] New Books 401
and critical points. Dr. Toussaint aims at giving the Catholic
student a thoroughly critical edition of the Epistles of St»
Paul. Such a work is necessary, he contends, not only for the
purposes of a sound apologetic, but also for a proper grasp
by the constructive theologian of the true sense of the inspired
authors. It is only by establishing the original text of the
sacred scriptures that a solid foundation can be had for inter-
preting them. In this first volume, on St. Paul's Epistles to
the Thessalonians, to the Galatians, and to the Corinthians, Dr.
Toussaint makes a scholarly and satisfactory application of the
principles of textual and literary criticism. The results show
that '^ nothing is to be feared for the sacred books frcm the
true advance of the art of criticism ; nay more, that a bene-
ficial light may be derived from it, provided that its use be
coupled with prudence and discernment."
The object of this little volume •
SCRIPTURE. is to give a short but complete
theological treatment of those ques-
tions concerning the Bible which are usually examined under
the title of General Introduction to Sacred Scripture. It dif-
fers, however, from most such ** Introductions " in its preference
for the theological, and its comparative indifference to the his-
torical, point of view. It aims at giving the teachings of the
Church on general matters pertaining to the Bible.
The work is divided into two parts. The First Part (pp.
1 1*107) is devoted entirely to documentary evidence, from the
Encyclicals Providentissimus Dius and Pascendi Dominici Gregis^
the decree Lamentabili^ the decisions of the Councils of Trent
and the Vatican, and of the Biblical Commission on fundamental
scriptural problems. The testimony, not only of Fathers and
theologians, but of Jews and Protestants, is also cited.
The second part of the work (pp. 108-208) is a theological
treatise, based on the doctrinal decisions already quoted, on
such questions as the Canon of Scripture, its inspiration and
inerrancy, the authority of the Vulgate, the rules of hetmeneu-
tics. The work is concluded with a chapter on the use of
Scripture.
These questions are treated after a strictly theological fash-
*Z># Stripiuta Saira'. Par J. V. Bainveli Lector Theologiae in Facilitate Catholica Paii-
sieasi. Paris: Beauchesne et Cie.
VOL. XCI.— 26
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402 New Books [June.
ion, bat ample bibliographical references to historical treatises
are furnished. The work will be found useful by those who
wish to have in convenient form a collection of decrees and
other Church documents bearing on Scripture, together with a
concise exposi of Catholic teaching in these matters.
In the hope of leading his readers to study their religion
more thoroughly, and to know its treasures better, Abb^ La-
bourt has written a new manual, Israel^ Jesus Christy the CathO"
lie Church. The work is comprehensive, and shows an abun*
dance of knowledge. Its complete title is Cours Superieur d*In^
struction Religieuse. Israel^ Jisus Christy VEglise Catholique^
and it is published by Victor^ Lecoff re, of Paris.
The same publishers have issued La Bienheureuse Mire
Baratf by M. de Grandmaison, which tells the inspiring life-
story of Madame Barat, foundress of the Society of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. The members of the Society, engaged for the
most part in teaching, now number over six thousand. Madame
Barat's historian's keen psychological insight and clearness of
expression are worthy of praise. The volume is a notable trib-
ute to the noble life which it records.
Also, for those of our readers interested in the latest French
publications we make mention of the following, published by
Bloud et Cie: Les Argutnents de VAth^istne. By J. L. de la
Paquerie. VExistence Historique de Jesus et le Rationalisme
Contemporain. By L. CI. Fillion. Petite Histoire de VEglise
Catholique au XIX. Steele. By Pierre Lorette. Morale Scien^
tifique et Morale £vangilique Devant la Sociologie. By Dr.
Grasset. Pdtau (1^83-1632). By Abb< Jules Martin. La
Survivance de PAme chez les Peuples non Civilises. By A.
Bros. La Representation de la Madone a Travers les Ages. By
J. H. M. Clement. Le Brahmanisme. By Louis de la Valine
Poussin. Vlntetnelle Consolacion Sainte Tirese^ Pascal^ Bossuet^
Saint Benott Labra, Le Curd d'Ars. By J. B. d'Aurevilly.
Pensies. By Joubet. Joseph de Maistre Blanc de Saint 'Bonnet^
LacordairCf Gratry^ Caro. By J. Barbey d'Aurevilly. Traite du
Devoir de Conduite les Enfants h Jisus^Christ. By Gerson.
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Jbteion petiobicals^
TAe Tablet (i6 April): '* The Liverpool Inquiry/' A report of
the investigation of the recent anti-Catholic riots of
Liverpool, in which it is clearly shown ''that neither
directly nor indirectly does the slightest blame attach
itself to the Catholics of the city." According to the
report of Abbot Gasquet, President of the Biblical Com-
mission, the revision of the Vulgate is carefully, though
slowly, progressing. What the Osservatore Romano
says of the Roosevelt Incident — ''a bare and genuine
exposition of the facts.''
(23 April): ''Mechanical- Like Morality." In refuta-
tion of this theory of conduct. Father Rickaby, SJ.,
declares that a normally trained man, in making a choice
of the various lines of conduct open to him, is cor-
rectly conscious that it is a choice and not the resultant
of inevitable conditions. " The Earth and the Comet."
" A collision might result," says Father Cortie, SJ.,
" in a shower of shooting stars, but that is all "
According to M. Briand, a "real* Republican" is a man
who, while desiring further progress, renounces nothing
in the work of secularism achieved during the past ten
years.
(30 April) : " The French Bishops and Le Sillon:* Should
Le Sillon be suppressed? This society, founded by M.
Marc Sanguier "to form enlightened citizens and dis-
ciples of Christ," is regarded by several of the French
hierarchy as worthy of condemnation, since its director
has explained that " the young workmen are to be their
own religious educators, and that the movement is more
advanced than Socialism itself." " Further Light on
the Roosevelt Incident," from our Roman Correspondent.
A private message of the intermediary, Mr. Leishman^
is said to have been the cause of all the trouble.
The Month (May): Under the caption "La Terreur Blanche,"
the editor replies to those who, in defending the French
anti-clericals, point to the excesses of 18 15. He shows
the lack of parity in the example and denies that the
Pope and Bishops instigated such abuses as then took
place.*— Bernard J. Whiteside points out the great
wofk Lord Kelvin did for social and scientific progress.
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404 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June,
"The Coming Election in Belgium/' by J. Wilfrid
Parsons, outlines • the aims and history of the various
factions and analyzes the present political situation.
Th€ Church Quarterly Review (April) : Rev. Arthur C. Headlam,
D.D., reviews several works dealing with " The Euchar-
ist in History/' He concludes ** that there is nothing, in
the language of either the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom or
the Roman Mass, so far as regards their Eucharistic
teaching, which a sincere member of the Church of
England could not use with spiritual edification.''—
In '' Christianity, Science, and ' Christian Science,' " Dr.
Harrington Saintsbury sees that the new theory of
** Mind Cure " " opens wide the door to the most power-
ful of all spiritual forces. Religion," in treating disease.
"How We May 'Think of the Trinity/" by Rev.
Robert Vaughan. ^Rev. W. C^mmet, in ''The Biblical
Teaching on Divorce," restates the traditional Anglican
view. He thinks, however, that " Divorce is always a
bad thing," and that the New .Testament "permits it^
nothing more," to avoid a greater evil.
Th$ Crucible (March): "Surveillance in Schools." L "The
Opening |of Letters." In this article M. Segar points
out that the opening of the parents' letters to their
children at school results in a restriction of free inter-
course, and is a primary cause of estrangement between
parent and child. B. Stofford deals with the "Re-
strictions on Woman's Labor," which involves the ques-
tion whether woman is to be regarded as a co-laborer
with man, or simply as an alien in the labor market.——
M. Fletcher presents to us " Ruskin as a Social Reformer "
and " The Encyclicals of Leo XHL," venturing to sug-
gest " the study of the affinities to Catholic teaching in
the economic writings of Ruskin."
The Hibbert Journal (April): Professor Henry Jones discusses
" The Ethical Demand of the Present Political Situation "
in England. G. W. Balfour inquires into the relation
between recent " Psychical Research and Current Doc-
trines of Mind and Body." If the results towards which
Psychical Research seems to be tending are proved valid,
he concludes, theories such as Parallelism and Epiphe-
. nomenalism would have to be abandoned.—— Miss Vida
D. Scudder writes of " Christianity in the Socialist State."
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The writer is of opinion that Christianity '' alone will have
power to furnish the secret strength, without which the
very civilization that discards it could never survive."
Also that ''Catholicism is much more likely than Pro-
testantism to adapt itself to the socialist state/'
Dublin RevUw (April): Viscount Halifax and James Fitzalan,
M.P., advocate reform of the House of Lords by selection
from within the present assembly and addition from with-
out A Reformer urges the substitution of a suspensive
veto for the present absolute one. In '' Modernism in
Islam *' Francis McCullagh points out conditions favor-
able to the new movement. He seems to think that
Christians are to blame for Mohammedan intolerance.
-—J. B. Williams, despite contrary opinions, says that
Cromwell was responsible for the massacre at Drogheda.
James Britten shows William Bennett's influence on
the present ritual of the Anglican Church.— The second
of a series of articles on The InUmaHonal^ by Hilaire
Belloc, M.P., indicates a present-day method of attack
on the faith, and cites as an example the recent Ferrer
case. In "The People and the Populace,** Wilfrid
Ward defends an aristocratic form of government and
points out the evils of universal electoral franchise. He
thinks the people can only be educated up to a wise
use of liberty by a paternalistic authority.
Irish Theological Quarterly (Aptll): Dr. MacRory offers a criti-
cism of the Cambridge Biblical Essays^ recently edited
by H. B. Swete, D.D.— — Rev. T. Slater, SJ., discusses
the scrupulous conscience resulting from a pathological
condition of mind ; and shows, by several cases in point,^
that it would be of great benefit to the confessor to know
how the doctors of medicine are proceeding in this field
common to them and the moral theologian.— " The
Mosaic Authorship of Deuteronomy '' is the title of an
article contributed by Rev. H. Pope.— Dr. Slattery,
writing on the Sacrificial Idea, shows that totemism is
the basis of the doctrine put forth in a discussion of the
matter by the late Bishop Bellord. The truth is that
the Sacrificial rite is not the offering in itself, nor the
destruction in itself, but rather the offering to Gred of a
thing in the state of destruction.
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (April) : ** Prehistoric Man : His
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406 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June^
Civilization and Religion/' by Rev. Charles Gelderd.
The writer concludes that prehistoric man had ''an in*
telligence of a very high order." Prehistoric races were
also not devoid of all religion, for their burial places
bear witness to a belief in a future life. " Moral In-
struction in French Lay Schools/' by Rev. W. B. O'Dowd.
The object of the present educational system of the
French Government is, under the veil of neutrality, to
abolish all religious influence in the schools. A review
of the atheistic text-books used to accomplish this pur-
pose. An "Editorial Note on the Restoration of the
Crypt of Columbanus at Bobbio."
Li Corresp&ndant (lo April): "The Public Spirit is Italy/' by
Henri Joly. There are two political factions in Italy:
Socialists and Catholics; the latter consisting especially
of the elite and the old noble families. While a great
many recognize the temporal power of the Pope, recon-
ciling it with their love for the king, the decadence of
the religious spirit gives opportunity to the Socialists.——
£. Sainte- Marie Perrin, in a character study of" Nathaniel
Hawthorne," says his works are not only those of a
master novelist but of a man who has tried to throw
some light on the old problems of humanity. He dis-
cusses The Scarlet Letter at length, considering it as an
index to Hawthorne's character.
(25 April): "The Enemies of Jean Jacques Rousseau/'
by Emile Faguet The writer discusses Miss Macdonald's
recent study of Rousseau, in which she says he was a
most honest and virtuous man. He denies this emphat-
ically ; says there is no need to go for testimony to the
Memoirs of Mme. d*Epinay, which Miss Macdonald claims
to be a calumny; and that there is sufficient matter to
show the falsity of Miss Macdonald's conclusion in
Rousseau's Confessions^ and Correspondence.^-^-^* IjtXitXB
of Chateaubriand to Rosalie de Constant," by Henri
Cordier.— " Lace/' by Auguste Lefebure. Sixty years
ago France had 240,ocx> lace-makers, while to-day the
industry is practically dead.- The author believes that
the industry may be revived by the elite reviving the
use of real hand lace, as Queen Marguerite did in 1872.
Annates de Philosophie Chritienne (April) : " The Historical Vi-
cissitudes of the Political Doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas^
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by Jacques Zeiller. St. Thomas had an important effect
upon his contemporarieSi especially St. Louis. Many
political developments of to-day can be logically deduced
from his teaching, though brought about by men en-
tirely ignorant of the great doctor. Leo XIII., how-
ever, probably owed his social teaching directly to St.
Thomas. And 'Mt is incontestable that St. Thomas has
affirmed the mutual independence of two powers, eccle-
siastical and civil.''
£tudes (5 April): "The 'Message' of Robert Browning/' by
Xavier Moisant. Those who think materialism character-
istic of Browning's poetry err seriously. This is simply
a " robust, joyous, and pure realism." While his reli-
gious creed was full of errors and prejudices, he per-
formed a service to his age by insisting stoutly upon
the necessity and importance of religion.
(20 April): Rostand is said to have conceived the idea
of ** Chanticler " from the sight of some chickens in a
little Basque village. In ** Cambo et Chanticler," Pierie
Lhande discusses the traces of Basque scenery, folk-lore,
and character to be found in the play.— —'' Kepler and
Protestant Intolerance," by J. Berchois, compares the
sufferings Kepler endured at the hands of Protestants
on account of scientific opinions with those of Galileo.
Revui du Monde (i April): ''The History of Canon Law in
France," by R. P. At. Speaking of the collation of
benefices, he states that the Pope, in virtue of his juris-
diction over the entire Church, is the universal collator
of all benefices.
Revw Binidictine (April): D. G. Morin contributes an article
on "The Conflict of Vices and Virtues." This little
ascetical treatise, so widely circulated during the Middle
Ages, has often been put forward as the work of St.
Ambrose. The mistake is due to a confusion of the
Christian name of the real author — Ambrose Autpert,
with that of the illustrious bishop of Milan.— —D. U.
Berliere gives a biographical sketch of Henri de Vienne,
abbot, canonist, and intimate friend of Clement VII.
His chief claim to fame, however, rests on his little
book Marriagi in Infidel Countries^ remarkable for hav-
ing insisted, in that early period^ on principles which
formed the basis of much subsequent legislation.
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408 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Jane,
Revue du Clergi Franpais (i April): E. Vacandard begins an
historical sketch of the ''Origins of the Feast and of
the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception/ * E. Tav-
ernier sketches the life of ''Dom Gu^ranger, Abbot of
Solesmes/' Ch. Calippe reviews "The Social Move-
ment/' "The Agricultural Life, Its Forfeitures, Its
Reinstatement," is a pastoral letter by Mgr. Fuzet,
Archbishop of Rouen.
(i May): Second installment of the articles, by E. Va-
candard, on "The Immaculate Conception/' It deals
with the development of this dogma from the early cen-
turies to its promulgation ; gives a detailed account of
its theological opponents and adherents ; and shows that
this feast was celebrated as early as the thirteenth cen-
tury. "The Religious Movement Among English-
Speaking People'' treats of the formal and general
observance of Sunday in London and the puritanical
restrictions which the writer, Gabriel Planque, claims are
typical of the religious spirit of England. Quoting from
contemporaneous historians and the Official Year Book
of i^op he says, that " out of a population of thirty
millions only two or three millions are members of the
Established Church." The growth^of the Catholic Church
is noted. The author estimates the number of converts
at ten thousand a year. The Baptists are increasing most
rapidly; but in this increase the author includes the
negroes of the United States. An article by a mis-
sionary from India, C. Auzuech, deals with the present
dissatisfaction with English rule in India. How the
English government handles the ntuation and the effect
upon Catholic missions. Under "Scientific Chroni-
cle" the subject of Evolution, its present widespread
acceptance among naturalists, and its development from
the teachings of Lamarck and Darwin to the opinions of
Hertwig on comparative anatomy, and the later articles
by Vialleton and Lampeyre, are treated. A series of
letters with regard to the Catholic lay organization called
the ** Sillon.** Correspondence between Mgr. Andrieu
and Mgr. Mignot.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (May): O. Zimmermann, S.J.,in a
paper on "Inwardness," refutes the charge of external-
ism raised against the Church, and shows that she fos-
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I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 409
ters and ctiltivates the interior life, usiog for this end
external ceremonies, and by these means preventing the
excesses into which Protestant inwardness, without any
guide, may fall. ^Victor Cathrein, SJ., writing on
'' Ethical Subjectivism upon a Darwinistic Foundation/'
discusses £• Westermarck's book on Origin and Develops
meni of the Concepts of Morality ^ which traces morality
back to the different affections found among animals.
Fr. Cathrein charges Westerinarck with not clearly de-
fining his concepts of morality, and of using too little
critical discretion.
Rivue Thomiste (March-April): Under the ingenious title,
''Can there be Psychology Without a Soul?'' Mgr.
Farces points out the false principles underlying the
proposition |of James, that in psychology the substan-
tial principle of unity (the soul) constitutes a superflu-
ous hypothesis"; and argues that from its nature psy-
chology can never be reduced to a mere empirical or
positive science.— -*M. F. Cazes discusses in some
twenty-five pages the characteristics common to Mod-
ernism and Kantianism, and shows in detail how
the Kantian principles have been applied to Catholic
dogma, and the destructive nature of the results that
followed.— That St. Thomas in no way minimised the
importance of positive theology is the main idea in a
paper of Abbot Renaudin, O.S.B., ''The Influence of
St. Cyril of Alexandria on St, Thomas."
R$vu€ Pratique d'Apologdtique (i April): "The Recitation of
The Rosary," by Georges Goyau, is a plea for a less
mechanical use of this " Spiritual Wreath of Roses."——
"Pierre Cauchon, the 'Schismatic and Excommunicated'
Bishop of Beauvais," by Canon H. Dunand. Was Pierre
Cauchon really a schismatic ? Was his condemnation of
Jeanne d'Arc the cause of the bishop's excommunica-
tion?
Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (30 April): "Unedited
Writings of Dante on Count Guido da Montefeltro.'^
The history of his conversion to the religious life given
here reminds one of St. Ignatius. He was born in
Tuscany of German ancestors; Guido distinguished
himself in wars of the Ghibellines against the Guelfs,
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and was several times excommunicated; but finally laid
aside all worldly honors and asked for the Franciscan
habit
Die Kultur (April): Contains three papers on the late Pope:
"Leo XIII. in History/* by Dr.Tomek; "The Attitude
of the Encyclical JSUmi Patris Towards the Philosophi-
cal Tendencies of the Present Time/' by Dr. Willmann;
and "Leo XIII. the Social Pope/' by Dr. Schindler.
They think that in politics, philosophy, and in social
reform his reign was providential, and that the influ-
ence of his work will continue to be felt in these par-
ticular fields. P. Roesler, C.SS.R., in an article en-
titied "The New Preaching of the Gospel, by St.
Klemens Maria Hofbauer,'* makes a comparison between
the saint, on one hand, and Napoleon and Goethe on
the other.
Bibliscke Zeitschrift (April): Dr. Fritz Tillmann, of Bonn, be-
gins an article "Essentials in Proving Christ's Divinity
From the Synoptists in Opposition to Modem Criticism.*'
Critical investigation is revealing more authoritatively
that the origin of the Synoptists and St. John may safely
be assumed as that given by Catholic tradition. Modern
critics ask: What was the self-consciousness of Jesus
according to the historical sources; and what is the
historical trustworthiness of the synoptic tradition ? On
this field, therefore, liberal criticism must be answered
in order to show that its concept of Christ is merely
a fiction. An example of how it may be done is fur-
nished by the conclusions of the radical Schweitzer, who
confesses that a Christ such as pictured by rationalism
could never have existed.
Rivista Internazionale (March): G. Toniolo explains at length
the work of the ''Italica Gens'' or Federation for the
assistance of Italian emigrants in transoceanic countries.
Its aims being in perfect agreement with those of the
authorities of the Italian government, it proposes to unite
^ its activity with that of the State, and supply with its
vast organization the needs to which in many places the
government authorities cannot attend.
CivilU Cattolica (April): ''Faith and Reason'' is a refutation
of the rationalist position that the human intellect is
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19 lo.] Foreign PERIODICALS • 411
absolutely supreme and all-sufficient. It deals with mira-
cles, and shows that miraculous fact, in many cases, is
well established by science.^— -'' The Sixtieth Year of
the Cilnlth Cattolica.^* A sketch of its history since 1850,
when it was inaugurated at the express wish of Pius IX.
''The Victory of Constantine the Great over Max-
en tius.'' This article is an anticipation of the celebration
of all Christendom in 19 12 over Constantine's victory,
which turned the history of the world in a new course
and made Christianity triumphant.
LaScuola Cattolica (April): C. Ceresani thinks thaf The Dan-
gers to Youth at the Present Day '' are threefold : the
idolizing of the body at the expense of the soul; the
insolence of the press in destroying the noble ideals of
the past with the purpose of substituting its own worldly
ideals; and the war against everything supernatural,
manifested especially in the vigorous campaign against
the Catechism. These are '' the difficulties which a Chris-
tian educator must conquer.**
Espana y Amirica (April) : Under the title, '' The Prodigies
of Grace,'* P. M. B. Garcia briefly describes the conver-
sion of the Graymoor Community at Garrison, New York.
P. B. Ibeas, in " Some Foreign Social Works,** de-
scribes the ''socialization of the function of maternity**
in some European countries. Benefit societies have been
founded to pay workingwomen during confinement and
to care for the child during the first few months. In
Germany the state has assumed the obligation of pen-
sioning widows and orphans of workingmen for a certain
time.
Rosin y Fe (April): "The Royal Order Relative to Lay
Schools,** by V. Minteguaga. The author claims that
the issue has been confused by calling these schools
neutral. In reality they are atheistic, and as such op-
posed to the Concordat of 185 1, which is still the law
of the land. R. Ruiz Amado, in "The Church and
the School,** endeavors to show that each is necessary
to the other and that neither can rightly perform its
functions alone.
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IRecent IBvcnU.
Tlie chief preoccupation of France
France. of late has, of course, been the
election of the new Chamber.
This takes place, as a rule, every four years. No election has
ever been conducted with so much quiet or has excited so
little interest. M. Briand, the Premier, seems to have secured
a firm hold upon the electorate. The people that manifest the
most open hostility towards him are the Extreme Socialists.
Yet he has been, during the whole of his political life, ranked
as a Socialist. He is now declared by M. Jauris to be an
insolent tyrant. M. Briand has certainly modified his views.
In a sense he may, perhaps, be looked upon as feeling re-
morse for his treatment of the Churcli. In a speech made be-
fore the election, in which he declared that France was craving
for an era of peaceful development, he characterised certain
measures which had recently been passed, meaning the Separ-
ation Act and the Waldeck-Rousseau Expulsion Act, as drastic
measures which were not in harmony with any conceivable
lofty conception of sober justice. This is a striking acknowl-
edgement of guilt to be made by a public man. He went on
to declare, however, that those measures were necessary for the
enfranchisement and the security of the Republic, and so, we
fear, there is no hope of his being willing to advocate resHtu-
tion. But it is worth while to take note of this acknowledge-
ment, and of his declaration that such a state of warfare can-
not last. That it should be continued was against the interests
of France.
The chief feature of the government's programme for the
election, as indicated by M. Briand, was the reform of the
electoral system, the re-introduction of scrutin de lisU instead
of the existing scrutin d^arrondissement^ in order to enlarge the
constituencies, thereby giving them a broader and more national
outlook. M. Briand expressed also a wish to lengthen the period
for which the member sits, in this going against the democratic
movement of the day, which aims at a more frequent appeal
to the electors. The strength of Parties in the new Chamber,
as the result of the election, is as follows, so far as can be
definitely ascertained: The Liberals or the Republican Left
number 74, as against 90 in the last Chamber; the Radicals
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I9I0.] RECENT EVENTS 413
are 124 in number, as against 116 in the last Chamber; the
Socialist Radicals 1329 as against 135; the Independent Social-
ists are 24 in nnmber, and were 9 in the last chamber.
Before the election the opposition numbered 176, consisting
of ConservatiTcs, 87; Nationalists, 30; the Centre or Progress-
ires, 59. The recent election has reduced their number to
167, although there is a probability that some of the members
who have been classed as belonging to the Republican Left
may be found to belong to the Centre. The result gives to
the government a majority of about 350, which is virtually the
same as it had in the last Chamber. In order to remain in
o£5ce the government must draw up such a working programme
as will satisfy the demands of the Radical and Socialist Radical
parties. Collectivist and Independent Socialists may be ignored.
It is not yet definitely known what will be the programme
of the gorermnent for the new session, but it is thought that
the Chamber will inaugurate an era of social, as well as of
electoral reform. Paris is to be embellished at a large expense
to complete the work of Baron Haussmann; but this falls
under the control of the Municipality, although a part of the
funds is provided by the State. The necessary reforms in the
Naval Administration have been effected by a thorough re*
organization, and a part of the programme for the increase of
the Navy has been accepted by both houses. Two new armored
battleships are to be laid down at once, so as to be ready for
service in 1913. The rest of the programme still remains in
suspense.
In dealing with the situation at Marseilles, caused by the
strike of the imerits maritinus^ the government acted with as
much determination as could have been shown by the most
autocratic of monarchies. These inscrits occupy a privileged
position, dating from the time of Colbert, and have repeatedly
made use of it to throw into disorder the trade of the country.
Ships were not able to sail and commerce was suspended*
The sailors in the Navy were ordered to take the places vacated
by the strikers. The Confederation of Labor, which has for its
object to overturn by violence the existing system, tried to co-
operate with the sailors, and to bring about in their support a
general strike. Although the situation for some time was very
serious, the project did not succeed, on account of the ener*
getic action of the government in taking proceedings against
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414 RECENT EVENTS [June,
the prime mover, and in arresting some of those who had fol-
lowed his advice. There is a possibility that the charter of
the seamen who have abused their privileges may be revoked.
In dealing with the proposed May Day demonstration the
government acted with like firmness and determination. The
Socialists called a meeting to be held in the Bois de Boulogne,
and this the government permitted, but the procession to be
made through the streets of Paris it refused to allow, and
brought into the city a large number of troops to enforce their
decision. The government did not claim the right to prevent
peaceful citizens from going out to the Bois, but it was their
duty to prevent any breach of the peace. The demonstrators
were content, although they savagely criticized the govern-
ment's action, to stroll to and from the place of meeting; and
thus, to use their own words, to avoid a massacre.
Much the same action was taken throughout Germany, pro-
cessions being forbidden, while meetings were allowed. Strange
to say Spain seems to have been the only country in which
no restrictions upon May Day demonstrations were placed.
The annual labor procession took place in Madrid without any
interference at all. A large number of workmen marched
through the city, nor was there the least disturbance.
What effect upon the grouping of the Powers, and espe-
cially upon the entente cordiale between France and Great
Britain and between Russia and Great Britain, the lamented
death of King Edward will have it is too soon to say. A few
years ago Great Britain and France were on the point of war^
and their relations had for some time not been of the best ; while
between Russia and Great Britain there had existed for a long
period relations bordering upon open hostility. ''Splendid
isolation " was declared to be the ideal of Great Britain by
her leading statesmen. The King, acting in a perfectly con-
stitutional manner, and in a way which carried the whole
country with him, was the means of making the change which
recent years have seen. His death gives cause for some little
anxiety whether a change for the worse may not result.
Like most of the other nations of
Austria-Hungary. Europe, both Austria and Hungary
are under the necessity of raising
money, and have to do so by loans, the current income being
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1 9ia] RECENT EVENTS 4 ! 5
insufficient to meet expenditure. The cause of the deficit in
this instance is the expense that was incurred by the annex-
ation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The proposed Austrian
Loan amounts to nearly forty millions of dollars. The Hun-
garian State Loan has been already issued and amounts to
something over twenty millions. Both of the countries are
threatened with a further increase of their indebtedness on
account of the Dreadnoughts which for so long a time it has
been proposed to build. When the suggestion was first made,
it met with such great opposition, on account of the expense,
that it seemed as if the project had been shelved. It is now
found that the government has adopted the somewhat disin*
genuous plan of circumventing Parliament by allowing certain
private firms to make preparations to construct the war ships,
and after the expense has been incurred it will then call upon
the patriotic feelings of the country to reimburse these firms.
And so it is expected that there will be four Dreadnoughts
complete by 191 3. To what use they are [destined it is not
easy to say. There are writers in the newspapers who say
that they are meant to serve as a protection against the Italian
Navy — an indication of the small confidence which is placed in
the loyalty of Italy to the Triple Alliance. There are, how*
ever, Englishmen who think that it is possible ^that they are
destined to act with the German Navy in any call which it
may make for their assistance.
The warm reception given to Mr. Roosevelt by the people
both of* Austria and Hungary was due not merely to himself,
and the regard they had for him, but to the influence which
this country has had in the constitutional changes that have
taken place in those countries, especially through the influence
exerted by Austrians and Hungarians who, having once lived
in this country, have returned to their old homes. Par-
ticularly in Hungary has this influence been felt. Persons in*
timately acquainted with the history of Hungary declare that
the restitution of the Constitution made in 1867 was chiefly
due to those who drew their inspiration from American
sources. An incident which took place a few weeks ago illus«
trates the extent to which this influence has spread. At the
village of Zakopese, in the Trenesen county of Hungary, the
candidate for Parliament attempted to address a public meet-
ing of Slovaks in the Magyar language. A peasant came for-
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4l6 RECENT EVENTS [Jon^
ward and asked him to speak English as his audience knew
no Magjrar. He was able to comply with their request, and
the reason for its being made was that 80 per cent of the 3<ooo
inhabitants of the village had once lived in America, where
they had learned the English language. It is to be hoped
that this influence will grow greater. True, indeed, it is that
tilings are far from being perfect here; but it may be said
with truth that no such iniquitous attempt is likely to be made
in this country as that which the Austro-Hungarian government
made last year to convict innocent Croatians at Agram. Jus-
tice has eventually triumphed and the last of the prisoners has
been released, and thereby an end has been put to the most
Iniquitous judicial drama of modem Austro-Hungarian history.
The new Ministry, of which l^gnot
Italy. Luzzatti is the head, and the mem-
bers of which form a heterogene-
ous combination, representing various groups of the Chamber
~the Liberal Right, the Giolittian Left, the Radicals or Ex-
treme Left, and the Democratic Left — has met the Chamber,
and presented to it the programme which it hopes to carry out,
or to postpone. For this is its proposal with respect to the
long discussed Maritime Conventions, which the last two Minis-
tries have failed to bring to a satisfactory conclusion.
Fiscal reforms were promised, as well as the reform of
electoral abuses. More money is to be spent on education,
for which the smokers of tobacco are to pay. There would
be no persecution of the Church ; that is to say, there is to be
nothing that the Ministry would call persecution. On the other
hand, there would be no compromise with what it is pleased
to style Clericalism. Absolute opposition would be offered te
all aggressive action against the Church as well as to aggres-
sive Churchmen. In politics the Church would be allowed no
place. As the question of divorce was, according to the Min-
istry's view, a political question, it is easy to see how illusive
are the Ministry's assurances that religion would have the full
freedom which was declared to be its due. The question of
divorce is, accordingly, to be discussed, but upon its own merits,
irrespective of the dictates of any one religion. As to foreign
affairs the peaceful rSU of Italy was to be maintained. The
Chamber, which at first had received the Ministry's proposals
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 417
with a certain degree of coldness, after the speech of Signor
Luzzatti in their defense, by a vote of 393 to 17, expressed
its confidence.
An effort is being made to find houses for the working
classes, and thereby to remedy some of the evils to which we
referred in the May nnmber of The Catholic World. On
the latest birthday of Rome the King laid the foundation- store
of a new block of buildings to be constructed for the occupa*
tion of government employis^ of whom there is a great army.
Twelve acres of land are to be occupied by these buildings.
The task of supplying the wants of these people falls upon the
government, because, for some reason or other, there is a lack
of private enterprise.
Good relations with Austria* Hun-
Russia, g&ryt based upon the recognition
of the status quo in the Balkans,
having been restored, the Elings of Bulgaria and Servia paid
visits first to St Petersburg and then to Constantinople. A
later visit of Hilmi Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier, to St. Peters-
burg, led to declarations that never again would Russia and
Turkey enter into conflict, but that each would render to the
other mutual support All of which seems to be a somewhat
dubious way of maintaining the existing state of things, and
in fact points toward the formation of the much- talked- of Feder-
ation of the Balkan States under the leadership of Turkey. It
is certainly a great departure from the Murzsteg programme,
which had as its background the anticipation of the break* up
of the Ottoman Empire, and the division of its territories be*
tween Austria- Hungary and Russia. Austria-Hungary, on her
part, is said, but on authority far from convincing, to have
had a part in fomenting the rising of the Albanians which has
been giving, for some weeks, so much trouble to the govern-
ment of Turkey. After a general survey of the situation it is
not easy to place much confidence in the long- continued main-
tenance of the status quo. Although the whole of thinking
Russia is said to be opposed to a policy of adventure in the
Balkans, Count Aehrenthal has not proved himself a very re-
liable partner to an agreement. Since his arrival upon the
scene Austro- Hungarian foreign policy has become more or
less enigmatic.
VOL. xci.— 37
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4l8 RECENT EVENTS [June,
It is unfortunately possible to entertain doubts as to the
maintenance of the modified form of constitutional government
so recently established. On the one hand the Duma has proved
itself useful, by enabling the receipts to exceed the expenditures
through its careful examination of the budget. On the other
handy its work is ignored as a rule by the Council of the
Empire and the vast horde of reactionaries— who are suffering
under the new tigim$ — are losing no opportunity that may pre-
sent itself to bring about a return to the absolute rule which
is so profitable to themselves, although so detrimental to the
people.
Even M. Stolypin, who has remained at the head of affairs
so longi and who has so often declared his attachment to the
constitution, seems to have suffered the usual effect of the
possession of power. He is said never to put in an appear-
ance at the Sessions. There are also two members of his
Cabinet who openly deride the popular assembly and all its
ways. No effort has been made by the government to carry
out the civil and political reforms which it has promised.
Administrative exile is still in forcci and arbitrary measures
against the Press are frequently taken. In fact, the policy of
repression adopted against the revolutionists is still continued
with but few modifications.
The attitude assumed of late by M. Stolypin and the two
members of his Cabinet before referred to, together with per-
sistent rowdyism and obstruction on the part of the Extreme
Right, which ^endeavors by any and every means to abolish
the Duma^ led to the resignation of its President, M. Homia-
koff. He declared that the situation had become intolerable.
Internecine squabbles, the attitude of certain ministers, the leg-
islative boycott of the Upper House, were, he said, jeopardiz-
ing the very existence of the House. The ferment of hatred
was spreading throughout the country. Matters were reaching
a stage when a c^up d'itat would become necessary. To pre-
vent so great an evil he felt the best course for him to take
was to resign. It seems to have produced the desired result.
The leader of the Octobrists was elected as M. Homiakoff^s
successor, and since his election the course of the Duma has
been smooth, on the surface at all events, but we do not know
what may lie beneath. The Tsar has given to M. Gucfikoff
his personal support, a fact which renders it possible to hope
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 419
that the enemies of law and order may not succeed. The at-
titude of M. Stolypin and of the members of his ministry
towards the lower house of the legislative body has undergone
a change for the better. The number of those who believe
that the prosperity of Russia can only be secured by the Con-
stitution seems to be growing, and in this number there is good
reason to think that the Tsar is included. This does not mean
that parliamentary government in the English sense, in which
ministers are responsible to parliament, is to be adopted or
even worked for at present. That will not come for many years,
if at all. The Executive is responsible only to the Monarch,
not to political parties.
While the prospect for the peaceful establishment of con-
stitutional government is better than it was, a serious conflict
is imminent between Russia and Finland. By the command of
the Tsar a Bill has been laid before the Duma to regulate the
relations between the Empire and the Grand Duchy. The object
of the Bill is to define what Finnish matters are to be regarded
as affecting the Empire generally, and what are purely local.
It gives an exhaustive list of Finnish questions which the gov-
ernment proposes to bring within the competence of the Im-
perial legislature. It even goes beyond the principle of unify-
ing legislation by transferring to the Dufna all matters in which
the Grand Duchy is not alone concerned. It goes so far as to
propose that the fundamental principles of the Finnish internal
government may be defined or amended by the Sovereign with
the assent of ithe Duma and of the Council of the Empire.
These proposals will, if adopted, in the judgment of impartial
students of the question, reduce Finnish autonomy to an empty
phrase, for the list of subjects excepted by the Bill from the
decision of the Diet of Finland covers practically the whole
domain of internal government. The opposition, even in the
Russian Duma, declares that the Bill is a violation of the or-
ganic laws of the Grand Duchy, and will reduce the Diet to a
merely consultative assembly; while all parties in Finland de-
clare that both the proposals themselves and the proposed way
of bringing them into force are entirely illegal and that the Finns
will prevent by passive resistance every attempt to enforce the
Bill if it should become a law.
Some time before the Bill was laid before the Duma, eight
of the most eminent jurisconsults of Europe published a dccla-
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420 RECENT EVENTS [Jonc,
ration, supported by a detailed historical review, of the rela-
tions between Russia and Finland, upon the juridical status of
Finland. The status of autonomy of Finland hitherto existing,
in the judgment of these authorities, was not a temporary
privilege granted to a conquered province, but a legal right,
and the competence of the Finnish Diet could not legally be
modified or restricted except with its own consent This decla-
ration, although in the highest degree worthy of consideration,
does not, of course, settle the question. There is a Russian
side, the exposition of which Dr. Dillon, in the ConUmporary
R$vuw^ has undertaken. But it seems a pity that when there
are so many more urgent matters to be dealt with this question
should have been raised — a question which in recent times
has caused so much trouble.
The rising of the Albanians has
Turkey. made evident the difficulty of the
task which the Young Turks have
undertaken. The unification of the various races is the object
which they have in view. No longer are there to be Turks
and Kurds, Jews and Arabians, Armenians and Albanians,
Bulgars and Greeks; all are to become true Ottomans with
equal rights and bearing equal burdens. And as upon the
Albanians had been conferred the privilege of sharing in the
legislative power, so the government thought it only fair that
they should take upon themselves a part of the burdens, and
in all other respects be placed upon an equality with the
other races. They accordingly laid upon these privileged tribes
a larger amount of taxation, proposed a general disarmament,
and even required of them an alteration in the alphabet, i;vish-
ing to substitute for the one hitherto generally used the holy
Arabian script What other influences the Albanians were
subjected to, whether Austrian intrigues had any part or cot,
an almost general uprising took place, the Catholic Albanians
sharing with their Orthodox and Moslem compatriots. For
some time it has appeared as if they might prove successful,
or at least enforce concessions humiliating to the govern-
ment. It was, however, a matter of such supreme importance
for the figime of the Young Turks that the government felt
it necessary to spare no exertion. In fact it is said to be the
opinion of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Pro-
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I9I0.] RECENT EVENTS 421
gress, who practically control the government, that a war is
necessary in order to give them prestige. Military prepara-
tions have been going on for some months by day and night.
Their wish is to fight the Greeks, perhaps even to recover
Greece, a thing which would compensate the Ottoman Empiie
for its loss of so much territory. The inability to control
their own subjects would be fatal to all aspirations of that
kind, and might even lead to the restoration of the detestable
Abdul Hamid. In the event, therefore, of the Albanians being
successful, a very important change will be the result
There is another policy and one that seems wiser. Its
supporters do not seek to attain the unattainable, but limit
themselves to the endeavor to federate on equal terms, with
equal rights and privileges, all the various races. But whether
even this is attainable there is reason to doubt. The Turk
has no idea of putting himself upon a level with any othet
race on the face of the earth. He was born to command and
to rule by the sword. One or two instances which indicate
his views may be given. Upon the Armenians, one of the sub-
ject races, he has so impressed his superiority, that in the pres-
ence of a Turk no Armenian dares lift his head. Sir William
Ramsay, in his account of the recent Revolution, relates that
during the massacres at Adana some twenty Armenians took
refuge in a loft. A single Turk put up a ladder to reach the
place of refuge, went up alone, and killed them all. In an-
other place large numbers of Armenians were ordered by a few
Turks to lie down in rows in order to have their heads cut
off. They meekly obeyed; and in cases in which they had
not suitably disposed themselves for an easy decapitation, at
the word of their murderers they readjusted themselves. It is
said, too, that the Turk deliberately rejects all efforts to de-
velop mines, lest such development may compel him to en-
gage in manual toil.
The Turkish Chamber seems to be doing its work quietly
and efficiently. The Budget has recently been laid before it,
and although there is a deficit of some seven million Turkish
pounds, the financial prospects are considered favorable. The
Customs have been placed under the management of an English-
man and are yielding a considerable increase. Some new taxes
are to be imposed and loans raised, for it is not expected that
revenue will equal expenditure for some years to come. In
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422 RECENT EVENTS [June.
Abdul Hamid's days Turkey's credit was so poor that no loan
could be raised. To be able to raise a loan is one of the
privileges of a constitutional government
After the excitement of seven
Greece. months, for which period Greece
was under the domination of the
Military League, an interval of comparative tranquillity has
supervened. It is true that a general election for the National
Assembly is at hand, but for the Greeks such an event is
rather restful, so fond are they of politics. For some of the
army officers, indeed, there is not much prospect of peace.
They have to be /' purified " : a Commission has been ap-
pointed for this purpose, and some seventy, it is said, of the
older officers have been held responsible for the state of dis-
organization into which the army has fallen, and are to be
dismissed from the service.
The Military League has, according to its promise, dis-
solved itself, and has left to the Civil authorities and to the
politicians the control of the State and of the election which
is to take place. On this occasion it issued a manifesto to the
nation, in which, while declaring that its work had been ac-
complished, it admitted that the greater part of the reform
programme remained unfulfilled. ''The bloodless and high-
souled revolution,'' which it had striven to accomplish, had
been paralyzed by the political factors. The outpouring of
fifty years of national distress over terrible and manifold humilia-
tions had not produced its full effect. The League had, how-
ever, done its best, and the officers would return to their
duties; but they would individually continue to give close at-
tention to every act which might affect the future of the Greek
nation. The army would still remain a watchful guardian of
its own honor and of the national aspirations. This seems a
clear indication that, should the officers not approve of the
resolutions of the National Assembly, they will reunite in
another League in order to save the country. In the mean-
time the people are looking forward to its meeting — a meeting
which cannot fail, for good or for evil, to have most important
results.
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THE Catholics of the British Empire are compelled to cut a rather
sorry figure at the present moment. They must crave the mean
favor that their religion be not insulted and their dearest convic-
tions outraged by their sovereign at the most solemn moment of his
reign. Every American feels this to be no favor, but a mere ele-
mentary right, that should be guaranteed to every citizen and, in
fact, to every human being. What right has a free man, or any
man, if he has not a right to be protected from insult and outrage ?
In this case, every element is present to aggravate the insult and
the outrage. They come from the sovereign who qualifies himself,
by this same insult and outrage, to claim the respect and obedience
of those he is offending. He speaks in the name of the nation and
the government to which they owe loyalty. Above all, the injury
is inflicted on the deepest and most sacred feelings, which are con-
cerned with beliefs and a Person dearer than life, dearer than all
which earth can hold. And all that Catholics demand is this : '* Do
not insult us ; do not, on this most solemn and public occasion, out-
rage what we love and cherish most. Make the Protestant succes-
sion as secure as oaths and statutes can bind, if you will — only let
there be no insult tc Catholic beliefs and feelings! " No demand
could be more evidently just and no man with a drop of honor or
manhood in his veins could demand less.
.• • •
BUT, after all, it is not the Catholics who are cutting the sorry
figure ; it is the Epglish Protestants, and particularly the Non-
Conformists, who are opposing the expunging of the insulting terms
and little realize what a spectacle they are making of themselves
before high heaven. No men willingly and knowingly exhibit
themselves to the world as bigots or bullies or t3rrants. Bigotry and
wanton insult are writ so large across the face of the Coronation
Oath that one might imagine them legible even to the very great
majority of English Non-Conformists. Vain expectation I Many
of them have a conscience and a psychology as peculiar as the ways
of the Heathen Chinee. Whatever they think is light ; whatever
they feel is nobleness and charity ; whatever they do isl justice.
Their mind never opens to a glimmer ot the suspicion that they may
be bigots and tyrants. They regard themselves as the champions
of religion and civilization ; they have ever reserved to themselves
the privilege of shouting loudest for liberty and enlightenment, all
the while unconscious that they are the most perfect type in Chris-
tendom of religious bigotry and ignorance.
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434 WITH OUR READERS IJtmc,
IF we may use a homely but expressive and historic figure, It would
make a donkey laugh to hear some oi the Non-Conformists pro-
claim the glories of liberty and light. Gratefully conscious of be-
longing to a higher order of creation, nevertheless we expect to ex-
perience a similar pleasure in reading British news of the next month
or more. Leading divines and prominent politicians will preach the
glories of British civilization and clamor for the maintenance of the
benighted Oath. We can realize their point of view by recalling the
utterance of their brother in blood and religion, Rev. Doctor Tipple,
of Rome, whose pronouncement, be it remarked, was a plea for light
and liberty. England for a season will buzz with the noise of the
wagging tongues of a thousand Tipples — all for liberty and light and
the damnation of Popery.
w
JllXi bigotry prevail? Will the Coronation Oath remain un-
changed ? We cannot be sure. Bigotry still flourishes in Eng-
land and bigotry, we know, is a vigorous plant. As the verses say.
One cannot cleave its deep-hid roots ;
Knife cannot prune its fast growing shoots.
It may be counted on to exhibit in England to-day its customary
vitality and fecundity. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the
great mass of Englishmen are ashamed of the Oath and would gladly
be rid of it ; and though old-established law, when upheld by a
large, noisy, and fanatical minority, has marvelous tenacity, still we
do not believe that this outrageous Oath will long continue to dis-
grace the statute books of England. If it be not modified, as it
probably will be, before the Coronation, it will scarcely be able to
sustain the assaults that will speedily follow. Pall it must, we
believe, for the mass of Englishmen are opposed to it or indifferent ;
the leaders of political lite, with, few exceptions, denounce it ; the
king himself is reported to have an invincible repugnance against
it ; and, finally, the Irish brigade is ready to give the fiercest on-
slaught in all their history. And when the hurly-burly's done,
wlien the battle's lost and won, we trust that English Catholics shall
not render grudging thanks to their Irish brethren, without whom
the victory had been impossible.
w
^ENEItABLE monument of English Protestantism 1 How much
it typifies, how truly it has represented and still represents, the
spirit of a goodly number of Englishmen ! Before it disappears, the
Coronation Oath will at least have rendered this service to Truth — it
will have shone in the eyes of the world as the sjrmbol of English
Protestant bigotry, past and present. If the reality would be in-
terred with the symbol, our joy would be unalloyed. But with the
symbol will disappear one monument to the truth of things as they
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I9IO.] WITH OUR READERS 425
are ; we rejoice, though, because its disappearance will tend to cause
the ugly reality also to disappear. At the same time, we confess that
many Bnglish and American Protestants have need of numerous re-
minders of their not all glorious past and present. Who so virtuous
as they, whose hands so spotless as theirs ? They never weary of
soundhig their own praises on trumpets and C3rmbals ; and if we
venture, with the hope of inspiring a little modesty and of moderat-
ing the abuse of our own not immaculate record, to recall something
of their past, our voice is drowned in a deafening clamor. Protest-
antism, both Bnglish and American, has much to be ashamed of;
and we shall be more hopeful of the elimination of bigotry and re-
ligious ignorance when we see a more general acknowledgment of
its crimes during the past centuries. Catholics have always be-
lieved that the confession of sins is an essential, and the first, ele-
ment in a true conversion. And though we Catholics have often ex-
hibited our own reluctance to confess the shameful truth, still our
self-knowledge and self-accusation are almost marvelous in compari-
son with the reluctance of the ordinary religious American or Bn-
glish Protestant to see. and confess the shameful truth in their past.
They put the record'^of our delinquencies in large type ; their own
are crowded into fine print — ^which, in their reading of history, they
religiously skip.
« • «
ADVBRTISING IN RELIGION.
IN our superficial, hurrying age, nearly all of us read as we run.
Whether we like it or not, we must acknowledge the day of
literary browsing is over. For ten who have the zeal, the time, or
the inclination to acquire that wisdom which is ** shining and never
fadeth,'' hundreds are content with the glittering veneer of knowall-
ness, spread by the news-stand, the clearing house of the latest idea.
Next to the newspaper, the secular magazine has recognized
this fact and has contrived, not'only to display its wares in startling
or persuasive form, but has made them so insistent, and so pervasive,
that purchase is inevitable* All the large trades and certain cor-
porations own journals or magazines to exploit their interests. The
devotee of every occupation and sport, the reader of every taste is
consulted ; and the success of these periodicals is proven by the in-
crease of the many, the failure of the few*
For its progress and development^the magazine depends neither
upon airy flight of fancy nor solid literary merit, but upon the tre-
mendous force of its advertising pages — ^much as the luxurious lim-
ited train is made practicable by the substantial returns of the long
haul freight. Not upon its subscription list, but upon its adver-
tising columns does the magazine rely for the wherewithal to tempt
great literary and artistic names to lend kudos to its issues.
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426 WITH Our Readers [J^ne,
Is our Catholic Press, with Its august message to all mankind,
advantaging Itself of this energy ? II we are to cope successfully
with the indifference and materiallsmtwhlch Is seeping into all other
religious bodies ; if we are to give honest answer to that inquiring,
restless, surging mass of readers, churchless and rudderless, we must
discover to them this message.
It may be urged that if we do not appear in many public places,
laden with advertisements, neither do the non-Catholic, regions
weekly and monthly. But their mission is too circumscribed to ap-
peal to any but a limited class of readers, while the Catholic Press,
as the exponent of the Church of Christ, has for its great business
the spr^d of Truth to all. To achieve this destiny it must not be
supported solely by the faithful, but by those who, in their aimless
flight through life, have paused to buy because it Is unavoidable,
and because they have been met more than half way.
If the sagacity of our non-Catholic friends finds in religion a
pragmatic value for their business enterprises, it is surely per-
missible for us to turn the tables, and utilize these entexprises as a
means to spread the Faith.
Do not Catholics want soap and automobiles and infants' foods,
as well as schools, lives of the Saints, and stained glass windows ?
Is there anything derogatory to the dignity of a religious publica-
tion to cry it for sale as the train leaves ? To find it displayed
conspicuously on every news-stand and proclaimed within secular
pages?
The public no longer seeks to buy ; it is coaxed to buy ; and it
will not patronize understandingly unless it be informed.
Perhaps the reader has stumbled in and out of publishing houses
in New York to find a copy of a foreign Catholic review, noted in
one of its American contemporaries. Has he found it 7
Perhaps he has tried to respond to the criticism of a prejudiced
fHend, by placing before him one of our small leaflets ot religious
truth ; but by the time he has received it, the acceptable time is
gone. Thank God, a few of our churches are responding to this
grave need. Why so few ?
Perhaps the reader has called the attention of an open-minded
non-Catholic reader to a current number of a Catholic periodical, to
receive the response from the smaller city: '' I have sent through
our book-store, but it has not come " ; or, as reported recently from
the leading book-store of Richmond, Virginia, and Brentano's in
Washington, D. C, *• Nor do they know where ii is published.^*
Why?
These conditions arise from our own lack of funds, or initiative,
or both. If the Catholic weekly, monthly, or quarterly is to be
forceful in our every-day civilizadon, it must be made more get-at*
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I9IO.] WITH Our Readers 427
able. It must jostle the newspaper, and rub shoulders with the
secular magazine, if it is to have any significance to those crowds,
who "chatter, laugh, and hurry by, and never once possess their
souls before they die."
Be certain that in these utilitarian days, if there is business in
it, advertisers will clamor ior space in our pages, and every book
stall in the country be informed.
The suggestive thought of an endowed Catholic Press carries
the imagination far I One poises delightedly on this pinnacled ideal
— ^where luminous sincerities disperse vague doubts, authoritative
utterance spans the world, and the price is within reach of the
poorest I
But until that Utopian vision is realized, may not our Catholic
Religious Press, mighty servant as it is of Mother Church — herself
the first great teacher by means of symbols— appropriate more effec-
tually for its own high uses, this modem symbolic manifestation
of the business world ?
• • •
THB following extract from a letter written in Bruges, Belgium,
by Agnes Repplier, will be enjoyed by our readers :
'* By a rare stroke of luck we arrived in time for the grand
procession of the Saint-Sang (The Precious Blood) on the 9th of
May. We rented a second-story window in the Place du Bourg,
where we could see it all, and the Benediction with which it closed.
It was too beautiful for words. Hundreds of men, women, and
children, dressed in the quaintest of costumes, presented scenes from
the Old and New Testaments, not on stupid floats, but walking
through the streets, they} came — angels, saints, dignitaries of the
Church, priests, monks, soldiers,(and the great relic in its crystal
cylinder, borne aloft amid the blare of trumpets and the waving of
banners. Every one was serious, grave, devout. Group after group
fdl into its proper place around the altar which had been erected in
the lovely old Place du Bourg, lined with cavalry, and hung with
pennons. When the relic was raised for Benediction every one
knelt, and my heart leaped into my throat with pure joy, it was all
so wonderful."
« « •
DURING eleven weeks, June 27 to September 9, the Catholic
Summer- School will present a varied programme of University
Extension studies at Cliff Haven, N. Y., on Lake Champlain. The
report of the Committee on Lectures, prepared by the Rev. Thomas
McMillan, C.S.P., contains the following announcements:
A series of thirty lectures on tbe Principles, History, and Psycfcolrgy of
Education, by professors of the Department of Education in the Catholic
Unirersity of America, Washington, D. C,
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428 WITH Our readers [June,
PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION.
By the Rev. Edward A. Pace, Ph.D.i D.D.| Professor of Philosophy.
July II — The Meaning of Education ;
July 12 — The Function of Educational Ideals;
July 13 — Cultural and Vocational Aims;
July 14— The Mind of the Child;
July 15 — Body and Mind;
July 18 — Necessity and Value of Method ;
July i9^The Content of the Curriculum;
July 20 — Moral and Religious Training;
July 31 — Institutions that Educate : the Home ; the School ; the Church ;
July 22 — Qualifications of the Teacher.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION.
By the Rev. William Turner, D.D., Professor of Philosophy.
July 25 — Education Dominated by Imitation and Tribal Custom ;
July 26^Education Dominated by Caste, National Tradition, and Religious
Ideals — Hindustan, China, Egypt ;
July 27 — Education for Citizenship— Persia and Sparta ;
July 28 — Education for Excellence According to Human Standards — Athens
and Rome ;
July 29 — Christian Education as Preserving and Transcending the Earlier
Ideals ;
August I — Assertion of the Supremacy of Spiritual Interests in the Struggle
of Christianity with Pagan Culture — Preservation of the Classics;
August 2 — Assertion of the Same Principle in Monasticism: Influence of the
Monks on Civilization;
August 3 — Assertion of the Same Principle in Professional and Craft Educa-
tion — The Guilds ;
August 4 — Assertion of the Same Principle in the Institutes of Chivalry —
Status of Woman in Medieval Times ;
August 5 — Assertion of Supremacy of the Spiritual in Philosophical and
Theological Education — Rise and Spread of the Universities.
PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION.
By the Rev. Thomas Edward Shields, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Education.
August 8 — Sources of Mental Food;
August 9 — The Function of Education in Mental Development ;
August 10 — ^The Teacher's Pgjrt in the Educative Process ;
August II — From the Static to the Dynamic;
Angust 12 — The Plastic Individual ;
August 15 — The Source of Energy in Mental Development ;
August i6^Strength and Docility ;
August 17-7-Environment and Mental Growth ;
August 18 — Mental Growth and Mental Development;
August 19 — Balances in Development.
GENERAL COURSES.
First Weeki June 27-July 2. — Illustrated lectures by Professor Robert
Turner, Boston, i. Scenes from Ben Hut. 2. Passion Play of Oberam-
mergau. 3. A Trip to Canada, including the Shrine of St. Anne de Beau-
pre. 4. Views of America.
Second Week^ July ^-«?.— Morning lectures by Gertrude M. O'Reilly,
Chicago. Subject : Irish Art and Literature.
Evening recitals by Mary C. V. Neville, New York City.
Dramatic recitals from Ramona^ with musical accompaniment by Vir-
ginia Calhoun, New York City,
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Third Wuk^ July //-/j.— Morning Round Table Talks by A. Helcne
H. Magrath, New York City. Subject : A Trip through America with
Abb6 Klein.
Four Evening Song Recitals by Marie A. Zeckwer, Philadelphia.
Fourth IVeeh, July i8-2Z. — Morning lectures by the Rev. Robert
Swickerathy S.J.| Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass. Subject: The
Struggle for Religious Liberty in Germany and its Lessons for American
Catholics.
Evening lectures on Art and Environment by Jennie M. Naughton,
Brooklyn, N. Y. Recitals from the dialect poems of Dr. Drummond by
Albert £. Heney, Ottawa.
Fifth IVeeh, July 2j-2p. — Morning lectures by flie Rev. John T. Driscoll,
S.T.L., Albany, N. Y. Subject: The Basis of Sociology: i. Sociology of
Comte. 3. Physical Basis of Sociology. 3. Evidence from Biology. 4.
Sociological Psychology. 5. Summary and Criticism.
Evening violin recitals by Alma Grafe, Philadelphia.
Travels in India, illustrated, by the Rev. Vincent Naish, S. J., Montreal.
Sixth Weekf August i-j. — Morning lectures by the Rev. John H.
O'Rourke, S.J., editor of the Messenger of the Sacred Hearty New York
City. Subject : The Catholic Church as a Bulwark of the Republic.
Evening lectures by the Hon. Thomas F. Wilkinson, Albany. Sub-
jects : Paths to Justice ; Irish Wit and Oratory.
Song recitals by Berthe M. Clary, New York City.
Seventh IVeeh, August S-12. — Morning lectures by the Very Rev.
George M. Searle, C.S.P., New York City. Subject: Research Work in
Modern Astronomy.
Evening lectures on The Citizen and the State, by the Hon. Edward R.
O'Malley, Attorney-General, State of New York. Studies in Contemporary
Literature, by Rose F. Egan, A.B., Syracuse, including the lyrics of Father
Tabb and the novels of George Meredith.
Eighth IVeeh, August 75 -/<?— -Morning lectures by the Rev. James Mac-
Caffrcy, Ph.D., Maynooth College, Ireland. Subject: History of the
Church in the Nineteenth Century.
Evening lectures on Historical Studies of the Countess Matilda and St.
Catharine, the publicist, by the Rev. John J. Donlon, Diocese of Brooklyn,
N. Y. Two lectures by the Rev. Lewis J. 0*Hern, C.S.P., Winchester,
Tenn., on The Catholic Church, the Guardian of Society.
Ninth Weekf August 22-26, — Morning lectures by Professor Arthur F.
J. Remy, Ph.D., Columbia University. Subject: Studies in Comparative
Literature, i. The Legend of Tannhauser. 2. The Legend of the Wan-
dering Jew. 3. The Troubadours and Minnesingers. 4. The Keltic Ele-
ment in the Literature of Europe. 5. Oriental Influence on European
Literature.
Evening lectures on Travels in the United States by Professor James J.
Monaghan.
Tenth Week, August 2g-September 2, — Morning lectures by James J.
Walsh, M.D., LL.D., Fordham University. Subject: The Medical Pro-
fession in Relation to Human Progress.
Evening Song Recitals by Marie Narelle from Australia.
Eleventh Week, September 5-7. — Convention of the Catholic Young
Men's National Union. The International Eucharistit Congress will open in
the city of Montreal Tuesday, September 6, with a Solemn Reception of the
Cardinal Legate, and will be continued until Sunday, September ix, inclu-
sive. Many of the distinguished visitors are expected at Cliff Haven during
the preceding week.
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430 WITH OUR READERS [June,
THE May number of The Cathoi^ic World contained the follow-
ing comment on the Roosevelt- Vatican incident :
The irony of fate would seem to have decreed that the illustrious Amer-
ican whom the Holy Father would desire to welcome, the one whom his
Catholic fellow-citizens would prefer to see honored by the Holy Father,
should fail to obtain what has been freely accorded to so many undis-
tinguished Americans. The irony is deepened when Mr. Rooserelt's pub-
lished cablegrams, in which the audience was requested, show U9» how
desirous he was of meeting Pius X. Our late President has certainly de-
served well of the CathoKc Church ; not because he has granted to Catholics
any special favor, for that he has not done and could not do without contra-
vening his firmest principle ; but because, though he differs from us radically
in religious views, he has stood with us squarely on the broad ground of our
common American citizenship. He has not been afraid to act on the
principle that we are as fully entitled to our rights and to recognition as any
other American citizens. Decided in his own opinions, no doubt, he is yet
singularly free from any taint of bigotry — he is honored and esteemed by
Catholics of every shade of political belief. Whether or not he was justified
in his interpretation ot Bishop Kennedy's message, all sensible men perceive
that he merely followed his own sense of honor ; and Catholics are as con-
vinced that he acted without the slightest feeling of hostility or disrespect
towards the Holy Father as they are certain that Pius X. desired to do what-
ever he could in conscience to grant an audience to this distinguished man
whom he honored for his own character and for the high office he had filled
so illustriously. That desire was defeated by a conspiracy of circumstances,
to the great regret of the Holy Father and of the Cardinal Secretary of State.
The issue was unfortunate, and is deeply regretted by us all ; but no great
harm can come of it. Honest men will despise the effort of those who try to
make political capital out of it ; they may smile at them, too, for Mr. Roose-
velt has lost nothing by the incident. Though most Catholics, perhaps, be-
lieve he acted hastily, all recognize his honorable motive.
We reprint here the view of the incident which the Editor of The
Catholic World expressed at the time in the daily papers :
''In viewing the much-discussed matter of Mr. Roosevelt's failure to
visit the Pope, every honest American will give heed to Mr. Roosevelt's own
words in his cable message to the Outlook: 'The incident will|be treated in
a matter-of-course way as merely personal and, above all, as not warranting
the slightest exhibition of rancor or bitterness.'
"There can be no question of the love that the Holy Father bears our
country and our non*Catholic brethren. That love has been proven over
and over again in public act and document and in his cordial welcome of
thousands of non-Catholic Americans who have visited him in Rome. To
Leo XIII. Mr. Roosevelt, when President, sent a number of volumes contain-
ing the messages of the Presidents, and Leo XIII. sent in return a costly
mosaic picture of the Vatican. The present Pontiff has frequently ex-
pressed his admiration of American institutions.
" The Holy Father looked forward with pleasure to the expected visit of
Mr. Roosevelt. The court of the Vatican is a court, and as such is worthy
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I9IO.] n^iTJf Our readers 431
of respect. Like every courts it has its conditions^ which all visitors must
respect. These conditions are well known, and no prospective visitor —
even among the most notable sovereigns of the world — thinks of violating
them. If he does so he knows that he will not ^be received, and he knows
also that he will have no one but himself to blame. Only a few days since
the Imperial Chancellor of the Gerntan Empire took great care to observe the
proper etiquette, and the Kaiser himself, in his latest visit to Rome, observed
it also as a matter of courtesy.
** The Vatican expressed the great pleasure that it would take in wel-
coming Mr. Roosevelt, and, at the same time, kindly intimated that he
should give assurance that he would in no way violate the etiquette of the
court. Mr. Roosevelt was free to accept or reject the conditions. They
were in no way dishonorable to him ; in no way unworthy. He chose to
assert that he would accept no conditions — that he must be left free to do
absolutely as he liked. There was nothing left for the Vatican to do but to
refuse the audience. The same conditions apply to Mr. Roosevelt as to any
other man. Every American may rest assured that to refuse the audience
caused much pain and regret to the Holy Father, who had expressed his
delight at meeting Mr. Roosevelt.
''And it must be a cause of equal regret to every American that Mr.
Roosevelt did not see his way to accept conditions which the Vatican out
of self-respect had to lay down, and hear from the lips of the great ruler of
Christendom his words of love for America and its, people."
• • •
On May 7 the Boston Pilot published the following as part of an
editorial headed '' The Transcript's Mistake " :
Let us say right here that the sentiments expressed by The Catholic
World on this question remind us more of the timid shilly-shallying of half-
heartedness than the protest of a loyal-hearted Catholic. It states that '<no
great harm can come of the incident." Of course no harm can come to the
Vatican, but that is not on account oi any such defence as that of Thb
Catholic World, but because the Church has strong and loyal defenders
of her dignity and the dignity of the Holy See.
But great harm can come to Catholics by the weakening of the sense of
reverence for things that touch them deeply. The Catholic World
makes it apparent that it is appealing rather to non-Catholics than to strong,
loyal Catholics. That is not the way to convert non-Catholics, but rather to
lead them to despise us. • . • It would be well if The Catholic World
would not be so solicitous of the commendations of its non-Catholic readers
and think more of the straight stand that a real and true Catholic periodical
is bound In duty to take.
• • •
We leave the issue, if there be any issue, to the judgment of the
Catholic public.
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Tk4 AUhtmisfs Secret. By Isabel Cecilia Williams. Price 85 cents postpaid.
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By Bishop Colton. A Bit of Old Ivory ; and Other Stories, Price $z .25. The Raccolta.
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Bishop Potter, The People's Friend. By H. A. Keyser.
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History, Vol. I. Bv Dr. F. X. Funk. Price $2.75 net. The Formation of Character %
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. JULY, 1910. No. 544.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CHINA.
BY ELLIS SCHREIBER.
|HE eyangelization of the vast empire of China
has loBg held a prominent place in the history
of missionary labors in the East. Tradition al-
leges that the Apostle Thomas journeyed thither
to preach the Gospel, and it appears certain
that the Nestorians carried on missions in China in the sixth
and seventh centuries with some success, the protection of the
Emperor being extended to them. On the withdrawal of the
imperial favor, however, this heretical form of Christianity died
out. Somewhat later China seems to h^ve again been the
scene of missionary effort, as the tablet of Sian-fu, a stone
discovered in 1625, dated 781, bears an inscription to the
effect that in the eighth century missionaries from the West
were propagating the Christian religion in the country.
It was the determination of that greatest of. missionaries, St
Francis Xavier, after the completion of his work in Japan, to
introduce Christianity into China, an attempt long resisted by
the Portugese authorities in Goa and elsewhere, and finally
frustrated by the impediments thrown by them in the way.
Hardly had Xavier made known his purpose when he was met
by the opposition and even persecution of Alvarez, the resi-
dent at Malacca and former friend of the saint, who became
the inveterate opponent of his missionary expedition. Har-
assed and worn out, the saint died when he was at the point
of realizing the object of his ambition. He bequeathed, how-
ever, his double spirit to Father Matteo Ricci, SJ., who ar-
Copyright. 1910. The Missionary Society op St. Paul the Apostle
IN THE State of New York.
VOL XCI.— 28
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434 ^no^ Cathouc Church in China [July,
rived about thirty years later at Macao, where several priests
from Portugal were already established with a view of minis-
tering to the needs of the residents, and converting, if possi-
ble, such natives as came in contact with them. The Fran-
ciscans, Dominicans, and other orders had, in the meantime,
not neglected this field of tabor, despite the determined oppo-
sition of the traders, especially the Portugese, who regarded
with the liveliest apprehension the introduction of missionary
work which might, from the intimacy with which religious
and political life were interwoven in China, cause complica-
tions of a serious character, fatal to the interests of commerce,
and perhaps end in their exclusion from the empire.
Father Ricci is described as ''a man of great scientific at-
tainments, of invincible perseverance, of varied resource, and
of winning manners, maintaining, with all these gifts, a single
eye to the conversion of the Chinese, the bringing of the
people of all ranks to the Christian faith." He and his com-
panion, Father Ruggiero, found it difficult to obtain a footing,
and they worked their way up to the capital, where Ricci was
favorably received by the Emperor, and was elevated by him
to a high social rank.
Daring the period which elapsed before, and that which
immediately succeeded, his death in 1610, the course of the
mission progressed steadily, until in 1645 controversy arose
respecting the degree of toleration which was to be extended
to the ceremonial and political usages of the converts, and
also as to the term to be employed to signify the true God.
An appeal was made to the Propaganda in regard to these
questions; the decision given was that the presence of Chris-
tians in the idols' temples and the sacrifices to Confucius
therein were condemned; also the ancestral worship practised
by the Chinese. At a later period another appeal to Rome
was made by the Jesuits ; their contention being that the wor-
ship of Confucius was of a civil character, and that of ances-
tors was merely homage, not real worship, and could, there-
fore, be practised without injury to the Christian faith. After
a lengthy investigation of the questions in dispute, the Pope
decreed that all participation of Christian converts in such rites
was to be prohibited; and the word Tien Chu^Xo signify God,
was approved of, in contradistinction to the term Tien (the
Supreme Emperor). Meanwhile recurrence had been had to
the Chinese Emperor, who gave a contrary verdict. The mis-
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I9IO.] THE Catholic Church in China 435
sionariesy of coursei obeyed the Pope, and this setting aside
of the authority of their Emperor incensed the Chinese to snch
a degree that an edict was issued forbidding the propagation
of Catholicism in the country, and only allowing a few mission-
aries to remain who were required for scientific purposes in
Peking. Some obeyed the edict requiring them to depart, but
others remained, carrying on their work in secret.
In writing about 1724 Captain Brinkley remarks (C*^ma, //^
History ^ Arts^ and Literaturg^Brinklty, Vol. XI., p. 140, 1904):
''At no time were there fewer than forty priests in the coun-
try. The presence of these men must have been known to
thousands upon thousands of people outside the circle of their
converts. In traveling to and from their stations, in their re-
ligious ministrations, in their daily lives, however secluded, it
is impossible that their identity can have been concealed.
Yet, with exceptions so rare as to prove the rule, the people
never betrayed them. On the part of their converts fidelity
might have been expected. But that men and women whom
they called 'pagans' should have refrained from betraying
them, indicates a spirit very different to the bitter anti-foreign
sentiment now shown by the Chinese nation. The fact already
deduced from independent records is thus strongly confirmed,
that outside the narrow areas where the abuses of medieval
trade and the violence of medieval traders created an atmos-
phere of passion, no animosity was harbored against foreign-
ers." And speaking of a later period, the same writer says
that ''while the people in and about Canton and Macao were
calling foreigners 'devils,' and stoning or bambooing them
whenever opportunity offered, the people of districts in the
interior treated them with courtesy, respect, and even friend-
ship." The Chinese are a proud people, who have always en-
tertained a supreme contempt for every other country and
nation. Their inborn hatred of foreigners has been roused
and intensified by the high-handed, offensive, and cruel con-
duct of the European traders who came to their ports.
Disguised as natives, the priests penetrated into the inter-
ior in order to disassociate themselves from the mercantile
classes of foreigners, and there worked unobtrusively and in-
conspicuously at their varicrus stations, living a life of truly
apostolic poverty. In hardly any instance has a traveler
reached a point where he has not found that a member of the
Catholic clergy had gone before him.
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436 THE CATHOUC CHURCH IN CHINA [July,
''The missionary in China/' it has been said, ''must de-
nationalize himself/' and this the Catholic priest does. People
at home have little idea oi the sacrifices men of cnltnre and
refinement, often of noble birth, make for the furtherance of
Christianity, and the hardships and privations they heroically
endure. Travelers tell of one who, though comparatively young,
falls a victim to starvation and fever; of another who has seen
no European, except perhaps a fellow-priest at long intervals,
for the space of thirty years; of a third driven from his sta-
tion and forced to fly for his life. The anguish of such absolute
loneliness and isolation alone would be intolerable without the
sustaining power of divine grace. European customs, habits,
luxuries, are all abandoned from the moment they set foot on
the shores of China; parents, friends, and home are in many
cases heard of no more, and they know that their graves will
be far away from the land of their birth. When they left la
belU France they left it without any hope of return." No work
is too hard for them, no living too poor; they are not deterred
by epidemic of sickness or threatened massacre; they have
simply devoted themselves to the propagation of the faith and
nothing can turn them from their purpose. They wear the
dress of the Chinese, eat their food, conform to their customs
and habits, shave their heads, and adapt the pig-tail, identify
themselves with the natives as far as possible. ''The great
mortality amongst the missionaries," says a writer on China,
" cannot be attributed to the climate, for diplomats and consuls
bear their residence in China well enough ; it is to be explained
by the hard lives they lead, especially the Chinese food, the
want of medical help, and the privations of every kind to which
they are exposed; the indescribably filthy state of the towns
and houses, the lack of real privacy and quiet. In most in-
stances the missionary occupies a Chinese house, with mud
floor, a straw bed, paper windows, devoid of every kind of
comfort."
" I recollect one priest in a most remote village," writes
Mrs. Archibald Little in The Land of the Blue Gown (1902),
"showing me — half excusing himself, half proudly — his one
great luxury, a little window with glass panes he had put in
near his writing-table so as to write and read till later in the
evening. He showed me a set of photographs of his native
village in France, but I noticed that he dared not glance at
them himself while we were there. What this expatriation means
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I910.] THE CATHOUC CHURCH IN CHINA 437
to a Frenchman is enongh to indicate the immensity of the
sacrifice he yolantarily makes without any expectation of ever
again re- visiting his beloved country. Yet not a single French-
man has ever left this post. ' Pas un / Ni pour cause de maU
adiiSf ni pour affaires parttculieres^ ni pout alter a Peking. Pas
un seul^ says the Procureur somewhat prondly/'
In i824i under pressure from foreign Powers, an Imperial
edict was promulgated granting entire toleration of Christianity
throughout the Empire. By this act Christianity was placed
on a different plane from the other foreign religionsi Buddhism
and Mohammedanism, to which China of its own accord ex-
tended complete toleration. Christianity is, therefore, associ-
ated in the minds of the Chinese with the humiliation of the
Empire — coercion on the part of the hated foreigner— a calam-
ity yet fresh in the memory of the present generation.
Subsequently to the war carried on in China by the English
in i860, in which France joined on account of the torture and
beheading of one of her missionaries in Kwangsi, a treaty was
concluded in which it was agreed that the religious and char*
itable institutions, the churches, colleges, cemeteries, houses,
and all other possessions confiscated from the Christians during
the persecution of 1724, should be restored; and the protection
of foreign Christians in China was formally assumed by the
French, to whom thus belongs the honor of inaugurating the
new era of religion in that country. Unhappily the Catholic
Church has, in consequence, been associated with what appears
the aggressive policy of France, a. power which is suspected
by the natives of employing the missionaries as political and
even military spies. ''After the cross, the sword; first the
missionaries, then the gun-boat, then the land- grabbing; such
is the process of events in the Chinese mind,'* says one who
wrote in 1901.
It is, indeed, deeply to be deplored that the outcome of the
intercourse of the Christian nations with China should have
been that, as lately as the opening years of the present century,
she stored up a fund of the deepest resentment towards them ;
and that during that intercourse missionaries— those more es*
pecially of the Catholic Church, because under French protec-
ti<m — should be regarded with distrust and hatred ; not because
they taught the '' worship of the Lord of Heaven '' (the Catho-
lic Faith), to show the Chinese how to attain to the "better
land'' in the next world; but because they were the brethren
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438 THE CATHOUC CHURCH IN CHINA [Jolyi
of the '* foreign devils/' only anxious to deprive tliem of the
land and the wealth they possess in the present one.
A memorial drawn up in 1905 shows clearly that the deep-
est cause of aversion to Christianity is not the religion as such
but its close connection with the so-called Protective Powers.
That China distrusts them, and returns hatred and aversion for
their violent encroachment upon her most intimate domestic
affairs is not to be wondered at in so proud and exclusive a
nation. When she sees that the mission has recourse to the
armed force of Protective Powers, the distrust and aversion are
extended to the Church and Mission also, and since the edict
of toleratioui fear of foreign aggression has led to violent out-
breaks of hostility and terrible persecution of missionaries and
Christian converts with every fresh scare of interierence and
encroachment on the part of foreigners. Perhaps, also, the
consciousness of having the political Protective Power behind
them makes some missionaries — Protestants chiefly— overlook
certain delicate considerations in their dealings with the native
authorities, the neglect of which wounds beyond measure the
Chinese, who in this respect are very sensitive. ''Hence, in
the edict of toleration, proclaimed in 1886, the Imperial Gov-
ernment deems it necessary to state that Chinamen who may
embrace Christianity are entitled to protection from their own
Government, to which alone they owe obedience. The pro-
mulgation of this edict followed immediately upon the decision
of the Pope to send a Papal Legate to the Court of Peking, to
represent him as the sole foreign power interested in the Chi-
nese Roman Catholics, thereby disclaiming all political protec-
tion from France."
Prior to this, the same principle had already been enunci-
ated by a French missionary, P&re Louvet, who says: "The
efforts of the missionaries must be directed to keeping their
work clear of politics. From this point of view I, for one, can
only deplore the intervention of the "European Powers."
As an eminent expert in Chinese affairs, P&re Joseph Gonnet,
S.J., insisted decades ago, "the models, even in this respect,
must be the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, who coniormed in every possible way— in language,
dress, manners, customs, forms of social intercourse, etiquette—
to the peculiarities of the Chinese, and spared their national
susceptibilities with punctilious care."
"The French hostilities of 1883 had, moreover, some effect,'*
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19 lo.] THE Catholic Church in China 439
we learn from Professor Parker, "in concentrating upon the
Roman Catholics most of the odium which was formerly shared
in equal measure by Protestants/'
The first Protestant missionary to China was the Reverend
Robert Morrison, who arrived in 1807. There was so strong a
feeling against all Europeans that he was unable to carry on
evangelistic work and occupied himself with translating the
Bible into Chinese. The first version of the Gospels was made
by an unknown Catholic missionary as early as the seven-
teenth century, and this Mr. Morrison used as the basis of his
translation of the New Testament. Later on, when English
missionaries, together with some American ones, gained a
footing in Macao, and alter the Nanking Treaty of 1842,
when Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, were able to
penetrate into the interior, their great and primary object was
to effect indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures, sending
out agents to scatter them broadcast among a people to whom,
without explanation or elucidation, they were simply unintel-
ligible. Nay more, since Christian ideas cannot well find terms
in the Chinese language to convey them aright, and the allu-
sions to rites and customs diametrically opposed to those of
the Chinese gave rise to scandal and persecution, the sacred
books were either flung aside in contempt, or were put to the
use of wrapping up parcels or making the soles of boots and
shoes. Thus it became apparent, even to those who distributed
them, that the Scriptures were useless as a means of convey-
ing revealed truth to the Chinese, and served rather to retard
the progress of Christianity amongst them. Moreover, the
different terms adopted to designate the one true God in liter-
ature and preaching — ^the Jesuits employing Tien Chu (Lord of
Heaven), the American Protestants Chen Shen (True Spirit),
the English Shang-ti (Supreme Lord) — confused and bewildered
the natives; yet more so the multiplicity of sects and their
internecine warfare. la 1906 there were no less than eighty-
two distinct societies of divers creeds and practice working in
China, and all mutually antagonistic. In one matter they were
united; in hostility to the Catholic Church. The Hie of the
Protestant missionary also brings religion into contempt. So-
cial and family cares occupy his attention to the exclusion of
weightier matters, as a writer ironically remarks: ''The birth
of a babe excites more interest than the conversion of a
heathen.*' The married clergyman cannot be expected to in-
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440 7HE Catholic Church in China [July,
habit a native house, to sit on the floor, sleep on a mat, eat
from a plate of plantain leaves, and dispense with the books,
furniture, musical instruments of his country: there is little
about him of the grace of self-denial and self-sacrifice, which
the Chinaman appreciates. Every great religious teacher in
the East who has made his mark has been a rigid ascetic, and
celibacy constitutes an important element of self-sacrifice in the
eyes of the Chinese. '' A priest,*' they have been heard to say,
'* and yet married I " The Protestant missionary is, moreover,
often a man of low birth and narrow horizon, who displays
intolerant scorn of native customs and superstitions, as if he
imagined the evangelization of an ancient, highly cultivated
race was to be effected by imperious commands instead of
tactful prudence and sympathy. " I will have no convert who
permits his wife to cramp her feet,'* said one; and this speech
illustrates the mental attitude of the majority.
All this tends to enhance the contempt and hatred felt for
the foreigner; but the greatest, most formidable impediment
to the success of the Catholic missionary Is the unchristian
lives of the European traders and military officers. The Chi-
nese, irritated by the offensive airs of patronage and superi-
ority assumed by these unwelcome invaders of their country,
exasperated by inexcusable acts of high-handed violence, In^
justice, and wrong, see in our efforts to gain a commercial
footing in China nothing but a lust of gain, a determination
to exploit the resources of the country for their own enrich-
ment. As late as 1867 excesses of the most ruthless kind
were perpetrated in abundance: the Portuguese initiated these
villainous proceedings and other nations followed. The inter-
course with these people can scarcely convince the Chinese of
the doctrines they profess, l^ it has been such,*' says a writer
on the subject, '' as to store up a fund of the deepest resent-
ment towards them.'* Can they be expected to feel respect
for the Christianity which their arrogant oppressors profess,
by the principles of which they claim to be guided, and which
so many of their compatriots have come to teach? ''Nay
more," as the Rev. A. Williamson, a Protestant missionary,
observes, ''the Chinese are learning evil faster than they are
learning good. They are adding foreign vices to their own,
aping foreign free-living and evil habits; in and around our
centres of commerce they are less honest, less moral, less re-
ceptive to divine truth than formerly by a long way. From
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I9IO.] The Catholic Church in China 441
contact with draoken sailors, swearing sea-captains, and nn-
scrupalous traders they constantly learn new lessons in the
school of duplicity and immorality. Western civilization is
proving no blessing to the Chinese." And speaking of official
and military residents Major Knollys (English Life in China,
i88s) remarks: ''The majority of our countrymen seem to have
left their religion behind them in England."
The fact that the Chinese visit on the head of the Catholic
missionaries the offences of the English and Americans, ac-
counts for the frequent risings of the natives against them. In
1891 a serious riot took place in I-chang, when the Jesuit
mission was burned and the graves violated; two Chinese
Sisters connected with the mission were accused of drugging
the children, in order to stupify them and take away speech
and hearing, that they might steal them and send them to
Shanghai. The rioters destroyed everything of a foreign nature
on which they could lay their hands.
In 1895 there were riots in Sz*Ch'wan. The Catholic
bishop, after rough handling from the mob, managed to escape.
Over forty stations were destroyed in that province, the mis-
sionaries having to fly over mountain passes and untrodden
paths to find a refuge. " The history of the Tz-Coo Mission,"
says Mr. Cooper (Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, 1871)
"may, from the date of its establishment, be traced in the
blood of numbers of brave and noble-minded priests, who have
fallen by poison or the knife in the cause of their religion."
During the Tibetan revolt in 1905 four French priests were
murdered.
'' The establishment of an orphanage," says Sir H. R.Douglas
(Europe and the Fat East, 1904, pp. 134-5), "under the care
of the Sisters of Mercy at Tientsin, a port opened in 1858 to
foreign trade, had aroused considerable ill-will on the part of
the people, who credited the Sisters with the horrors at times
charged against the missionaries. In 1871 a peculiarly fatal
epidemic broke out in the orphanage, and the rumor spread
abroad that the Sisters were murdering their charges whole-
sale. An angry mob surrounded the house and demanded
admission. The Sisters invited five individuals to enter and
inspect the premises. At an ill moment the French Consul
drove the inspectors out of the building, with the result that
he and his clerk were beaten to death. The infuriated mob
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442 THE CATHOUC CHURCH IN CHINA [July,:
set fire to the cathedral before wreaking their vengeance oa
the Sisters, eight of whom were mnrdered; their Superior
was boand to a post, and the assailants inflicted on her all
the tortures in which they are so terribly skilled, finally cutting
her body into small pieces. The remaining Sisters were first
outraged, then murdered, their home and church set on fire,
and their mangled bodies thrown into the flames/'
The story of the Boxer rising in 1900 is too well known
to need repetition here. It represented the wrath and hatred
of sixty years' growth.
The habit of concealment is natural to the Chinese, and
grievances may exist and grow unsuspected beneath their blank,
expressionless faces, until some trifle lets loose the storm of
fury, fed by a thousand mutual misunderstandings and genuine
causes of complaint. Thus it was in 1900. ^' I think," said
Mgr. Favier (whose Vicariate was Pe Tche*li, in which Peking
is situated) to Mrs. Archibald Little,t " 12,000 Christians lost
their lives in that rising ; three of our European, four Chinese,
priests, and many of our Sisters. One priest hung on a cruci-
fix, nailed, for three days before he died.'' Mgr. Hamer, Vicar-
Apostolic of Mongolia, was delivered over to the mercy of the
soldiers, who took him for three days in the streets, every-
body being at liberty to torture him. All his hair was pulled
out, his nose, fingers, and ears cut off. After this they
wrapped him in stuff soaked in oil, and hanging him head
downwards, set fire to his feet. His heart was eaten by two
beggars." Thirty-four hundred native Christians were beseiged
in the cathedral and reduced to the starvation point; yet not one
evinced the slightest disposition to yield to reiterated invita-
tions to surrender.
The orphanages, or more strictly asylums, of which there
are sometimes six or seven in a single mission, managed by
the members of different religious orders, are for the reception
of infants who would otherwise be destroyed. Although infanti-
cide is forbidden by the law, thousands of newly-born babes^
almost exclusively girls^are either smothered by their parents
or exposed in the streets and waysides to perish. Women un-
blushingly own to having killed four or five of their offspring,
or even to having buried them alive.
' A Roman Catholic priest, who had lived twenty-one yeara
t Round About Uy Pokiui Gardiu, 1905, p. zt.
If
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I9IO.] THE Catholic Church in China 445.
in Peking, told me/' writes Miss Fielde {Pagoda Shadows^ 1890;
Adele Fielde) '' that daring the year 1882 seven hundred little
castaway girls had beep gathered np alive from the rats and
pits of the street, and brought in by the messengers sent oat
on sach service from the Roman Catholic Foundling Asylum
of that city ; and that during the previous ten years over eight
thousand infants had been thus found and sheltered by the
same institution/*
Baron Von Htibner, writing in 1871 {A Ramble Round the
World. Translated by Lady Herbert, Vol. II., p. 197), speaks
thus of his visit to one of these houses. ''We were taken to
the orphanage, the Salle d*asile of the babies brought to the
Sisters by their families or picked up in the street These
poor little creatures, all girls, who when they arrive are just
bundles of skin and bone, devoured by vermin, and generally
full of disease and wounds, are baptized, clothed, their wounds
dressed, and if they survive, brought up in this house, and
married to their co-religionists, or else placed as servants in
Christian families. We went into one of the large rooms. It
was spacious, beautifully clean, and well ventilated. All along
the walls are ranged cradles, each containing two children.
A number of Sisters, leaning over them, were tending them
with the utmost care. Only yesterday these poor little crea-
tures were thrown out on a dungheap, left to be devoured by
pigs, or to expire in a slow and horrible agony; to-day they
have found mothers, who, to save them, have come from the
uttermost parts of the earth on the wings of God-like charity."
The girls remain in the orphanages until their eighteenth
or twentieth year. The majority marry, and become model
wives and mothers, edifying all who come in contact with them,
and handing down to their children the virtues acquired during
their training by the Sisters. Bridegrooms are not wanting for
them, because the families of converts have more boys than
girls. A small number prefer to remain unmarried, to devote
themselves to the care of the children in the orphanage, and
when more advanced in age to assist poor and sick women and
baptize dying children.
Yet the Sisters — ''foreign barbarians'' — who carry on this
good work are accused of kidnapping young children to take out
their hearts and eyes for sale to foreign merchants to make
chemicals and medicines (Human Publications. Translated 1892).
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444 T^^ CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CHINA [July.
Nor are these sttspicions confined to the lower orders. We
are told that ** the famous General 'Tseng Kwo^Fan was talking
one day with an English doctor on the subject of this babies*
eyes fraud, when he suddenly said : ' It is of no use to deny
it, for I have some of the dried specimens/ and he pulled out
a packet of gelatine capsules used for covering castor-oil and
other nauseous drugs/'
All this hatred, distrust, and persecution is the Nemesis of
a long course of oppression and unscrupulous injustice on the
part of Western nations, actuated only by the desire of tem-
poral advantage.
Many pages might be filled with the testimony of non-
Catholics to the work of our missionaries in China. We give
the two following. Sir Robert Hart, speaking at Leeds, says:
''The ability, energy, self-denial of the Roman Catholic mis-
sionaries demands our hearty admiration and attracts our sym-
pathy. They have done a great work both in spreading the
knowledge of one God and Savior and in teaching every kind
of useful knowledge.*' ''The Jesuits," says Professor Parker,
"who compel veneration and respect in China by the sheer
force of their erudition and self-denial, have the good sense to
discern that the Chinese intellect demands their very best men*
In the province of Kiangnan alone they have nearly four hun-
dred priests, seminaries, schools, orphanages, two observator-
ies, a natural history museum, a printing press, workrooms,
and workshops.'' "The Franciscans," writes Mr. Consul Ala-
baster, in his report on the trade of Hankow for 1883, "con-
fine their chief operations to the neighborhood of the port,
where they now have a strong position ; the prudence of their
directors, their noble charities avoiding, on the one hand, sources
of irritation and winning for them the respect and kindly feel-
ing both of authorities and people."
The number of Catholic priests in China, as given by Fa-
ther de Moidrey, SJ., in his report for 1909, is as follows:
Bishops, 45 ; Priests, European (including about five Americans),
If 379 ; Priests, Chinese, 63 1. The following statistics on Catholic
Missions are given by Hilari6n Gil : Missions, 44 ; Seminarists,
1,215; European Lay Brothers, 229 ; Native Lay Brothers, 130;
European Nuns, 558; Chinese Nuns, 1,328.*
* The Catholic Mind, April 8, zqzo.
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A DYING MAN'S DIARY.
EDITED BY W. S. LILLY.
11.
first thought, when I fally recovered conscioiiff*
neaa, was: Would to God that I had never woke 1
There has been, ever since I knew my fate,
something hideous about the meeting with each
succeeding day. Since my engagement to Bea-
trice her daily letter had been my first care, and my man had
been in the habit of bringing it to me immediately on the
arrival of the post This morning I found it by my bedside.
Haydyn afterwards told me he had brought it as usual at
eight o'clock but was deterred from waking me, I was so sound
asleep and looked so worn and ill. Poor little letter, I thought
as I broke the seal ; the last gleam of sunshine for my heart ;
the last word of happiness I shall ever listen to. It was as
all her letters have been : a simple reflection of her pure, true
soul. My eyes began to fill as I read over the tender, deli-
cate words. I could picture her so well as she wrote it, her
slight, graceful figure bending over the writing desk I had given
her, the smile and blush which succeeded each other on her
face, her fits of sweet musing between the sentences, for she
had told me, half-penitently, how she loved to linger out this
occupation and to fill the morning sometimes with the task of
half an hour. Then I thought of her as she would be at that
moment, pale and terror struck, all the sunlight faded from
her bright face, holding my last letter in her trembling hands.
My man came in, and I hid my face in the pillows, for I did
not wish him to see it then. He has lived with me ever since
I left Oxford, has traveled with me many thousand miles,
and nursed me in more than one illness. And his faithful
sagacity divined that something was amiss. He fidgeted about
the room for some minutes; and then broke out: ''I hope you
are not ill this morning, sir." I said: ''No, thank you; but
I am rather tired; I was rather late last night*' He asked
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446 A DYING MAN'S DIARY IJulyt
if he might bring me a cup of tea, to which I assented, glad
to get him oot of the room. As soon as the door dosed, I
got up and bathed my face. Why not let him know? I
thought. He must know soon ; and of what use to put it off ?
Bat then I reflected, that I had better mature my plans first.
Determine how and where to spend the short time which re-
mained to me; then break to him my secret A few months
— it may be weeks — and more than a fortnight has gone I I
have no time to lose. I remembered, too, that I had told a
dozen men last night; an additional reason for speedily resolv-
ing when and how my short course was to be run.
Haydyn entered with the tea, and drawing attention to a
pile of gold which lay on the mantel-piece, said: ''I found
this in your pocket this morning, sir/' I had forgotten my
winnings; and now the question was what to do with them.
Among the follies and vices of my youth, not free from stains,
gambling was not one. For years I had not touched a card;
and in the days when I used to play occasionally my gains
had been so small and unfrequent as never to embarrass me.
Now there was this considerable sum before me which I had
not wanted to win; and did not think of keeping. To return
it to the men from whom I had won it was out of the ques-
tion. I was at a loss for some minutes what to do with it
At last I thought of the Mission Church, with its hard worked
clergy and poor congregation. Yes ; there was the solution of
the difficulty. I would give it to that work which was sacred
to me from its slight association with her. I told Haydyn to
put the money in a bag and take it to one of the clergy of
the church. I sent with it this note.
''The donor wishes this money to be employed for pious
and charitable uses, at the discretion of the clergy of St. — —
Mission Chapel. He is particularly anxious that his name may
not be known, and desires that no inquiries may be made re-
garding him." I gave this to Haydyn to read, reiterating to
him my desire to remain anonymous. In the course of a few
hours he returned, bringing me this letter of acknowledgment
from the Incumbent of the Church:
** Sir : Allow me, on behalf of myself and my colleagues,
to thank you for the donation of £l^^ lo o, which we have
this morning received. We think we shall best fulfill the
directions you have given regarding its employment, if we de-
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I9ia] A DYING MAN'S DIARY 447
vote one-half to the poor ; and one-half to the services of the
Church. I trust you will allow me to add that we thank God
for patting it into yoor heart to come to our assistance. The
distress in this district from sickness, want, and vice is always
great ; and although the services of one of the mission priests,
of all the choir, and of the organist, are gratuitously given,
we have incurred a debt for those small expenses necessarily
attending our ministry, which, without this providential supply,
we should not have known how to liquidate. Your wish to
remain anonymous will, of course, be respected by us; but in
our solemn acts of intercession with Him from Whom no
secrets are hid you will not be forgotten. Finally, I trust you
will permit me to say that if, at any time, our office and
ministry should be needed by you, we trust you will not for-
get that you have a claim on us of which we shall be gladly
reminded/' There was something about this letter which
struck me as familiar and I asked Haydyn what the clergy-
man who had given it to him was like. From his description
I thought the writer must have been the man whom I heard
preach last night. And there is something in the tone of the
letter which recalls his sermon to me.
And now let me think of my brief future. I have never
kept a diary or been accustomed to record my own thoughts
and feelings, except in the few notices of them which might
find their way into my letters to my few correspondents. But
it has been a relief to me since I began to write these sheets,
I feel less alone with my terrible secret since I have en-
trusted it to these mute confidants. I think I shall persevere
with it This record of what I have suffered will have an in-
terest for one or two when I am gone. What to do? One
thing only seems clear to me. I must not see her except once,
perhaps at the very last, if I am to play my short part man-
fully. I shall better reconcile myself to the thought of losing
her, if I thus anticipate the separation. And it will be better
for her ; I know her heart is mine, and the sight of me, sink-
ing day by day, would wring it as nothing else can. But the
temptation to go to her will be very strong at times; and
perhaps my will may weaken as my physical strength declines.
I think it will be safest for me to leave England. Yes; that
will be best I will go to Italy. My brother Henry, I know,
will come out with me and I ought to be with him. I should
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443 A DYING MAN'S DIARY [July,
like before I die to see the grave of the poet whose namet
like mine, was writ in water ; and to stand by the spot where
the heart of Shelley lies. Perhaps, too, among the desolate
ruins of the Imperial City, the dust and embers of a dead
world, I may learn the pettiness of my own griefs; standing
on the land of the stern old Roman philosopher I may, per-
haps, catch something of his spirit and learn to estimate justly
the insignificance of my worthless life. And yet it is not
worthless, for it is consecrated to her. If it were not for that I
December 30.
This morning I saw her brother. I was sitting over my
fire, my face buried in my hands, a position in which I pass
many hours daily, thinking. There was a knock at my door
and Charles B-^— came in. I ought to have expected him,
for I had asked her to send him to me; but I had forgotten
it, and I started in surprise when I saw him. He wrung my
hand and stood silent for a long time, turning his face to the
fire. I was very calm; sorrow for his distress, I think, was
the uppermost feeling in my mind. At last he broke out with
a sob : ^* God help you, old fellow I I don*t know what to
say to you." I said: ''Sit down, Charles, and tell me about
her. There is not much to be said about me. I have had
time to think it over, and I hope I shall bear it like a man.
But tell me about her." He sat down and it was some min-
utes before he could trust himself to speak. I poured him
out a liqueur glass of brandy and made him drink it. Then
I said again: ''Don't think about me, Charles, but about her.
We must do all we can to help her bear it. She showed you
my letter?'' "Yes''; he replied, "I read it yesterday. She
got it as usual, at about ten o'clock, and went up to her own
room to read it. At luncheon time she had not come down,
and we sent up for her; when her maid came into the room
looking very frightened, and told us she feared her mistress
was ill. She was deadly pale, the girl said, and was sitting
before her toilet table looking at a letter. I rushed up to her
room, and found her as the maid had told me. I took her
hand and asked her what was the matter. She did not answer
me for a minute; and when I repeated my question she put
your letter before me. She watched me narrowly as I read it.
I suppose my face must have shown how shocked I was; for
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN^S DIARY 449
before I had finished it she cried, in a tone I shall never for* .
get: 'It is true, then/ and fainted away. It was a very long
time before she recovered consciousness; and then she was in
a high fever. We got her to bed, where she has been ever
since, my mother watching over her. She does nothing but
moan and murmur your name, poor child/'
I heard him in silence. Then I said : '^ Have you told me
all?'' *'Yes"; he replied, ''all; the doctor has been to see
her three times. He says there is no occasion for alarm; be
tells us to keep her perfectly quiet and make her take a little
nourishment from time to time, and leave the rest to nature."
We did not talk much more. My mind was full of the sad*
dest thoughts. I tried to think the worst was over for her;
but I knew that the long days of bitter, hopeless anguish
which awaited her would be far harder to bear than that first
outburst of passionate grief. Charles B spoke a few dis-
connected words of sympathy. I wrung his hand, but found
nothing to say in reply to them. At last his presence grew
intolerable to me; and I asked him to leave me and go to
her. "You may be of use there," I added, "and you will
telegraph to me this evening about her/' He promised to do
so, and to conceal nothing. When he had quitted the room,
I locked the door and threw myself on my knees in a passion
of weeping : " O God I help her to bear it," I said over and
over again. At last the evening closed in. Haydyn came for
orders. I unlocked the door, glad that the darkness concealed
my face, dismissed him, lighted my candles, and sat down to
write this. He has just come again with this telegram from
Charles B : "B— « had a great fit of sobbing at four
o'clock which quite exhausted her ; she is now sleeping quietly.
The doctor says she will be better to-morrow. Will telegraph
again in the morning." Poor child, I would sacrifice half my
remaining days to procure her a quiet rest to-night. I could
not stay in my rooms, so I dressed and went to The Travel-
ers to dine.
December 31.
I dined at The Travelers last night, in a corner alone, and
was thoroughly exhausted when I came back here. I slept as
I have not done for three weeks. It was eight o'clock when
I woke this morning from dreams that were too happy. For
in sleep I am never conscious of my misery. I see her face
vou xci.— 29
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450 A DYING MAN'S DIARY [July,
much more plainly than I can in my waking moments, and see
it witbont a pang. I have found in my own experiences . the
truth of Sir Thomas Brown's saying that we with difficulty
recall to our minds the features of those we best love. Even
with her picture before me, I can but dimly image forth that
slight, small figure and that delicately shaped head, with its
massive coronet of golden hair. But in my sleep I touch her
hand and hear her soft low voice, and rejoice in the subtle
grace of her presence, as really as when I am with her in
the external world. And herein I try to take comfort. If,
as the poet teaches, death is sleep's brother, may not this
happiness be continued to me when I am gone hence? I
think I should be almost content to die, if I could be sure
that I should dream of her in my grave.
And she I what will become of her ? I have tried to think
that out. Poor child, her young, fresh heart is smitten down,
and pierced through and through. But will not time heal it?
God knows I trust it will without the least reserve of selfish
feeling. And yet it is hard to think of another being to her
all I have been — and more! Still I would have it so. Ah,
how cruel she would think it, if she could read these lines;
and yet, if you ever see these lines, dearest, believe me, my
heart was never more brimful of love for you than at the mo-
ment when I wrote them.
While I was dressing this morning I got this telegram from
Charles B-^— : ** Beatrice passed a good night. This morning
she is free from fever, though weak. She is very pale and
worn, but is quite composed. Dr. S— says she is much bet-
ter and wishes her to get up and go on the lawn for an hour
in the afternoon. Will telegraph again in the evening and will
come up to-morrow.'' I read the telegram with a feeling of
sad relief, and sat down to follow out the thoughts it aroused
in me. What a multitude of memories those words, ''the
lawn," presented to me: the rosebeds amongst which she loved
to linger; the rivulet which has so often reflected our forms,
blending them in a sweet indistinctness that I loved to watch,
and to point out to her as an emblem of our future lives; the
long, broad expanse of velvety turf which seemed to bound
in gladness under the pressure of her little feet; and, dearer
than all, the spreading beech, with its rustic seat, where we
have passed bo many hours reading or talking, or in sweet,
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN'S DIARY 451
silent thought, broken oftener by looks than words. One day
of transcendent happiness came back to me with startling viv-
idness. She had been reading to me from her copy of Petrarch.
I well remember the sonnet and how every fibre of my heart
thrilled as her clear, silvery voice brought out all the delicate
music of the verses, whose full meaning she hardly grasps per-
haps. Then, she confessed to me, with many a blush and pretty
hesitation, that she had herself written some sonnets: I must
not criticise them too harshly as, although she had lived so
long in Italy, she was not apt at acquiring languages. She
would not read them to me ; but she was curious to hear how
they sounded when read ; she had shown them to no one else;
I must read them aloud. How well I remember every line;
but I will not write them here — no eye but mine has seen them ;
the sweet melody of their rhythm, the simple grace and quiet
refinement of their thoughts, are pictures of that sweet soul
revealed only to me, and to be treasured up among my most
sacred possessions until death tears them from me« They pleased
her no longer, she said ; girlish fancies about birds and flowers
and pictures, when she had hardly known that there was any-
thing dearer in life. Did any man ever hear a sweeter confes-
sion from the woman he loved? I thought, too, of another
day, when in that same hallowed spot she put into my hand
a little locked volume, and its key. It was the book in which
she had recorded from time to time her thoughts since she was
sixteen, she told me. It had been to her as a confessor, she
said; all her grave faults had been faithfully written down;
all her troubles and all her happiness — no, not all her happi-
ness, she added softly; that would be impossible; no, I was
not to look at it then. I might keep it until — until she asked
me for it. She should not Write in it any more, for I had said
hard things about journals and diaries. How I have treasured
that book; how I have pondered over the sweet secrets of
that pure soul so unreservedly confided to me. As I thought
of these things I rose to draw it from its hiding place and my
eye fell upon the telegram which recalled me to the bitter
present. I had for a while forgotten the hours had crept on
with their relentless pace as I had been lost in my reveries,
the afternoon had come; and I pictured her, pale and worn,
the happy light extinct in her eyes, walking wearily on the
spot where my fancy had been dwelling. And that was what
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452 A DYING MAN'S DIARY [July,
our love had come to I Was it too great for earth ? So near
an approach to heavenly happiness as to provoke God's jeal-
ousy ? I took her book in my hands. The figure of the cross
on its cover seemed to answer my thought. But I could not
endure the answer. I laid it down with a bitter curse in my
heart, which only my reverence for her banished from my
tongue.
January i.
I went to bed last night thinking of the letter from Bea-
trice, which I felt sure the morning would bring me. I lay
awake for many hours in the dull pain of hopeless expecta-
tion. I thought of those words of Keats:
''To know the pain and feel it,
When there is none to heal it.
Nor numb&d sense to steal it I"
and the sad refrain kept echoing in my ears, banishing the
sleep which I badly needed. For already I beg^n to feel physi-
cally weaker; partly, no doubt, from the exhausting effects of
the violent emotions I have undergone during the last weeks ;
and partly, I think, from the progress of the disease. It was
almost morning when I sunk into a heavy, unrefreshlng slum-
ber ; and as the clock struck seven I awoke again ; I think no
hour ever felt so long to any man as the next Eight o'clock
struck and Haydyn came into my* room : I saw nothing but
the letter which he held in his hand. I turned it over and
over before I opened it. The address in her fine, delicately
shaped handwriting seemed strangely familiar, and yet when I
looked at it a little closer I thought I saw that her hand must
have trembled as she wrote it. At last I broke the seal and
read it. It was six hours ago : and it has hardly left my hand
since. Every word of it is graven on my memory as in letters
of fire. It gives me a strange pleasure to write it down here :
Noble heart I Did ever man win such a treasure before ?
''My own dearest Arthur: I have been very ill, else I
think I should have found it hard to obey you and to keep silence
for two days. Now I am strong enough to write, and, oh I
how much I have to say to youi But I am glad that I have
not been able to write before, for it has given me the more
time to think and to pray, with your last sad letter before me.
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I9IO.] A DYING MAN'S DIARY 453
It is very hard for me to lay aside the reserve of my sex and
say what I am going to say to you; and if I had not sought
for help, where I know it is always to be found, I could not
summon up courage to ask you what I am going to ask you.
But I have tried so hard to forget myself; not to think about
my loss, but about you only; and would He to Whom I have
looked for guidance, and Who has never failed those who put
their trust in Him, let me do wrong ? Arthur, dear Arthur, I
want our engagement not to be broken off. I want our wed-
ding on the day it was fixed for. I do not want to give you
up, darling, until death claims you for God. Why should not
you be mine till then? If, indeed, the doctors are right, and
He, in His infinite goodness, will call you so soon, may He
help us to bow our heads and worship I But why should I
not be your wife? Can any one be to you what I will be?
Is it not the special mission of us women to nurse the sick
and tend the djring ? Can there be any mitigation of my loss
like the thought that I have been with you all through your
weakness and sufferings? Ah, dearest Arthur, do think of
me ; if you are to be taken away from me, and as you say the
future we had planned is an empty dream, what comfort can
there be to me like the recollection that I have been all I can
to you; and have gone hand in hand with you to the very
margin of the great river which I hope it is not wrong to
wish to cross very soon after you? Ah, you won't deny me
this poor consolation : your name and the thought that I have
ministered to you, as no one but a wife can, for a few short
months. Think, too, dearest Arthur, is it not my duty ? I
would not ask you, if it were only my love for you which
prompted me. But would it not be base indeed of me to leave
you when you most want me? Ah, do not make me do
wrong; and it would be wrong and cowardly to desert you.
Dear, dear Arthur, do not reject me; I have tried to make
you know me fully since we were engaged ; and have you not
told me how astonished you were at the deep determination
which you found under my quiet manner? Will you not be-
lieve me then when I tell you that my future, so far as the
world goes, is inseparably bound up with you ? This is no
rhapsody of a girl of nineteen, but the quiet resolve of a wo*
man whose heart has been given to you once for all, and who
has oldened by many years in the last two days. If God takes
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4S4 A DYING MAN'S DIARY [July,
you away from mt^ I shall go into a sisterhood, and devote
my days until He calls me, too, to Him and His poor. Yes;
my future in the world is limited by yours. Why should we
not spend it together? If you think of me, will not the re-
membrance of our short wedded life be my most precious
treasure ? And if I think of you, who can be to you what I will
be?
''I have shown this to my mother. How good she has
been to me ! She said : ' I cannot say you are wrong, Bea-
trice.' No; I am not wrong; for I am not only following the
dictates of my heart, but I have had counsel of Him Who is
greater than our hearts and knoweth all things. Surely He
would not forsake me in this greatest need. Dearest Arthur,
do not let a false dignity stand in your way. Do you not love
me well enough to sacrifice that for me ? May God bless and
comfort you is my prayer day and night. Before I wrote
this letter I took up my prayer-book and I came upon these
words : ' My heart and my flesh faileth ; but God is the strength
of my heart and my portion forever.' Will you think of them
sometimes, for my sake? You are much wiser than I am^
and it is not for me to try to teach you, but when I read
those words I thought I must tell them to you. Dearest
Arthur, I must not sit at my desk any more to-day, for I am
not strong yet and my mother is very anxious about me. But
I must write one last word. I love you more than ever, for I
feel that yen have more need of my love now.'*
I was sitting thinking over this letter, in a passion of ten-
derness and regret, when Charles B-^— came in. Beatrice
was better, he told me ; she had been quite composed since she
wrote to me yesterday, and had returned to the usual habits
of her life. I asked him if he had heard anything of the con-
tents of the letter ? '^ No '' ; he replied. He could only guess
from a little talk he had had with Beatrice. " She had said
nothing but death should take you from her; that she should
be more to you instead of less now.'' I put the letter into his
hands and bade him read it. He read it twice in silence, and
then gave it back to me, saying only : '' Poor child 1 "
''Child!" I replied, ''she is a heroine of love and pity.
There is none like her, none." I do not think we spoke again
for half-an-hour. Then I said : " Charles, I must inflict another
wound upon that noble heart. I must write to-day — what a way
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I9IO.] A DYING MAlTS DIARY 455
of beginning the New Year — and tell her that I cannot accept
the sacrifice she would make. You must try to comfort her.
You must tell her that I should be base indeed and unworthy
of her, if I for one moment hesitated about that.'' He wrung
my hand and said: ''I know, I know; but it will be a terri-
ble blow to her.'' By a great effort I changed the conversa-
tion and began to tell him about my plans. Fortunately he
had recently returned from traveling in Italy, and could help
me to settle my route. When did I think of coming back ?
he asked. I told him not until I felt the end approaching
'' Then I should return to see her once more before I am laid
in the quiet country church where my ancestors are sleeping."
The conversation then flowed back to the old channel; and
gradually ceased. He went away at last promising, what I
know it was superfluous to ask, that he would be everything he
could be to Beatripe; and would write to me constantly of
her. And now I must write to her my last letter perhaps. I
shall tell her all that is in my heart about her if I can. Poor
heart — the cause of all my misery. How odd it feels now;
and I am so drowsy. I must put this aside and lie down.
(He never rose again. His faithful servant, coming into
the room, found him on the sofa, dead.)
NOTB.— This profoundly interesting document— " A Dying Man's Diary "—teaches, it
seems to us, a great Catholic lesson. A brave and honorable man, but one who was void of
religious faith, was utterly overwhelmed by the evil tidings of his approaching death in cir^
cumstances which, indeed, were most tragic One cannot but help think how differently those
same tidings would have affected him bad he been a Catholic. Even a lax and worldly one
would have foimd in such a great tribulation an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast. And
the lesson is brought out the more clearly because of the magnificent way in which she whom
he loved, and who loved him, met, by reason of her Christian faith, the terrible trial. The
woman eventually became a Catholie and later a nun. Her death has made possible the
publication of this unique diary.— [Editor C. W.]
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A DAUGHTER OF VENICE.
BY AN IRISH URSULINE.
I.— INTRODUCTORY.
" There is a glorious city in the sea :
The sea is in the broad the narrow straits.
Ebbing and flowing ; and the salt leaweedj
Clings to the marble of her palaces.'*
^VER fourteen hundred years have passed away
since fierce hordes of Visigoths and Huns,
sweeping over Venetia, as the Northern part of
Italy was then named, made the terrified in-
habitants fly before them and take refnge in the
islands of the Lagoons of the Adriatic. Numbers of the fugi-
tives settled in the Rialto, where they founded a small repub-
lic governed by ten tribunes. Here a populous dty rose up,
as if by magic, and, extending gradually over seventy- two
islands, became, in course of time, the historic, poetic, and
artistic Venice, the ''Bride of the Sea,*' the aspect of which
is stately and magnificent
Its great school of painting, which holds the first place
among the schools of the world for the brilliancy and har-
mony of its coloring, had its origin in the sixth century
through the Greek mosaics of Grado and Torcello. The most
ancient pictorial relics within the ancient territory of the
Doges, are preserved at Verona, in the subterranean chambers
of the nunnery of Santi Nazario e Celso. The symbols, the
attitudes, the drapery, the touch and manipulation indicate
that they are the works of foreign masters produced before
the initiation of native art. Five centuries later, in 1070, the
Doge Selvo brought mosaic workers from Greece to adorn the
Church of St. Mark. This magnificent cathedral, which is a
singular but brilliant combination of the Gothic and Oriental
styles of architecture, occupies one side of the historic square.
The famous bronze horses^ obtained as plunder at the siege of
Constantinople during the fourth Crusade, stand on pillars in
front of the great entrance where, over elaborately ornamented
pedestals, three gonfalons of silk and gold once waved to the
breeze, symbolizing the triple dominions of the Republic
Venice, Cyprus, and the Morea.
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19 la] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 45
The special emblem of the Evangelist^ the winged lion, is
actilptared on the fa9ade of this famous building, and also
stands on a pillar of classic beauty near the entrance of the
piazza which bears the saint's name. This world-renowned
republic having, in the thirteenth. century, reached the highest
point of glory, power, and warlike prowess, the Byzantine
Empire became subject to it when in 1204 the Doge, Enrico
Dandolo, conquered Constantinople. Then Venice was flooded
with Byzantine artists, under whose influence and teaching its
school of painting progressed so rapidly that, when Jacopo
Bellini and his sons. Gentile and Giovanni, came from Padua
and settled down near the Rialto, the day of ''the city of the
lion,'' as one of the great centres of Italian art, bad dawned.
About the middle of the fifteenth century Bellini's little work-
shop began to produce altar pieces and other sacred pictures,
and his sons were employed in the decoration of the hall of
the Consiglio Maggiore.
Antonello da Massina, who had got possession of the secret
method of the Brothers Van Eyck, the inventors of painting
in oils, came to Venice in 1473, and the first canvas of the
Sicilian was a revelation and a subject of wonder for the
painter brotherhoods. On the scaffoldings and in the hall of
the Palazzo, which they were beautifying with their artisti-
cally conceived and dashingly executed frescoes, a wave of
excitement and a tempest of debate would run round, as they
discussed the new medium, even for them an unsolved mys-
tery. The story goes that Giovanni Bellini, disguising himself
as a man of noble birth, commissioned the 'unsuspecting An-
tonello to paint his portrait and, observing every movement
of his hand, saw him dip his brush from time to time in
''oil" and soon the new method was taught in the school of
the Bellini. Here a large number of students were trained,
one of the most distinguished being Vittore Carpaccio, the poet
historian of art, whose pictures, illustrating the life and mar-
tyrdom of St. Ursula, the royal Irish virgin martyr, rank as
one of the noblest series of medieval painting. The ideal
beauty of the pictorial scene which repf esents the young Celtic
princess lying in ecstatic repose with her protecting angel
hovering near is, according to many competent judges, the
loveliest conception that ever came from the mind of man.
The years sped on, the great work progressed and, about
the year 1500, the golden period of the Venetian school corn-
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458 A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [July,
menced. It was initiated and carried on by Tiziano Vecellio
da Cadore, of whom we learn from the traditions of his race,
that, while yet an infant, he foretold his fame as a colorist by
attempting to paint a picture of the Madonna with the juice
of brilliantly colored flowers.. When a boy of nine, his father
Gregorio Vecellio, took him from Cadore to Venice and placed
him in the school of Sebastiano Zuccato. He changed later to
that of Bellini, where he and Giorgione, then aged respec*
tively i8 and 19, worked side by side. In 15 16 he finished
his Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, a picture of dazzling
splendor. At the time he executed this glorious masterpiece,
his future pupil, Tintoretto, was four years old.
11.— MARIETTA'S MISSION.
Towards the middle of the sixteenth century, when our
little story opens, the power, wealth, medieval grandeur, and
artistic fame of the world-renowned republic had attained its
zenith. There, in these far*away days, close to the Church of
Santa Maria dell' Orto, stood a house, on the front of which
long stripes of red, green, blue, and yellow announced in mute
but expressive language: *' Dyeing done here." The absence
of the piece of colored cloth usually hung out as a sign, the
silence which reigned within and around, the long unused boil-
ers, turned upside down on the flagged yard at the back, told
plainly that the colored ensigns had lost their meaning and
that '* Dyeing was no longer done there.''
In one of the deserted workshops, on the wall of which
was inscribed: ** II disegno di Michel Agnolo; il colorito di
Tiziano!* a tall, powerfully built man stood, with palette and
brush, before an easel on which was a work of art, glowing
with the unsurpassed coloring of the Venetian school, softened
by blue or ash-colored tints, which added to the effect of the
Chiaroscuro. The artist, whose brush, wielded by a skillful
hand, passed rapidly over the canvas, blending, harmonizing,
softening, and retouching the lights and shadows of his master-
piece, was Jacopo Robusti, the dyer's son, known to the world
as Tintoretto. His father, seeing him when a little boy daub-
ing the workshop colors on the walls at every vacant spot,
judged that it would be unwise to oppose so strong a natural
impulse and procured him a place among the pupils of Titian.
An ideal Venetian of the sixteenth century in his imper«
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19IO.] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 459
iou8 independence and resolution to recognize no master, be
threw himself into his work with a fierce energy which earned
for him, from the society of artists of Saint Roch, the title of
21 Furioso. Ridolfi's estimate of his genius is : '' No one of all
our painters stands out of the canvas like the dyer's son ;
robust as his name; a true type of his indomitable race,'* In
truth, the wonderful sweep and grandeur which his contem-
poraries called Stravagantit the lavish power with which he
treated every subject, cannot fail to excite admiration and
wonder. At the time this little sketch treats of he had lost
his wife, who left him two children, a son named Domenico
and a daughter named Marietta, both of whom had been
tenderly cared for by his aged mother.
A glorious Italian day was drawing to its close; the sun
was setting behind the Lagoon, its fading rays flooding the
canals, the ancient historic buildings, the stately churches in
rich crimson light.
The silence was suddenly broken by the soft, harmonious
chiming of the bells ringing out the evening Angelus. As the
melodious sounds floated over the city, the master devoutly
bent his knee, made the sign of salvation, and recited aloud:
** Ang$lus Domini nunciavit Maria^ $t conapit de Spiritu Sancto**
etc. Then, rising, he stepped back a little from his canvas,
passed a critical glance over the result of his day's work, put
palette and brushes aside, and, remembering that the next day,
being the eve of the great feast of the Ascension, should be
devoted to preparation for the espousals of the city with the
Adriatic, placed his unfinished picture behind a screen, until
he should be able to resume his work. Then, passing quickly
out into the garden attached to the house, he advanced to-
wards the entrance gate with his quick, firm step, as a vener-
able and picturesquely clad old Venetian dame came in by it.
Taking her wrinkled hand in his he said lovingly and gen-
tly: ''Lean on me, Mother, you seem weary."
''Not weary, my son," she answered, "but anxious — yes,
anxious and troubled about our beloved children, Domenico and
MarietU."
"Troubled about our children^ Mother, may I ask why?"
" Ah, my son, you are so occupied with your dyeing that
you do not notice what goes on even in your own house."
" Occupied with my dyeing I " exclaimed the Tintoretto,
drawing himself up proudly, " though you are the widow of a
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46o A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [July,
dyer, remember you are the mother of the painter, Signor
Jacopo Robust! — the Tintoretto/'
** The Tintoretto, the Tintoretto/' she repeated, leaning lov-
ingly on the strong arm, ''and what does that name recall?
Were yoo not, in the bygone happy days, the sturdy little boy
who toddled about the workshops and beautified the walls here,
there, and everywhere with the dyer's colors ? Tintoretto, the
little dyer—"
** Yes, yes, Mctdre mia " / he answered tenderly, as the mem-
ory of her devoted love and care came back to him, '* for you
I am always the little dyer, the son of Jacopo Robusti, // Tin*
ton. And now, tell me, what makes you anxious about our
children?"
'' Figlio miOf I am haunted by the look of care on the beau-
tiful face of our Marietta, and by the change in the appearance
of Domenico, The boy is much altered and not for the better ;
he no longer gives me his love and confidence. Then I can
never find him in his workshop, which is always locked, and
when I knock at the door he does not answer me/'
''Ah, you do not know what it means to be an artist; he
does not answer you, because a true artist becomes absorbed
and lost in his work, and hears nothing of what goes on around
him. Domenico is my pride and my joy and, like myself, sets
up as his standard and watchword: 'The design of Michel
Angelo, the coloring of Titian.' Have you seen his last pic«
ture, which the canons of San' Ambrogio have ordered for
their Church of Santa Maria dell' Orto ? "
" How could I see it, Jacopo, I who never see himself ?
The boy is never at home I"
"That is to say. Mother, he never stirs from his work. I
rather approve of that habit of his of locking himself in his
studio ; it prevents his being interrupted. My Domenico, before
many years pass away, will stand forth as one of the greatest
masters of our famous school, and hold one of the first places
among the colorists of the world I "
The devoted mother, now remaining silent, bowed her aged
head and leant more lovingly and trustfully on the strong arm
of her son. As they moved on slowly towards the entrance
of the dyer's house, Tintoretto said : " Where is Marietta ?
Why is she not here?"
She is out, Jacopo."
'Out at supper time? This is constantly happening, and
ff
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I9IO.] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 461
is one of my caoses of dissatisfaction. I have no time to watch
over her and I confide her to yonr care. Where is she?'*
''Your daughter does not require to be watched over by
us ; she is an angel and the heavenly spirits protect and guard
her I "
As she gave utterance to this consoling thought, the garden
gate opened again and admitted a vision of medieval beauty,
gracefulness, and dignity. It was a young girl of madonna-
like loveliness whom they both now advanced to meet. Her
rich brown hair, fastened up by pins of gold, left the snow
white forehead bare on which were written, in unmistakable
characters, the innocence and modesty of a privileged soul.
Long lashes veiled the lustrous beauty of her dark Italian eyes,
which had a far-away look, telling of high and holy aspirations
that lift the mind above the passing things of earth and make
it wander into the mystic regions of exalted conception and
artistic idealism 1 Her features, perfect in outline, were devoid
of the downy freshness of youth ; could it be some secret sor-
row that banished the rosy tint of girlhood from the soft, snow-
white cheek?
** Marietta,'* said the Tintoretto, *' where have you been all
the afternoon?*'
** At the Grimani Palace, Father," she answered.
" Marietta, Marietta," said Jacopo, as the three walked into
the supper*room, ** you are no longer the little child whom the
kind, motherly countess petted, caressed, and supplied with
sweets and tojrs— you will soon arrive at the marriageable age,
and her eldest son, Masino Grimani, is a youth of twenty."
''And what objection have you to all that, my son?" in-
terrupted the old lady as she seated herself at the table. '' If
the young count admires our child and appreciates her worth,
why should she not become the Countess Masino Grimani ? "
''Certainly, if God so wills it," replied the master; "but I
give the preference to one of her own rank, who would not
be ashamed to call the dyer's son. Father, and who would not
look down on her grandmother. We must not aspire above
our station in life. Mother."
" We are not forbidden to rise, Jacopo."
"No, undoubtedly, provided we rise by talent and good
conduct."
"Does talent give us the entrance into higher society, my
son? Have you been ennobled?"
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463 A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [July,
The young girly fixing her eyes lovingly on the solemn,
bearded face of her sire, now exclaimed : '' Oh, Grandmother,
how can you, the mother of the Tintoretto, speak so ? Venice
is proud of my father and rejoices that she can number him
among her most illustrious sons. Has he not that true no-
bility which is derived from artistic genius and daily increasing
fame ? What title of Count, Marquis, or Prince, can rank with
that of the Tintoretto ? **
'* Ah, my little one,'' said the aged dame," you have spoken
the truth; who, indeed, holds a higher place in the esteem of
our fellow- townsmen than my little dyer? And yet he will
never get beyond dyeing, even though he should paint angels,
saints, apostles, kings, queens, doges, gondoliers, and all the
rest of them I He will always be grinding colors like my poor
dear husband — my poor — dear — Robusti."
'*Oh, I beg of you, dear Granny, let us talk no more of
painting and dyeing I "
''You are right. Marietta,'' again responded the old lady,
'' What I want now to speak of is a very different subject in-
deed. I am anxious to know where your brother is; as I
passed his workshop about midday, I happened to look in; he
was not there, neither could I see any signs of recent work;
do you know anything of his movements ? "
As this question was addressed to her the lovely girl's pal-
lor increased, and she answered in a broken, hesitating voice:
''You must not be displeased with Domenico; this morning
several of his young comrades called and asked him to help
them with some decorations they are putting up on the Riva;
remember the feast of the great ceremony of the Espousals
draws near."
"True, true, my child," exclaimed the Tintoretto, "and I
too must now go to the artists' reunion to arrange all about
the part we are to take in the glorious pageant."
So saying, he rose from the table, fixed his eyes lovingly
on the queen-like face of his daughter, and, hastening to the
canal, was soon being swiftly carried in a gondola towards the
meeting place of the artists of St. Roch. When alone with
Marietta, Signora Robusti again tried to make out the truth
about her grandson, but the faithful sister skillfully shielded
him, and finally succeeded in turning the conversation to other
topics.
The splemn striking of the great clock of St. Mark's now
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I9IO.] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 463
resounded over the city that lay bathed in soft nioonlighti and
Marietta! putting her arm lovingly round Dame Robusti, said :
^'This is your hour for retiring. Grandmother, come to your
room, you must be tired; I will wait up for Father/'
Next morning, before the sun had risen and while all was
still silent in the dyer's house, the door of one of the rooms
gently opened and Marietta, stepping noiselessly down the
stairs, stood in the hall listening anxiously.
'' Not a sound," she murmured, *^ alas 1 he has not returned ;
for the whole night I have watched and waited in vain. Brother,
Brother, how sadly you are to blame I ''
Advancing to the entrance door, she opened it cautiously
and darted into the street. Hastening onwards she came to
the Church of St. Mark, knelt at the closed door in fervent
supplication for help and guidance, then hurried in the direc-
tioQ of the canal, on the bank of which she stood, and, lifting
her eyes heavenwards, sent up the cry of her stricken heart
to Him who alone could help her. A gondola approached the
landing place — a well-known voice fell upon her ear^ — a tall,
handsome youth walked towards her.
** Domenico I '' she cried. What tender reproach in that one
word.
''I kown all you have to say. Sister,'' he replied, hanging
his head in shame. "I am a ne'er-do-well — a good-for-noth-
ing-a-"
''You are worse than all that, you are a bad, ungrateful
son, an unkind, heartless brother. You, so gifted, so clever —
you, of whom poor deluded Father is so proud — go on day
after day deceiving him; you, who might rise to be one of
the great masters of Venice, whose name might go down to
posterity surrounded by a halo of glory equal to that of Titian
or Tintoretto, abuse your gifts, bury your talents, and devote
the precious days of youth to frivolous and degrading pleas-
ure."
The young man shuddered, passed his hand over his
fevered brow, and tried to speak, but the devoted sister, put-
ting her hand on his shoulder, said: *'Come« come, Domenico,
we must hasten home now and you must get up to your studio
before Father leaves his room."
Then, linking her arm in his, she hurried him past the
grand fa9ade of the church, from which the winged lion seemed
to look down on the erring one in mute disapproval.
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464 A Daughter of Venice [Joly,
III.— THE ESPOUSALS.
At dawn of day on the feast of the Ascension, 1554, the
chiming of the joy bells from the spires and towers of the
dttcal city filled the air with melody which, passing [over the
still waters, lingered round the distant shores, and woke magic
echoes in the pine and olive groves of the islands of the La*
goon« The sacred edifices were thronged from an early hour
with devout worshippers who assisted at the High Masses
which were celebrated with the utmost pomp and ceremony.
As the day went on^ the sun poured down its golden rays on
a scene of ideal beauty and joy. A fleet of gondolas, steered
so skillfully that they seemed to glide and turn at will, their
steel prows flashing in the sun and their keels silently tracing
a line of pearl over the bright green waters, swept along the
walls of marble fa9aded palaces, the names and artistically
carved heraldic achievements of which recalled golden memories
of the past.
At the traditional hour the reigning Doge, Francesco Donate,
in all the pomp and state of his exalted office, invested, like
the ancient Spartan monarchs, with the majesty of a king and
the power and liberty of a citizeni rode down in the splendid-
ly decorated ''Bucine d'Oro'' to the Lido. There he stood
on the deck in all the glory of the historic robes of office, the
state umbrella over his head, surroundered by his court and by
the Knights of the Venetian military order, distinguished by
the brilliant star of twelve points, their symbolic device.
Down the Riva were ranged in order: the ecclesiastical
dignitaries and clergy, in a barge covered with cloth of gold
and in all the glory of their sacred vestments. Then came the
noble inheritors of great names, among whom could be num-
bered the Michieli, descendants of the conqueror of Tyre, who,
in the day of triumph, displayed on the ramparts of the fallen
city the Banner of St. Mark beside the Standard of Jerusalem,
the city of '' the vision of peace '* ; the Dandolo, who bore a
white and red shield, symbolizing innocence and beauty, mar-
tial power and courage; the Gradenigo, of the Bend; the
Foscari, bearing the winged lion and open book, with many
other representatives of the great merchant princes of the
'' Bride of the Sea.*'
Next in rank were the members of the Society of St Roch,
conspicuous among whom were Titian, Palma Vecchio, Tintoret-
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I9IO.] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 465
to, Pordenone, Bonifazio, Sebastiano del Piombo, and many
others whose names have come down to us, through the centuries,
surrounded by a halo of glory and artistic fame. While all
waited in hushed and expectant silence, the golden barge rode
out into the sea and the Doge dropped a priceless ring into
the surging waters. The silver trumpets rang out a harmon-
ious fanfare, which was taken up by the city bells and, while
joy and triumph reigned supreme, the thoughts of many a
stately dame and chivalrous knight wandered back three cen-
turies to that memorable day, the prelude to the first espousals,
when the aged Doge, Sebastiano Ziani, who had nobly and
generously taken the part of Pope Alexander III. against the
fierce tyrant, Frederick Barbarossa, returned in triumph, after
conquering the Imperial Fleet and was received at the Lido by
the exiled Sovereign Pontiff who, hailing him as lord and
master of the sea, placed in his hand a priceless ring with
which he was later to wed the Adriatic. Must not their hearts
and those of all true Venetians have swelled with pride as they
recalled, on each recurring anniversary, that other scene of un-
paralleled solemnity and historic interest when his Holiness, en-
throned in all the pomp and splendor of his sacred office, before
the entrance of St Mark's, received the homage and submission
of the '^Red Beard*' who, approaching him, knelt and kissed
his foot, which the Pontiff then placed on the Imperial neck,
entoning the Psalm ^^ Super aspidem et bastliscum ambulavit**
It was during the stay of Alexander in Venice that, the
feast of the Ascension being celebrated with special solemnity,
the pageant of the Espousals was fully recorded for the first
time, when Ziani wedded the sea with the Papal ring and
changed the primitive rite by which, in the tenth century, the
triumph of Pietro Orseolo over the Narentani was celebrated,
into the more imposing histrionic ceremony of the twelfth.
While the joyous chimes still rang out, the golden barge
again passed through the Lido and the return journey began.
As the gondolas glided noiselessly back to the city, the eyes
of many a dignified signora and graceful maiden were directed
towards one over which waved a richly embroidered flag em-
blazoned with the arms of the Grimani. On its raised platform
the countess was seated. Marietta Robusti, though only the
daughter of an artist, held the place of honor on her right,
and on her left stood the young Count Masino Grimani, des-
voL. xci.— 30
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466 A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [July,
tined one day to hold the high office of Doge and to perform
the same symbolic ceremony which had jost touched and glad-
dened all hearts.
As they drew nearer to the city, having passed the island
of Sant' Andrea, the mother's eyes rested meaningly on the
thonghtful countenance of her son who, as if in answer to a
wish thus silently communicated, went to join a gay group of
guests some distance down the deck.
She then took Marietta's hand and, drawing her gently
toward her, said : '* My child, I mean to ask your father to
allow you to spend some time with me. You look pale and
tired and a rest will be good for you. You should look on
me as a second mother; have I not known and loved you
since you were a little child?'*
''Oh, beloved Madam," exclaimed the beautiful girl, ''you
have indeed been a second mother to me, and the remembrance
of your loving smypathy has helped me on through many a
weary day of trial, anxiety, and disappointment ; but, much as
I long to be with you, I cannot now desert my post — if I do
so, I shall be false to my mission.*'
"Your mission I what do you mean?"
" My one aim and end in life is to save my beloved father
from the sorrow and disgrace which his son's conduct is likely
to bring on him, and to rescue Domenico from degradation by
leading him back to the path of truth, honor, and earnest
work, from which he has wandered."
" Alas, my poor Marietta," answered the countess, " that is
a painful and difficult mission, for the success of which I have
prayed much."
"Ah, then, you already know the sad story of my trouble?"
" I do, my child, and I shall continue to pray, to hope,
and wait in silence for better news."
" Oh, Signora, what a heart of gold is yours I Such is your
condescending goodness to me, that I now long to open my
mind unreservedly to you."
"And why not do so, Marietta?" exclaimed the noble,
generous damci " perhaps I can help you ? "
The lovely girl now fixed her eyes trustfully on the gentle
face bent lovingly towards her and said: "The truth is that since
Father gains barely enough to cover his own expenses and to
Veep up appearances and provide necessary comforts for dear
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I9ia] A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 467
old grandmothery I devote every available moment to paint-
ing. In order to keep my secret, I sell my works under my
brother's name; op to this I have escaped detection/'
** Yoo have painted these beautiful pictures that have made
a name for your brother — a name to which he has no claim ?
How nobly you have acted and how yoo deserve to be re-
warded I If you accept my invitation, and accompany me later
on a tour of pleasure, which Masino is anxious I should enjoy
with him and his friends, some good angel may open up to
you a new and successful way to attain your end/'
''Delightful as that tour would be for me, I cannot see
how it could bring about such a result''
'' Has it never occurred to you. Marietta, that my son admires
you and would be happy to make you his wife ? As the young
Countess Masino Grimani you would have wealth, influence,
position, and what would all that mean for those you love ? "
As these words came from the motherly heart, a modest
blush passed over the lovely face of the maiden, who replied
in a broken, trembling voice : " Oh, my true and generous
friend, what answer can I, a poor, unknown girl, give to such
a proposal ? But in truth, I am not called to such a position.
God has made known His will to me, which is that, when I
have done all I can to save Domenico, and have been the stay
and comfort of my father. He calls me to a higher and holier
life than that of the married state."
Raising her eyes heavenwards in thanksgiving the countess
exclaimed: ''Ah, I have always thought that you were called
to something high and holy. Now I at once renounce the
sweet dream of one day calling you my daughter. Far frcm
trying to draw you away from your divinely inspired vocation,
I shall daily pray and long for its realization."
Marietta was about to speak again, but the gay group of
excursionists, as they swept past "San NicoI6 del Lido,"
gathered round their hostess to thank her for the treat she
had given them, and soon the gay company stood in groups
on the landing place where the Tintoretto was waiting for
Marietta. The Countess accosted him with gracious dignity,
saying how much she had enjoyed his daughter's company.
The great master, bowing low before her, took the proffered
hand, which he kissed respectfully, thanking her for the kind-
ness shown his child.
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468 A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [July,
''My child also, Signor Robust!; do you not know how
dear she is to me?''
Then embracing Marietta she said : *' Remember I expect
to see you soon again.**
''To visit you, Signora, is always a joy for me. I shall
very soon have that honor and happiness, I trust.*'
IV.— MARIETTA'S TRIUMPH.
At an early hour, the morning after the Espousals, Jacopo
Robttsti again stood before his easel, and, under his bold, firm
touch his masterpiece, "The Last Supper,** rapidly advanced.
It is, say the critics, " a miracle of art ** — so perfect is the
perspective, that the apartment appears double its real size.
The master's own verdict is, however, the highest encomium,
for he ranks it with his " Crucifixion ** and his " Miracle of
the Slave,** to which three works alone he affixed his name.
The hours flew by, and towards midday the door oi the
studio opened and Dame Robusti came in, holding in her
hand a large square envelope from which hung a large seal.
This she gave to Jacopo saying : " My son, a courier in royal
livery, and mounted on a splendid horse, has just brought this
for you.'* Jacopo, looking at the seal, exclaimed : "The royal
arms of Spain I ** Then, hurriedly opening the letter and
looking at the signature, he said: "It is from King Philip I
He speaks of a portrait painted by my daughter — forsooth, as
if a woman could produce a work worthy of royal admiration.
Of course this is a mistake, he means my son, and he invites
him to his court I Oh, what an honor I What joy and glory
for me 1 Mother, Mother, go for my boy. I knew my Dome-
nico had a future — a great future before him I **
Rushing to the door, she cried out: " Domenico, Domenico,
come quickly I **
After a short interval the old dame hurried her grandson
down the stairs and into his father's presence, who said : " My
boy, I have glorious news for you — read that.**
Domenico took the letter in his trembling hands and, glanc-
ing at its contents, exclaimed: "It is not meant for me.
Father; it is for Marietta.**
"You must be mistaken, boy; doubtless his Majesty has
seen some Spanish noble*s portrait from your hand. Your
sister daubs, but does not paint.**
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igioj A DAUGHTER OF VENICE 469
*' My sister daubs ? O Father 1 is that your estimate of her
talent?"
"Yes; your sister is a good-for-nothing, stupid girll After
all I have spent on her musical training, she cannot now play a
note. I asked her this morning to sing for me while I worked^
and the young lady made no end of idle excuses. When I
insisted on her going for her mandolin, she burst into tears. I
have banished her from my presence. I wish to see her no more/^
''My poor Marietta/' said Domenico, as his eyes filled with
tears. ''You are displeased with my sister — you have pun*
ished her — and she, the true and faithful one, did not tell you
that it is to toil for me, to make up for the time I misspend,
that she works from early morning at the pictures you think
are mine? Not content with that, she supports us all by her
portrait painting. You know, Father, how little we contribute
to keep up our home. Our Marietta is a genius, a true artist,
an angel of goodness. The King's letter is certainly for her;
come now and see for yourself.'*
Jacopo and Dame Robusti hastened after Domenico, who
approached the door of his studio, and peeping through the
keyhole, whispered : " She is there ; she is there I "
The impetuous Jacopo burst open the door and rushed in,
followed by the others. At sight of her father Marietta sprang
back from the canvas on which she was working, and casting
herself on her knees said: "Father, Father, forgive me, I have
disobeyed you. I am — "
" Oh, my child, it is I who am at fault — it is I who must
beg for forgiveness for having wronged an angel of goodness."
Then, catching sight of the picture, he exclaimed: "What
coloring, what harmony, what artistic e£fect 1 Who has painted
it?"
"It was my brother." "It^was my sister," both cried out
together.
"It was you, Domenico, who designed that head."
"It was you, Marietta, who painted it — and those angels
and that background. Father, everywhere you see my sister's
touch — so soft, so harmonious, so perfectly blended, and yet
so bold and firm I "
"Ah, no, no, Brother; much of what you sing the praises
of is your work and not mine."
" Noble girl," exclaimed Domenico, " exalt me and shield me
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470 A DAUGHTER OF VENICE [Jaly.
no longer. I am overwhelmed with shame; yoor generous
unselfishness has at last conquered; and^from this day, I shall
be a changed man/'
'* You are both my beloved children/* said the proud father,
as he embraced them, adding : '' And you. Marietta, are a great
painter. My God, I thank Thee I I shall now die happy.*'
''She is more than a great painter," said the old grand-
mother, as she pressed the girl to her heart, ''she is a good,
dutiful daughter, a devoted sister, and a true Christian.*'
All was now changed in the home of the Robusti, where
happiness, peace, and contentment, combined with earnest work,
henceforth reigned supreme. The beautiful girl artist sat daily
at her easel, a fond, proud father bending over her, under whose
teaching she attained perfection in design and coloring. She
shrank from the studies necessary for historical subjects, and
devoted herself to portrait painting, in which she acquired such
fame that her contemporaries ranked her productions with those
of Titian. The nobility of Venice became her generous patrons,
while the Emperor Maximilian, the King of Spain, and the
Archduke Ferdinand, by promises of wealth, position, and im-
perial and royal distinctions, in vain endeavored to attract her
to their courts. Compared with her sacred mission and her
exalted vocation, all earthly honors were to her but as the pass-
ing vapors of the morning that disappear before the first rays
of the sun.
The peaceful days, like all things of earth, passed rapidly
away, and the now prosperous artists moved to the Palazzo
Camello, where the venerable Dame Robusti was soon called to
her reward. Being no longer under the watchful eye and the
motherly care of her devoted grandmother. Marietta's natural
weakness of constitution, increased by early anxiety and toil,
began to tell its sad tale, and, before she was able to carry out
her cherished project of serving God in the life of prayer, self-
sacrifice, and peace of the cloister, she heard the voice of her
Beloved calling her to be crowned. The father and brother,
for whom she had heroically deferred the realization of her
fondest hopes and highest aspirations, shed many bitter tears
beside her bier, and her solemn obsequies, in the Church of
Santa Maria dell' Orto, were attended by all the celebrities of
Venice, conspicuous amongst whom were the Countess Grimani
and her son, Masino.
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H. G. WELLS.
BY W. E. CAMPBELL.
III.
l^ the latter part of my first article, and in the
whole of my second, I discnssed the economic
factor in social reform. A clear distinction has
been drawn between productive and onprodoc-
tive surplus; our quarrel was not with surplus
as such, but with unproductive surplus.
Nor did we quarrel with the private ownership of surplus,
but only with its unproductive use, and in this, of course, we
dififer from our author. We saw, in fine, that the difficulty
was not one of State against individual, of capitalist against
Socialist, but simply of the unproductive use of surplus whether
by the State or the individual.
In New Worlds for Old (1908) Mr. Wells has given us cer-
tainly the most popular and probably the calmest and clearest
statement yet put forward of the methods and intentions of
Socialism. Here, indeed, we have a brilliant discussion of our
social evils, and, as a quick and simple remedy. Socialism,
largely and variously explained. At the very outset he has
seen, what so many Socialists have not, the fact that such re-
forms as he is pleased to advocate need something more than
the disinterested application of knowledge to bring about their
practical initiation and growth. Good- will, he tells us, is
needed to make Socialism '*go.'* The problems before him
are essentially and intensely human, all too human for the
success of any merely scientific solution. There is a fine ring
about his announcement that ''there is food enough for all,
shelter enough for all, wealth for all — men need only to know
it and will W
But immediately after this clear acknowledgment of the
importance of good-will we are introduced to what is called
the fundamental idea of Socialism. '' The fundamental idea of
Socialism is the same fundamental idea as that upon which
all really scientific work is carried on. It is the denial that
chance impulse and the individual will and happening consti*
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472 H. G. WELLS [July,
tute the oaly possible methods by which things may be done
in the world'' (p. 22).
Here we have an instance of a device somewhat too fre-
quently used by Mr. Wells. He embarks upon controversy,
his ship is out of harbor, but there is not wind enough to fill
his mainsail, so he claps on all extra sail to. catch whatever
breeze of favor there be. But presently, when his mainsail
fills out, he discards this mere auxiliary canvas as useless or
even dangerous, and he is apt to forget that he has ever used
it at all, much more that without its help^he could never have
got under weigh.
What we want to know is whether he considers the indi-
vidual human will to be a main or merely a minor factor in
all possible human reform. And this leads us at once to the
central question of property and private ownership, upon which
he bases his second main generalization.
** The idea of private ownership of things is enormously and
mischievously exaggerated in the contemporary world. The
conception of private property has been extended to land, to
material, to the values and resources accumulated by past
generations, to the vast variety of things that are properly the
inheritance of the whole race. As a result of this (we have
our present evils). . . . The Socialist holds that thi commu^
nity as a whole should be inalienably the owner and administra*
tor of the land^ of raw materials^ of values and resources ac^
cumulated from the past^ and that private property should be of
a terminable nature^ and subject to the general welfare *' {N.^
pp. 88-9).
I must call the reader's careful attention to this second
generalization, especially to the part in italics, for it has both
a body and a tail, and which wags which I cannot at present
decide. The body most unmistakably asserts that '' the com-
munity as a whole should be inalienably the owner and ad-
ministrator of the land, of raw materials, of values and re-
sources accumulated from the past " ; but in the tail we find
that ''private property (of what kind he does not say) should
be of a terminable nature.*' I do nol for a moment wish to
diminish or exaggerate Mr. Wells' intentional meaning, but
in order to make a definition serve any useful purpose it
should be framed rather to exclude than admit confusion.
We must seek further light. There is no doubt that else-
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 473
where he has much to say on behalf of private ownership. It
is better, therefore, to give ipsissima verba.
" The factor that leads the World State on from one phase
of development to the next is the interplay of individualities;
to speak teleologically, the world exists for the «ake of and
through initiative, and individuality is the method of initiative.
Each man and woman, to the extent that his or her individu-
ality is marked, breaks the law of precedent, transgresses the
general formula, and makes a new experiment for the direc-
tion of the life force. It is impossible, therefore, for the State,
which represents all and is preoccupied with the average, to
make effectual experiments and intelligent innovations, and so
supply the essential substance of life. . . . Within this
scheme, which makes the State the source of all energy, and
the final legatee, what will be the nature of the property a
man may own ? Under modern conditions — indeed, under any
conditions — a man without some negotiable property is a man
without freedom, and the extent of his property is very largely
the measure of his freedom. . . . With a certain small
property a man is free to do many things. « . . (But) very
speedily, under terrestrial conditions, the property of a man
may reach such proportions that his freedom oppresses the
freedom of others.''
'' The object sought in the code of property laws that one
would find in operation in Utopia would be the same object
that pervades the whole Utopian organization, namely a uni-
versal maximum of individual freedom. ... A modem
Utopian most assuredly must have a practically unqualified
property in all those things that become, as it were, by pos-
session, extensions and expressions of his personality . • .
so intimate is this property that I have no doubt Utopia will
give a man posthumous rights over it.''
Even the limited |liability company, '' which has so facili-
tated freedom and progress," will be permitted, not of course
as a profit- grubbing machine, but in order to encourage all in-
ventive ventures, ''all new machinery, all new methods, all
uncertain and variable and non- universal undertakings (which)
are no business of the State." Even land may be leased out
to communities and individuals, but must never pass out of
the possession of the State. It would appear, then, that what
a man must never be allowed to hold and to have inalienably
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474 -*^* G. WELLS [July,
as his own is a piece of land however small and, as we shall
see later, a wife (Ui. pp. 88-97, 175-^1 3)*
The problem of private ownership has two sides, opon each
of which we must concentrate our attention:
(i.) There is man desiring to own property.
(2.) There is a certain limited amount of property to be owned.
The most difficult factor in the problem is the first — that
of man desiring to own property. But it is upon the second
and more simple factor that the Socialist has specialized, and
his solution would be effective if it met the whole dynamic
problem. He has clearly got hold of the quantitative side of
the question, namely, that there is only a limited amount of
property^; but he has failed to grasp the qualitative side of it>
namely, that there is an unlimited intensity of human desire
directed towards its private possession. Not only is this inten-
sity of human desire unlimited, but, unfortunately, it is at
present extravagantly inordinate. The limited nature of prop-
erty is, then, a big difficulty; but it is not nearly so big a
difficulty as the unlimited and inordinate desires of men, for
they alone are the cause of the abuses which at present attend
private ownership. Human desire is only inordinate when it
is directed to wrong ends or is directed to right ends too ex-
cessively; when it is, for instance, wholly concentrated upon
material ends it always runs to excess, always becomes inor-
dinate. Man has not only a body, but a mind and spirit as
well, and when he lives an intense and fully developed life he is
brimming over with creative and integrating desires of every sort»
and if only these desires be rightly directed towards their law-
ful ends, he will become in every sense of the word a socially
fit and ^finely productive member of the community. But if^
on the other hand, he say, not only in his mind but also in
his heart, that there is no God, or refuse to discipline himself
to the bonds of marriage and concentrate his whole desire upon
the accumulation of quantitative things, to the neglect of his
neighbors' rights of love, life, and property, he is socially use-
less and disintegrating, and no amount of expropriation will
ever of itself make him any better. Socialism has no machin-
ery powerful enough to organize, economize, intellectualize, or
spiritualize the desires of men — all she can do is to materialize
them to a still greater extent.
Cottte, it will be remembered, divided historic time into
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 475
three successive stages of civilization, which he called respec-
tively the Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive. His
only mistake was to suppose these stages successive rather than
simultaneous, universal and not individual. Every human being,
as psychologists and physiologists are now insisting, recapitu-
lates within himself a microcosmic history of humanity^-he is at
once and in himself theological, metaphysical, and positive; in
simpler words, he is at once and in himself a spiritual, an intel-
lectual, and a physical being. Now corresponding to these three
determinations of his nature, man has three determinations of
desire — the desire of the soul, the desire of the mind, and the
desire of the body.
The desire of the soul must be purged, illuminated, and
finally sanctified by union with God Himself ; the desire of the
mind must be encouraged to the discipline of knowledge and
humbled by a frequent contemplation of eternal truths; the
desire of the body satisfied as need be, but kept within law-
ful and sacred bonds. These desires, too, it will clearly fol-
low, must always be either integrating in an ascending order
to what is spiritual, or disintegrating in a descending order to
what is material, that is to say, the more a man desires spir-
itual things the less he will desire material things for their own
sake ; and, on the contrary, the more he desires material things
the less he will desire spiritual. This, at any rate, is the Catho-
lic theory of human desire.
Desire being the very stuff of life, the Church has ever
been pre-eminently concerned to cherish, discipline, and organ-
ize it; and it is generally allowed that in this field no other
institution in the world has attempted or achieved so much.
Socialism has almost neglected this aspect of dynamic economy.
Like Martha, she has been too busy with the merely quantitative
side of economics to attend to the one great necessary economy
of human desires. Socialism does not know how to deal with the
selfish passions of man, and, even if she did, has no intrinsic
ability to turn them into integrating powers of social benefit
Socialism has neglected human desire, and wherever she has
come across it she has singularly misunderstood it — as in the
case of the family, which I shall speak of later, and in that
of private ownership, which we are now discussing. The desire
to own a small piece of land is either right or wrong — that
being right according to the Socialists which benefits the ccm-
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476 H. G. Wells [July,
munity, and that being wrong which does not Since Socialism
forbids all private ownership in land whatsoever she evidently
considers the desire to own wrong; but on careful search for
the reason of this wrongness, I find it to consist, in her opin-
ion, in the excessive desire for ownership on the part of a few
men (JVl, pp. 88, 93, 97). ''Abolish private ownership in land,''
says the Socialist, ''even when it is right, in order to prevent
It from becoming wrong by excess/' My conclusion, however,
is a different one: "Encourage the desire for small pieces of
land, because distribution is right and socially beneficial; but
discourage the desire to own land on a large scale, because
being excessive it is socially harmful/' This last is, of course,
the policy advocated by Leo XIII., and rests upon the simple
principle that it is good to encourage desires so long as they
remain good, but necessary to discourage them whenever they
become bad. We see, here, in its very simplest form, the car-
dinal error upon which Socialism rests, namely, the compulsory
prohibition of human desires even when right and lawful.
We now come to Mr. Wells and the family, including, of
course, his views on the position of woman, marriage, the bring-
ing up of children, and the relation of all these to his social-
istic State.
One cannot but come to the conclusion that be has no liv-
ing and central faith in the family as such or in marriage itself
— they are things on the very margin![of his integrated experi-
ence; he does not place marriage high among bis important
institutions ; he subjects it in all things to the State, which he
seems to regard as its paramount superior; he uses many fine
adjectives about it, but he has no strong conviction of its sub-
stantive importance; he only writes of it out of necessity and
as it affects other things to him much more important than it-
self; he is not "for" it in any positive sense, and, as far as
I am able to judge, is almost blind to its place and significance
in the economy of human life.
In fact, whether we turn to his novels or to his more defi-
nitely sociological work, we shall not long be left in doubt.
Marriage is not one of the things which through faith has
gained his good report ; he does not believe in it, or rather he
believes it to be a failure. His characters may be intellectually
heroic, but they are ;never emotionally so; they are simply
creatures without a shred of emotional self-discipline or stabil-
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i9io0 H. G. Wells 477
ity ; and this is especially true of his men. Is it surprising to
find, then, that their marriages turn out to be failures? Mar-
riage is a much more searching and practical test of a man's
emotional integrity than perhaps Mr. Wells may imagine; and
those who submit themselves to it with such excruciating fail-
ure as do these characters of his, are apt, for the very sake of
their self-respect, to attribute their failure rather to the exam-
ination than to themselves. Mr. Wells' characters are unfit
for human society, because they are such dangerously disinte-
grating forces — their very intellectual efficiencies only serving
to enhance and intensify their emotionally disintegrating power
over the unfortunate men and still more unfortunate women
with whom they are brought into contact. George Ponderevoi
in Tono-Bungay^ brilliantly intellectual but disastrously ineffec-
tive because of the hopeless disorder of his emotional lifci is
the incarnation of a very modern type of man, a type which
reverses the old order both of nature and of grace. The old
order contended, and still contends, that unity of desire is prior
in time and importance to the unity of explicit thought: ''Seek
first," it says, ''the kingdom of ordered personal desire, and
all things — all minor unities — shall be added in due time and
proper measure." Among these minor unities is that of explicit,
discursive, speculative thought ; all, in a word, that we under-
stand by modern science. Science is busied, and rightly so,
about many things, "the many that change and pass"; but,
on that very account, she is the more apt to forget the "One
that remains," from Whom alone is to be gained that disciplined
unity of personal desire which passeth understanding but never
passeth away.
Mr. Wells has, so far, neglected the study of the highest
laws of human relationshlp^-those laws which are most prac-
tically exhibited in the working of the Christian family, and
which radiate from it out towards society with most beneficent
effect. And what is most of all to be noticed about these
laws is that they express themselves primarily in the order of
disciplined emotion, and only secondarily in the order of ex-
plicit thought.
In order to emphasize the importance of this statement as
to the relative order and importance of disciplined emotion and
explicit thought I may be allowed to quote Professor Stanley
Hall, who speaks of "the growing recognition by psychology
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478 H. G. WELLS [Jwlyt
that, as the will is larger than the intellect, so the instincts
and feelings are at the root both of reason and wilP' {AdoUs^^
cence^ Stanley Hall. Vol. 11., p. 138); and again: ''Our scrip-
ture will itself be regenerated and re-revealed as the record
of man's highest insights into meaning, and his most practical
utilization of his own life, which far transcends anything known
to modern psychology and ethics, and all chiefly because it
recognized love as the central power in the soul, and pre-
sented both patterns and precepts how, instead of a way of
death, it could open up a way of life'' (/&., p. 129).
Mr. Wells, then, attaches so little importance to the family
because he attaches so little importance to the discipline of
human emotion and desire. As he himself has said, every man
''has within his own composition, the whole diapason of (an)
emotional fool." But would it not be wiser, by healthy train-
ing, to tune these notes to a less discordant pitch than to at-
tempt their utter suppression and desperately to fail in that
attempt? Take, for instance, his description given in Anticim
potions oi the coming engineer and the life he is going to lead.
He will be a man in whom ''the emotional and mystical ele-
ments in his religion will be subordinate or absent " — this side
of his nature being so neglected lest it should interfere with
his purely scientific career. "If sensuality is to appear at all
largely, it will appear without any trappings of sentiment or
mysticism.'' Marriage is to be a concession to the flesh neces-
sary to secure efficiency ; it is throughout a secondary thing, a
something that distracts a man from the highest purposes of
individual achievement; in fact, so great is the danger in this
respect that it will probably be necessary to modify the tradi-
tional and Christian conception of it. "It is impossible to
ignore the forces making for a considerable relaxation of the
institution of permanent monogamous marriage in the coming
years. • • • I guess, without attempting to refer to statistics,
that our present society must show quite an unprecedented num-
ber and (an) increasing number of male and female celibates —
not religious celibates, but people, for the most part, whose
standard of personal comfort has such a relation to their earn-
ing power that they shirk or cannot enter the matrimonial
grouping. The institution of permanent monogamous marriage
— 3xcept in the ideal Roman Catholic community — is sustained
at present entirely by the inertia of custom, and by a number
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I9ia] H. G. WELLS 479
of sentimental and practical considerations! considerations that
may very possibly undergo modification in the face of the
altered relationship of husband and wife that the present de-
velopment of childless nUnages is bringing about. . • • It
must be remembered that both for husband and wife in most
cases monogamic life-marriage involves an element of sacrificci
it is an institution of late appearance in the history of man-
kind, and it does not completely fit the psychology or physi-
ology of any but very exceptional characters of either sex.
For the man it involves considerable restraint ... for the
woman it commonly implies many uncongenial submissions.
• • • Will a generation to whom marriage will be no longer
necessarily associated with the birth and rearing of childreui
or with the immediate co-operation and sympathy of husband
and wife in common proceedings, retain its present feeling for
the extreme sanctity of the permanent marriage bond?''
(A.^ pp. 125-128). This is indeed casting away the rudder in
order to lighten the ship 1
Such reading as this, though very distasteful to a Catholic,
must be openly dealt with — mere distaste is no positive anti-
septic to such virulent poison. Marriage — perpetual monoga-
mous marriage — according to this view is no longer to become
a necessary rule of highly civilized life, because, forsooth,
emotional restraint is so painfully irksome to men and women
of ungoverned passions. Does Mr. Wells deliberately coun-
tenance the relaxation or abandonment of marriage because
there are so many bad people in the world who make mar-
riage hideous to themselves and their neighbors by an utter
refusal to abide by its inmost law? If so, he deliberately
encourages the abandonment in despair of all moral hope,
training, and discipline whatever. This is the worst kind of
pragmatism^that kind for which there being no absolute moral
law, morals become mere expressions of human convention;
if any man finds it difficult to practice this convention, he may
abandon the attempt on the plea that for him, at any rate, it
has no pragmatic value. The end of such philosophy is not
difficult to foresee.
But lest I should seem to be judging our author by a
solitary pronouncement, I must ask the reader to exercise bis
patience even further. '' The question of marriage," says Mr.
Wells, '' is the most complicated and difficult in the whole range
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48o H. G. Wells [July,
of Utopian problems/' What then are the lines upon which
he will grapple with it ? Roughly speaking» State interference I
First, the State would interfere with the marriage contract
itself. Mr. Wells is against compulsory pairing, but is in favor
of ''general limitiDg conditions.'' ''The State is justified in
saying, before you may add children to the community for the
community to educate and in part to support, you must be
above a certain minimum of personal efficiency, and this you
must show by holding a position of solvency and independ-
ence in the world; you must be above a certain age, and a
certain minimum of physical development, and free from any
transmissible disease. You must not be a criminal unless you
have expiated your offence. Failing these simple qualifica-
tions! if you and some person conspire and add population
to the State, we will, for the sake of humanity, take over the
innocent victim of your passions, but we shall insist that you
are under a debt to the State of a peculiar sort, and one
you will certainly pay, even if it is necessary to use restraint
to get payment out of you ; it is a debt that has in the last
resort your liberty as security, and, moreoveri if this happens
a second time, or if it is a disease or imbecility you have
multiplied, we shall take an absolutely effectual guarantee that
neither you nor your partner offend again in this matter"
(K, p. 184).
Secondly, the State will interfere to make women as eco-
nomically free as men. " It is a fact that almost every point
in which a woman differs from man is an economic disadvan-
tage to her, her incapacity for great stresses of exertion, her
frequent liability to slight illness, her weaker initiative, her in-
ferior invention and resourcefulnessi her relative incapacity for
organization and combination, and the possibilities of emotion-
al complications whenever she is in economic dependence on
men" {U.^ p. 187). The remedy for this economic inferiority
of women is as simple as it is finally destructive of all that
marriage has ever meant to the best of women and men.
" Since the State is to exercise the right of forbidding mother-
hood, a woman who is, or is becoming a mother, is as much
entitled to wages above the minimum wage • • • as a
bishop in the State Church. • • • In Utopia a career of
wholesome motherhood would be, under such circumstances as
I have suggested, a remunerative calling." In this case, as in
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 48.1
others, the Socialist is so much wiser than nature, but far less
economical. Mr* Wells himself has pointed out elsewhere that
it is better wherever possible to displace the spirit of gain by
the spirit of service, the great creative things of life being
done for nothing — that is to say for love (N.^ Chap. V.).
Thirdly, the State will interfere after marriage between the
husband and wife ** on account of clashing freedoms.'' Also
the one unavoidable condition of marriage will be the faithful-
ness of the wife; ''her infidelity being demonstrated, must at
once terminate marriage and release both her husband and the
State from any liability for the support of her illegitimate off-
spring. That, at any rate, is beyond controversy. A woman
who is divorced on this account will be divorced as a public
offender. Mr. Wells being at last brought face to face with a
practical problem of conduct takes a much more strictly ethical
line than he seemed inclined to do in his more disinterestedly
speculative Anticipations. He has become almost a Calvinist
in his new zeal for State morality, but, as always happens
with State moralists, he is so much rougher than the Church
in his treatment of human frailty — his only way is that of the
broad arrow and the mailed fist, to her that bath not shall be
taken away even that which she hath, no place being given for
hope or recovery.
Lastly, the State will interfere with marriage in respect to
the children. He treats of this at length in chapter IH. of
New Worlds for Old. ** One general maladjustment,'' he says,
''covers every case of neglected or ill-brought-up children in
the world, and that is this, that with or without decent excuse,
the parent has not been equal to the task of rearing a civilized
citizen. We have demanded too much of the parent, materially
and morally. . . • There are two courses open to us. The
first is to relieve the parents by lowering the standard of our
demand ; the second is to relieve them by supplementing their
efforts." According to Mr. Wells the child stands between two
authorities, that of its parents and that of the State. In his
opinion the State is in every way the more efficient of these
two authorities, and certainly the higher authority. He there-
fore argues that to the State should be given all powers of in-
terference, to be used by it at its own discretion. This view
I believe to be wrong. The Christian family — father, mother,
and child or children — is an organic thing and lives an organic
VOL. xci.— 31
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481 H. G. WELLS [July,
life. The best and only way to treat it is in and for itself.
Like an individuali or eren like a State, it may be starved and
so become ineffective and socially dangerous. In the first place
it most be properly fed, but it is to be fed in order tiiat it
may do things for itself and not in order that things should
be done for it by proxy. So far, then, the State is of assist*
ance. The State must use its proper powers in order to en-
sure the economic basis of family life. As Cardinal Manning
said: ''The minimum wage must be sufficient to maintain a
man and his home.'' But, as I have shown in my last paper,
this minimum wage of maintenance may be obtained without
resorting to Socialism. The State must ensure a living wage
as just payment for work done, but it can never, and should
never, attempt to relieve the family of its own responsible life
or any part of its own ^characteristic work. The father must
do for the family — for the mother, the children, and himself—
what he alone can most effectually and characteristically do;
the mother must do for her husband, for her children, and for
herself what she is most fitted by her nature to undertake; and
the children mast do for their parents and for themselves what
they can.
The business of the State is not, then, to detach the mem-
bers of the family from their organic body in order to make
them separately and selfishly efficient — we only cut off a mem-
ber from the body as a last and dreadful resource to prevent
organic poisoning. The business of the State is radier that of
helping the family to a healthy, co-operative, and productive
unity. What it must avoid, except in the most extreme case^
is treatment of a kind which would tend to tiie entire separa-
tion of members of the family from the family as a whole,
whether in the matter of feeding, education, instruction, or
employment. And what is more, when help is given through
the State, it should, as far as possible, be given through thi
father, who, as the responsible head and bread- winner, is in
the highest place of directive authority.* Why tear asunder
* Mr. Wells resigned his portion on the Executive Boftrd of the Fabian Society in X908 because
he found himself in disagreement with that body on this very point. In a letter to tfaeaecretary
he writes : *' My chief objection to the (Fabian) basis is its disregard of that claim of every child
upon the State, which is primary and fundamental to my conception of Socialism. A schewu
which proposa to Uovt wtathirand child ceoticmicaUy dtptndkni tipom the father istowtcm^t So*
ciaHtm at aJi, Itforbids the practical freedom of women and leaves the essential evils ol the
Individualist system untouched. • • • I do not care to remain permanently identified with
formulae that misstate my views by this tremendous omission.*'
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 483
this material and spiritual whole which God has made and made
to co-operate into dissevered units, who must each, in the
most self»regarding and selfish manner, look to the State for
food, clothing, shelter, and the rest? The State was never
meant to appropriate to itself the main parental duties and
responsibilities. It was rather meant to prevent other people,
exploiting employers and the like, from appropriating them.
What parents, especially poor parents, need most of all just
now is a wider, freer, healthier family sphere in which to be
properly parental.
'< The family,'' wrote Leo XIII., '' may be regarded as the
cradle of dvil society, and it is in great measure within the
circle of family life that the destiny of the State is fostered.
. . . Parents hold from nature their right of training the
children to whom they have given birth.'' Education at schools
is, of course, necessary, yet he reminds us ** that the minds of
children are most of all influenced by the training they receive
at home."
The Christian family is a self-integrating thing. All pos-
sible social reform must be based on this fact Socialism is
not based on this fact^ because Socialism has never envisaged
the family as such. Socialism regards the father of a family
not as a father at all, but as a unit producing or failing to
produce for the good of the community; the mother is not
thought of as the wife of a given husband, but as the producer
for State benefi.t of one, two, or more babies ; the very children
are but producers in potenUa. This is the Socialist's mistake.
The family is, after the Church, the most effectively qual-
itative institution in life; it is the private battle-ground of in-
dividuality; it means freedom for good or evil; it means that
economy of human affections which gives them their maximum
creative power and makes them formative of all that is most
characteristically human in the mother, in the father, and in
the child. It is the holy and terrible place which God has
consecrated for the free struggle between the human will and
the powers of evil There the child may find all effective
helps and spurs to morality, and there he will best learn to
fight for the strong and healthful possession of his own soul,
his own body, and his own hearth. The family is a private
place, and that is why Socialists dislike it; it is a place of self-
possession, and it is sacredly exclusive, because God made it z<^.
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PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM.
BY ESTHER W. NEILL,
Chapter I.
i why shouldn't be drink himself to death?*'
The other members of the conference turned
owards Miss Cuthbert with varied expressions
i wondering dismay.
The agent smiled faintly. ** There are the usual
reasons/' she began, then hesitated. After all, the question
seemed open to discussion. It was the first time that Miss
Cuthbert had spoken. She had come in an hour before with
Miss Delarue, a sweet-faced little saint, who gave all her wak-
ing moments to charity problems. The new recruit, in her
handsome furs, looked oddly out of place among these earnest
workers, and yet there was a possibility of power about her
that made the other occupants of the room vaguely feel their
own deficiencies — an energizing quality not quite submerged
by her present apparent indifference*
" Of course I don't know the man," she went on, ** but if,
as you say, he has no work, no health, no friends, no pros-
pects, no definite religion — how are you going to appeal to
him? Drink seems the logical outcome."
"Oh, we can't work on those principles," protested Miss
Delarue. '' The man must have some good in him somewhere.
I think I can get him a place in the country where he will
have work out of doors and a good home. Will you send him
to me to-morrow?"
The tired eyes of the agent brightened as she made a note
of this offer on the minutes. Any hint of a solution to these
pitiful human problems was received so gratefully that Miss
Cuthbert found herself questioning whether the agent could
care so much; for this case, only partially disposed of, seemed
to count so little among the many other soul tragedies which
the agent brought from her file, neatly docketted and coldly
classified in their large envelopes of brown manila.
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19 lO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 485
These papers, spread out upon the table, read of shattered
pride, sin, and shame, the cry of the unborn, petitions from
the dying, untiring lore, cruel vindictiveness. Some of the
letters were almost illegible, written by the untutored, the
crafty, or by hands stiffened by age or weakened by want.
There were long accounts of help given, help withheld — the
world-old stories to which the ages have but added slight dif-
ferences in outline.
Miss Cuthbert*s strong face revealed growing impatience^
The office, with its air-tight stove, was stuffy and unattractive,
though the agent had done her best to touch it into some
Semblance of a home. On the window sill two yellowing
geraniums struggled for existence in the chance sunlight; the
rest of the room was furnished in derelicts. A three-legged
sofa was prudently propped on its maimed side by a soap bo^
over which had been draped, with accurate carelessness, a
bright-hued serape. A chromo, flanked by a calendar, hung
on the whitewashed wall, and a high-backed rocker with a
carpet seat stood waiting for the chairman who did not come.
Miss Cuthbert's quick eyes took, in all these trifling details,
while she listened to the arguments going on about her. Her
mind was distracted by her own affairs. She had told Miss
Delarue that she was in no mood to listen to the miseries of
other people. She regretted that she had been persuaded to
come.
At last some one suggested that the meeting adjourn, and
Miss Cuthbert promptly seconded the motion. Once out of
the office she breathed in the fresh air delightedly and hurried
to her little electric run-about that stood, a black-coated aris*
tocrat, amid the muddied drays and wagons that creaked their
way over the cobble-stones of this barely respectable street.
'' Now Marie," she said, turning to her friend, ** jump in
beside me and tell me that you are satisfied.'*
**Vm not at all satisfied,'' smiled Miss Delarue, tucking the
heavy fur rugs about her feet. '' You are in a contrary mood,
Patricia. Some day you will find the work interesting, I
know."
** Never 1 " said the other decidedly, as she started the ma-
chine. ''You won't believe me, because you are an unhalocd
saint, while I am such a sinner. We live at the poles of tbe
spiritual world."
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486 Patricia^ the Problem [joiy,
'' If yoti would only go into the work, Patricia^'' pleaded
Marie, '' I know yon would be a power. I am going to make
Hugh talk to you/'
Patricia smiled tolerently. ''And who is Hugh?'' she
asked.
''My cousin — I am sure you have heard me speak of
Doctor Farrell/'
"Oh| you mean the paragon who used to write to you
while we were in Paris. Please forgive me, Marie dear, but
I hate your cousin from hearsay.'*
"But you don't know. him. You are so unreasonable to-
day."
Patricia laughed good-naturedly. "I have 'always heard
that unreasonableness was a woman's privilege. If your cousin
is so much interested in slums and settlements, why wasn't
he at the conference to»day?"
" I don't know. I wish he had been. He is so helpful ;
he has had so much experience in dealing with the poor."
Patricia looked dreamily off into the distance. "What leads
him to take an interest in such things? I cannot understand
this seeking after paupers. I couldn't stand going to their
houses. I don't want to see them— dirty, ragged, smdly crea-
tures — I don't want to hear their multitudinous woes. I want
to be happy, Marie dear, I want to grasp at all the happiness
I can."
"You can't be happy in yourself," returned Marie seri-
ously.
" Well, I don't expect to go into solitary confinement," she
Uughed again. "Look at the people. I couldn't live alone
in a world full of people."
They had turned into one of the wide avenues where the
mist of the damp winter afternoon was broken by crowds of
smartly dressed men and women. Two or three teas were in
progress and the striped awningSi stretched from curb to door-
way, contributed a bit of flaming color to offset the grayness
of the sky.
" I don't understand your cousin Hugh," said Miss Cuthbert
again, after a long silence given to steering her machine through
an intricate passage between vehicles. "What does he do for
a living? Why doesn't he enter your priesthood? Why this
passion for paupers?"
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19IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 4S7
*' Which question shall I answer first ? '' smiled Marie, tight-
ening her fur scarf about her throat. ''Please, dear Patricia,
slow down a bit. You are exceeding the speed limit I know/'
'' I usually do/' said Patricia recklessly. '' Half the time
the policemen never see, but you are a nervous little thing,
so 1*11 slow down if it makes you any more comfortable. Is
this slow enough? Now tell me about your cousin.''
'' Well, to begin, he is very rich. My grandfather had only
two children, you know, and he divided his estate between
them. My uncle, Hugh's father, invested his share wisely and
doubled the original amount, I believe. My mother knew noth-
ing about business, and lost everything she had before I was
born. As for the other question, about the priesthood, that
seems rather ridiculous. I wouldn't call Hugh pious. You
know it's no longer unique to go in for settlement work. Hugh
has always felt an enormous pity for the suffering. When he was
a boy the house was kept full of sick kittens, lame dogs, broken-
winged birds. I remember as a child I was afraid to go to my
uncle's, for fear some of the invalids would fly at me. I haven't
seen much of Hugh in years. He was away at college and
then he spent so much time studying in Berlin; and while
Father lived we were always on the move, seeking our fortune
and never finding it^-"
Miss Cuthbert rested her large hand sympathetically upon
her friend's for a moment. '' It was a lucky day for me when
Father found you," she said.
'' Lucky for us," said Maria. '' You have made my mother
so comfortable and happy."
''I don't know," said Patricia reflectively, ''sometimes I
think she has found the position very trying. We are not your
sort, Marie dear, and you know it. I have been half-way tamed,
but dear old Dad never will be— he is too old to change."
"He has been very good to us."
" I think there is a special reason," said Patricia enigmati-
cally.
" I don't know what you mean^-"
" Perhaps I don't either. Here we are at home. What a
monstrosity this house is 1 I don*t think I ever comprehended
its whole hideottsness before."
As the machine stopped a man in livery came hurrying out
to assist the ladies to alight and to take charge of the machine
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488 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [July,
and the sable robes. Miss Cuthbert sat quite still for a mo-
menty looking up at her home, lost in re very.
The Hon. Tom Cathbert's mansion was most conspicaous
for its ornate exterior. He had planned it himself from some
fancied castle that he had seen pictured in his boyhood, and
the bewildered architect, after a short sermon on repose in sim*
plicity, realizing that his suggestions were useless and ill-timed^
and that a hundred-thousand^dollar contract was slipping from
him, cast his ready imagination into that of his client and per-
petrated a palace of disproportioned turrets, gables, and gar-
goyles. The Hon. Tom would like to have added a drawbridge
with sewer connections, if the authorities had not insisted upon
his keeping within well-defined building lines.
At first Patricia had wandered through the frescoed rooms
with a child's delight in their gorgeousness of color, but, after
four years of foreign travel, she had returned home with a
different point of view.
''Dad, dear,'' she said on the night of her arrival, coming
up behind him and putting her arms around his neck, ''your
house is too gay and I don't like it."
" Don't like it t " exclaimed the Hon. Tom, catching at the
large white hands and keeping them clasped in front of his
grizzled whiskers. "I'm sure I've been as exemplary as a
Sunday- School while you've been gone. Gay 1 Why, Pat dear,
the house has been as lonely as a sepulchre without you."
" Sepulchre," laughed Patricia. " Who ever saw a red-green-
blue-satin sepulchre. It looks like a Fiji Islander's."
He turned and stared up at his daughter with a wondering
admiration. Her frankness pleased him. It brought back the
girl he remembered. He had had a strange feeling all evening
that he)had lost her. This beautiful woman, in her Paris gown,
that he had met at the dock that afternoon, seemed so different
from the disheveled, careless girl who had gone from him.
" Well, then, fix it to suit yourself i" he said good-naturedly.
"Now that you are here you are boss of the ranch. We've
got the stuff to do anything we please. Leave the walls stand-
ing and tear the blooming insides out."
" I will," said Patricia, running her fingers caressingly
through his thin hair. "I 'm so glad to be back again to boss
you. You always spoilt me, Dad. You've always given me
my own way about everything."
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I9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 489
' ''Well, if I hadn't, ten to one yots would have taken it.
You're a chip of the old block, Pat, though the Lord be thanked
your face was cut after a different pattern. Td take no prize
in a beauty show, while you — "
'' Do you really think I'm pretty. Dad ? " she interrupted
him. '* Do you really think I've improved ? "
*' Improved 1 " he gave a long, low whistle. ''When I think
of you riding around the prairie with your dusty skirts and
your hair flying, and a sombrero that some cow man left at
our place because things in that territory had grown too hot
for him and he had to leave in a hurry, I can't believe my
eyes. You're stunning, Pat; something like the Goddess of
Liberty come to shore — "
Patricia stooped and kissed him on his growing bald spot.
''But I'm the same on the inside. Dad," she said, "just the
same."
He wheeled around suddenly and faced her. " I don't know,"
he said, with a troubled expression in his keen gray eyes.
" I — don't — know — I don't feel so sure of that."
Chapter II.
Bob Bingham had been drunk twice before he was six years
old from draining the glasses that his convivial father left stand-
ing at all hours around his bed-room. The first time that he
had actually keeled over on the floor his blear-eyed parent
had been roused to some degree of solicitude and had rushed
frantically for) a doctor, who 'answered the urgent summons
clad unconventionally in trousers, trailing suspenders, and pa-
jama coat. After^ examining the child he had quickly pro-
nounced it a case of alcoholism, and then he proceeded to de-
liver an irate lecture to both father and child. But it had no
effect. ' Bob drank again as often as he got the chance.
Mr. Bingham, a prosperous saloon keeper, with some vague
ideas of parental duty a&d still mistier views on education, had
insisted that his son Bob should finish at the high school and
then go on to college, from which he was promptly expelled
for drunkenness and disorder. A short time after this his old
father died. Bob spent a few days of sober respectability,
in which he planned out a radical change of life, but, after
hearing the will read, and realizing that he was sole heir to
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490 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Jol7f
his father's Urge btisiiiessp and that there was a fortane^ lar ex-
ceeding his maadlin expectations, to his credit in the bank, he
went on a spree to celebrate and signed papers so reddesdy
that his next genuine sober moment found him withoat a cent.
Since that time he had drifted aimlessly from place to place,
in his happy- go-Incky fashion, making friends and losing them
with equal cheerfulness, working spasmodically in all sorts of
situations and trying nearly every trade, for his fingers were
skillful and his quick mind retained some of its deremess even
when half befogged by liquor. The world had been his tramp-
ing ground. He had seen all sorts of civilisations, and could
tell wondrous stories of his experiences. His own code of
ethics was so elastic that he had a vast toleration for the fol-
lies and sins of his fellows, and his unfailing sense of humor
made him a philosopher in the midst of his deprivations. But
now that he was getting older. his body craved food and de-
finite shelter for the winter.
This afternoon, as he readied Tom Cuthbert's door, he
looked up at the house in some dismay. From the pauper's
point of view it looked unsympathetically discouraging; but
mounting the steps he rang the bell, while he glanced uncer-
tainly at the card he held in his hand.
It bore the name of a charitable organization and on the
back the agent had written: ''Ask for Miss Delarue.**
Bob was uncertain of the name, the writing was indistinct,
and his eyes had lost some of their power. When the door
opened he thrust the bit of pasteboard on the butler, saying:
''That's the name of the lady I came to see."
" She don't buy of peddlers," snapped the man, who bore
some resemblance to a turtle in his tight-fitting livery.
"I'm not a tin peddler," said Bob, grinning in his old
genial way, "the Lord forbid. Chase yoursdf and get the
lady. I'm here by appointment — special invitation-^under-
stand ? I'll come in out of this west wind, rince yon insist on
it. Now shut the door— don't cool off the gentleman's house.
Used to be a butler myself in my early days. Staid a week
—couldn't stand the job answering bells and acting like a
fool."
Fearful of this tall, heavily built stranger, the butler moved
cautiously away to report his presence, leaving Bob to find a
seat in the hall or drawing-room as he saw fit.
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19IO.] Patricia^ the Problem 491
Bob meditated aloud : '' If I go in the parlor she may give
me a job in the legislature/' he grinned ; *' if I stay in the
hall she may take me for a cook '' ; and^ attracted by the glow
of an open grate that he saw in the distance^ he walked bold«
ly between the satin portieres into the paneled drawing*room.
''I look like a burglar/' he said, viewing himself with critical
indifference in the long mirror above the mantel. '''Ought
to have had a shave and borrowed some clothes— up against
the big bugs this time/' He pulled at his frayed collar and
tried to straighten his stringy red cravat, and then sat restful-
ly down in one of the brocade-covered chairs, feeling equal
to any emergency. He had played the part of a gentleman
before not unsuccessfully.
He began deliberately to plan out a! dramatic life-story for
the present occasion, when he was forced by surprise back into
his own personality.
Miss Delarue was out, so Miss Cuthbert had graciously con-
sented to meet the man whose case she had declared hopeless
when she had heard it reported to the conference the day be-
fore. For a moment she stood speechless in the doorway,
startled by the familiar face of her visitor, which was reflected
in the gold framed mirror, then she came forward, holding out
both hands with frank cordiality: ''Bob Bingham f she ex-
claimed. " Well I might have guessed it, though they did not
mention your name. No money— no health— -and drinking
again. How do you do?"
''It— it ain't Pat Cuthbert?" he gasped. "If it wasn't for
your red hair, Pat. Surely it ain't little Pat Cuthbert that I
used to take on my knee?"
"And tell stories to before the wood fire." She paused for a
moment, seeming to enjoy his astonishment. " I've grown up.
Bob; you know I had to grow up."
As she spoke the barriers of the years were razed. Fol-
lowing a common impulsct she had fallen naturally back into
her old attitude towards this favorite comrade of her child-
hood. He had noticed her when others neglected her, he bad
given her her first visions of a world outside her own; hit
stories of his many-sided adventures had made him a hero in
her eyes; she had always found him a delightful companion
when he was sober, and a harmless one when he was drunk.
"Lord! I should say you had grown up," he said, as his
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49« PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [July,
bloodshot eyes gazed intently in her face, seeking a glimpse of
the girl he had known. ** And — and yon live here ? "
''Since two weeks ago."
"Is this place Tom's?"
"It is."
" Are — are yon keeping a hotel ? "
"Not now," she laughed. "We have money — loads of
money. Dad struck it rich — a gold mine. It's like your story
of the fairy princess all come true."
"Well I'll be ," said Bob, sinking limply back in the
brocade chair, "and from what particular hole in the ground
did he get it?"
"The Larimee Mine." She sat down and propped her
spangled slippers up on the brass fender. "You remember
the old Larimee that you all used to laugh about"
"Lord save usl And he got this out of that?" And his
glance roamed around the room as if he were taking an inven-
tory of its valuable possessions. "Wonder how he got the
claim — wonder if he bought it clean outright. Used to belong
to a party here in the East, I believe. Your pa wasn't born
yesterday, you know."
"Oh, I don't know how he got it," she said carelessly.
"We have it — that's the main point. Now tell me what you
want. Bob."
"Lordl I don't know just this minute. I came here to
work some sort of a bluff; and I've butted into you folks,
who know me too well. I'm not as young as I once was.
It's getting chilly outside. I reckon I've got to go to
work."
" Work, Bob ? Do you really think you could keep at it ?
What kind of work? What have you been doing since I saw
you last?"
"Seven years ago," said Bob reflectively. "Let's see-
same old thingi I reckon. I was a year at your pa's tavern,
trying to keep his books, while you rode round the country on
those wild Indian ponies, trying to break your neck ; then you
went away to school, and that spoiled you-«"
"Spoiled me?"
" Well, next time I saw you, you were tamed considerable."
"I had to grow up. Bob."
"Of course, that's the trouble with most of us. Sprry I
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I9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 493
didn't pike oat for glory when I was fit to go. IVe been
such a blooming fool."
She looked up at him, her eyes full of their old childish
sympathy. ''Most of us are. Bob, sooner or later/' she said
comfortingly. ''But what are you going to do now?"
"I don't just know."
**Are you hungry?"
''Well, now that you mention it—"
"Come in then and have some lunch."
He followed her awkwardly, fearful of treading on the train
of her clinging gown. The handsome dress and the elaborate
Jtyle of coiffure all seemed unfamiliar, and he found himself
wondering, with a half-defined sense of resentment, whether
charity or her old hospitality had impelled the invitation.
She seated herself at the head of the long mahogany table,
and motioning her guest to a seat by her side she rang the
bell for the butler to bring back the lunch dishes which had
just been removed. " I have finished," she said, and the smile
brought back the atmosphere of friendliness which had seemed
lost for the moment. "I'll drink another cup of tea, just to
be sociable."
"Lord, I'm not used to such magnificence," said Bob,
picking up some of the silver and examining it. "How does
Tom take to all these fixings? I've been prospecting with
him when we ain't had so much as a fork between us."
"We can get used to anything," she said; and for the first
time since his arrival she became conscious of the chasm of
the years. She noticed the shabbiness of his clothes and the
grime of the hand that rested on the gleaming table-cloth.
"Except starvation," he said. His eyes turned hungrily
towards the massive sideboard, where stood some half-full
decanters. "Please, Pat, don't you want to give me a
drink?"
"Indeed I do not," she answered promptly. "Don't ask
it Didn't I try to keep you sober seven years ago?"
"Without success."
"You didn't drink so much that winter. You told me so
yourself."
"I drank more than was good for me."
"Well you always did that."
He laughed good-naturedly. " Right again, Pat," he said
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494 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [July,
''Then will you tell me why I wms brought here this after*
noon ? Your name wasn't on that card I sent in."
''I know. Miss Delarue wanted to see you/'
''And who is she?''
"She is a friend of mine. She waited in all morning to
see you; and when you did not come she left the message
with me."
"Then fire ahead."
" She has a place for you as caretaker. A cousin of hers
owns a place in the country about twenty miles from here. He
wants a man to go there and live and take care of his horses."
"And you are going to recommend me as a sober, indus-
trious citizen?"
"I don't know," she said, "they won't come to me for
recommendations ; and if they do— well. Bob, if you'll take the
place, I'll try to help you every way I can. I suppose I'll lie
for you if I have to. Miss Delarue would think it a sin—"
"And who is Miss Delarue?"
" Dear me. Bob, Miss Delarue Is a saint, while I-^well, you
know I might have been one too if I had had a mother."
"Well, religion ain't in my line, either," he returned with
cheerful resignation. " Saints I how was any one going to get
religion in that God-forsaken country you came from ? Ranch
men and sheep grazing, and afterwards prospecting with your
dad. I used to say you ought to have been a boy ; but, now
—Lord 1 what a woman."
She seemed pleased at his frank admiration. "It's my
clothes, Bob," she said, as she smoothed out a fold in her toft
dress with a caressing touch. "They make me seem so fine.
You know. Bob, I always wanted good clothes."
" Clothes can't do the whole business," be said with con-
viction. " I ain't disputing that money's a good thing to get,
but it's hard to hold. I'm glad it don't make you forget old
times."
"No"; she said, and the brightness died out of her face
for a moment, "but I'm trying to forget; I don't want to re-
member. I couldn't be poor again and go back. I couldn't.
Bob."
"Well, I wouldn't mind," he said, gulping down his tea,
"but I've never stepped up."
"But you will. Bob?" she entreated. "You'll take this
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i9ia] Patricia^ the problem 495
nice place la the country and get strong and keep sober?
Promise me yon will keep sober.'*
''I never have/' he said helplessly. ''You know, Pat, I
never have.'*
''Snppose, Bobt I gave yon some money, what would you
do with it?''
'* You want the honest truth ? "
"Yes."
''Then I'd make for the nearest saloon on the block."
"But there are no saloons on the block, and I am going
to trust you. Bob. Somebody has got to trust you. You will
need carfare to go to this place in the country ; and you ought
to have an overcoat. I'm going to give you fifty dollars; you
may need it."
" No doubt about that," he grinned, " but I've experienced
the sensation before. I'm not taking your pocket money, Pat."
She fumbled in the gold bag she carried and slipped a roll
of bills into his hand.
"You know we have plenty, Bob. Dad gives me all the
money I care to spend."
"Well, if It's Tom's I ain't so particular. Might have had
a piece of the Larimee myself if I had staid long enough to
get on to the curves of the deal."
" Perhaps," she said composedly.
"And now tell me who is this tenderfoot?"
" I don't know him. Here is his address. He's not our
sort. Bob. He's been respectable for generations. He owns
an estate that his grandfather and his great-grandfather had
before him, and It was given by the king to his great-great*
grandfather.
"Depends on how you look at it Kings ain't overly re-
spectaUe."
" Perhaps not," she said, " but the present owner is a model
of goodness; works in the slums and starts settlements and
fresh air farms for poor children."
"Sounds like an easy job," observed her visitor.
" But he doesn't do it for money. Bob. He has a fortune."
"Then what does he do it for?"
" Piety, I guess," said Patricia with a little grimace.
"Oh Lordl And his name?"
"Hugh FarreU," she said.
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496 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [July,
Chapter III.
Mrs. Delarae sat in the tapestried library, holding a band-
painted screen between her face and the firelight The screen
was symbolic. All her life she had straggled to shot out the
real, elemental things by pretty ruses or baubles of some sort.
But, in spite of her efforts, she had experienced enough of the
meagreness of poverty to make her sensitively aware of her
present luxurious surroundings. Soft cushions were to her like
caresses, her palate craved highly-seasoned food, she liked to
think of cooking as a fine art, a maid had become almost
a necessity. After all, she told herself, these things were her
birthright, so that outwardly she accepted them as a matter
of course, while mentally she exaggerated the service she gave
in exchange for this sumptuous livelihood.
The butler, moving noiselessly over the heavy rugs, appeared
suddenly before her with a card tray*
*' If you would only clear your throat, James,'' she protested^
glancing at the card. ''You are like a ghost I never could
stand being startled. Please clear your throat hereafter when
I do not hear you coming. Ask the gentleman to come in
here.*'
As the man went to do her bidding she rose from her chair
and stood waiting to greet her guest. She had long studied
the value of effect, and she knew that she made a stately pic-
ture, posed thus with her back to the fire. The light could
not accentuate her wrinkles, her trailing gown fell in graceful
folds from her well-rounded figure, which had none of the pnffi-
ness or angularity of old age. Her gray hair was arranged in
softening waves, after an approved fashion, and her lorgnette,
granted as a concession to her dimming eyes, and worn reluc-
tantly while reading, now dangled idly from a chain of unique
workmanship.
''Why, my dear Hugh/' she said with well modulated af*
fection, as she held out her arms to the tall man who came
eagerly forward. ''I thought you would never come."
He stooped to kiss her affectionately. '' I've been away for
the last two weeks. Didn't Marie tell you that I was out of
town ? "
*' Business in these days seems to be an excuse for every-
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i9ia] Patricia^ thm Problem 497
thing/' she said a trifle fretf ally^ *' though there is no denying
that it has a most necessary place in the. world. If my poor,
dear husband had had the business instinct of a baby, I wouldn't
be in my present position, I know."
Hugh looked around the room in some curiosity, as if he
were trying to comprehend the situation at a glance, and then
he took the deep-seated chair opposite to his aunt. As the
firelight flared in his face, Mrs. Delarue scrutinized him care-
fully.
''Too tall— too thin — too pale,'' she said to herself; and
then aloud : '' Why don't you grow a beard, Hugh ? You are
so— so ascetic looking, I feel that you ought to have on a
cassock and a bcretta and all the other habiliments of Rome."
" Just because I prefer to shave ? " His smile drove the
sadness out of his eyes for a moment. '' I believe I feel
cleaner without whiskers; but if it would contribute to the
happiness of my relatives — "
'' Now don't be absurd," she interrupted him. ''I see no
reason why a man should be any uglier than necessary."
'' I don't know that I do either," he admitted humorously.
'' I don't know that I ever considered the matter analytically
before."
''Few men do," she said with feminine finality. "Beauty
is to a woman what business is to a man. In other words,
she ought to make a business of being beautiful."
"Some women are created exempt from such labor," he
said with old-fashioned gallantry, looking into her handsome
face with genuine admiration.
"Not at all," she contradicted him, "that's a myth that
men cling to. I've been studying the subject scientifically of
late, for in Paris I've been transforming Tom Cuthbert's daugh*
ter into a beauty."
She stopped, feeling aware of his inattention. Somewhere
through the long glittering stretches of the house sounded the
faint music of a harp. Hugh was listening to catch the elusive
melody.
"And did you succeed?" he asked, feeling that his aunl
had paused for some sort of a response.
"You shall see," she smiled her satisfaction. "But of
course you won't realize the difference that five years have
made. When I saw her first out West I knew she had pos-
VOL. xci.— 3a
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498 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [July,
sibilities. She developed very quickly. She mast haveinher*
ited some sense of refinement from her mother, who died many
years ago/'
*' Certainly not from her father/' he said without math in*
terest.
''Oh, no; he's quite impossible/' the old lady agreed;
''but he's so enormously rich that people forgive his manners
and his finger nails/'
"Finger nails I"
'' Well you knowi dear, they are of the grubby, stubby
sort, and never quite clean; but, then, we don't see much of
him. He spends all his time looking after his interests; never
reads a book — studies the stock exchange— adds to his fortune
daily— very generous and kind-hearted; but, as I said before,
impossible socially — quite impossible/'
'' And you have undertaken to launch his daughter ? "
'' I suppose so, though that was not in the original con-
tract. You see it was this way. Your poor dear Uncle Henri
had lung trouble, though he never would admit it, and we had
gone West for his health, and while we were there some one
persuaded him to invest what little money he had in mining
stock. We soon found out that we had buried our money,
and I believe the disappointment killed Henri, for he lay down
and seemed to be dying from sheer hopelessness and despair,
and then one day he began to cry out for a priest— you know
he always was very religious and I was always worldly.
Marie inherits her piety from him. Well, this day I was des*
perate, for I felt that he was dying, and I went downstairs
to find out if, by chance, there was a mission anywhere in the
vicinity, and I saw Patricia standing on the porch. She had
on boots, a short skirt, a man's sombrero, and when I ques-
tioned her she told me that she would get the priest, and,
mounting a horse that was standing in the yard, she rode off
astride without a word to any one. The priest arrived late
that night— I found out afterwards that Patricia had ridden
thirty miles to bring him through an almost impassible road;
and she is not a Catholic, so she had no belief to spur her
on.
She paused for a moment. Hugh's eyes showed a gleam
of interest. '' Have you converted her ? " he asked.
'' No, indeed ; why, my dear Hugh, she is a perfect heathen
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1910.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 499
as far as any religious convictiotia go. I thiak she believes
vaguely in a God^ but that is all. She never had any trainingi
she had no one to teach her anjrthing. She grew up in her
father's tavern^ watched over by a slattern of a woman. Her
father sent her to boarding school for a time, and she was ex-
pelled because she broke every rule — not from any spirit of
maliciousness, you understand, but because she didn't see
sufficient reason for keeping them.*'
''Well, perhaps they were unreasonable."
''Not at all. You cannot manage an institution without
rules; but Patricia was unused to discipline of any kind. She
talked in her class and in the dormitories. She studied the
lessons that interested her and left alone the ones she did not
like. She went out shopping several times without permission;
and the effect was bad on the other girls, for she was a general
favorite."
"Then how did you succeed in taming her?"
The music of the harp grew louder. The invisible musician
was playing some old Irish lullabies that his nurse had crooned
to him in his cradle; they seemed to soothe away the troubles
of a world.
"My part was easy," his aunt went on. "You see, Henri
left us absolutely penniless, and Tom Cuthbert— I don't know
whether he understood the real situation or not — asked me
to take Marie and Patricia abroad. 'I want to make her a
lady,' he said, 'a lady like her mother was. I don't khow
how.' He gave us a most generous allowance. Patricia is so
intelligent that her development was astonishing. We had a
charming little circle in Paris — some of dear Henri's relatives
among the nobility ; most exclusive, you know — Patricia was a
great success. She really could have made a brilliant mar-
riage; but in some ways she is peculiar, and her ideas of
marriage are absurd."
" What are her ideas ? " he asked, knowing that she had
again paused for a vivifjring question.
"Well, she believes in love."
"Don't you?"
"Of course; but I know it has its limitations. It can't
live on nothing a year. Patricia talks comradeship and intel-
lectual equality, and demands more than our grandmothers
ever dreamed of."
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500 PATRICIA. THE PROBLEM U^7f
''Yoa would hardly expect the Tiewpoint of her grand*
mother ? ''
''No, not exactly; bat in my day women were not so
analjTtical. If a man cared for her and could proTide com-
fortably, she was married and contented/'
** It sounds rather barbarous," he said.
She tapped his arm lightly with her lorgnette. ''I never
expect you to agree with me, Hugh dear. Your father was a
most obstinate boy; but I do want your help with Patricia."
'' How?" he asked in some dismay,
r ''I want you to introduce her to your friends."
** Oh, my dear aunt," he said, laughing as he stretched out
his feet to the fire. '' If you could see my friends — ragpick*
ers, charwomen, newsboys, drunks. I dropped out of your
sort of lodety years ago. I'm a social outlaw. I never pay
a dinner calL I rarely answer an invitation — I haven't time — "
''You are still very presentable," she said, surveying his
faultless evening clothes; "and if, as a rich man, you choose
to dabble in all sorts of queer philanthropies, it makes you all
the more interesting in these days when every one is supposed
to have a fad of some sort. Now it will be a real charity to
help me this winter. I want Patricia to join the Southern
Assembly, and we will need you. As I told you before, Tom
Cuthbert is quite impossible socially, and a man is useful in
so many ways."
"Well, until you find some one more amiable and more
ornamental, I'm willing to be used," he said resignedly, "but
I hate assemblies. I don't know how to dance and I never
hope to learn — I can't comprehend afternoon teas, and I only
find dinners tolerable when the cook is a chef. So please
marry off Miss Patricia as quickly as you can."
She leaned over and rested her wrinkled face against his
shoulder, more conscious of the fine quality of his coat than,
any real definite feeling of affection. " I knew you would be
good," she said. " Now, go find the girls. I want you to see
Patricia. They are in the music room. I will join you there
as soon as I finish this chapter of my novel. People in books
are so satisfactory. They always do what one expects they
will do."
" Must I go ? '% he asked pathetically. He was very tired.
The deep leather chair was so comfortable, and his aunt's
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I9Xp.] PATHICIA, THS JPHOBlSM 50I
prattle required so little response, that he could listen to the
dreamy, far-away music with bis old childish unquestioning
sense of peace.
'' Of course you must go/* she said, ** I want your opinion
of my prot^g^e."
He arose reluctantly, and following the music he passed
through the ornate magnificence of the hall; the conservatory
and the music room were at the extreme end. The fragrance
of exotics seemed a fit accompaniment to the rare melody of
the harp. He stopped for a moment to listen, and then he
knocked softly upon the framework of the door.
** Come in,** some one said, and pushing the silken portiere
aside he found himself alone with Patricia.
For a moment she did not look up. She was sitting on a
low stool, dressed all in white, her reddish hair resting in
sharp contrast against the gold of the harp, her large white
hands caught dreamily at the strings, as if she were trying to
express some melody of her own improvising. At last she
turned —
''I suppose you are Dr. Farrell,'' she said indi£ferently.
** Marie has a headache and has gone upstairs.'' She held out
her hand. It lay inert in his for a moment. ** I am Patricia,
the problem,'* she said*
Chapter IV.
There was something totagonistic in Patricia's greeting that
roused his curiosity at once.
''Will you keep on with your music?" he began, finding a
cushioned divan by the door.
''I think it might be safer," she said.
"Safer?"
'' Safer for a beginning " ; she forced a mirthless little laugh.
^'Your aunt has been telling you all about me— all about us
*— I hate to be dissected. I know she wants your opinion— I
feel that it is going to be most unfavorable. I think I shall
try to make it so."
He listened in some amazement, and then, with an intui-
tion rare in men, he comprehended her position. If she had
not actually heard his aunt's conversation, she could rightly
conjecture it. The five years had been an education in books
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$92 PATJtICIA, THE PROBLEM [Jolr»
Md travel. They had brought tocher a love of calttire and re-
fiaemeot, a knowledge of the conventions which neither over-
awed nor encompassed her. Her long, impressionable child-
hood, spent on the wide-stretching plains^ where all bonndary
lines are lost in misty horizons, had left her free. Mrs. Del-
arne's standards would be accepted so far as they seemed de-
sirable. To Patricia they would never prove formative. They
were no part of her; she used themi or she discarded them,
as she saw fit
She had again taken her place on the low stool, but sud-
denly she pushed the harp from her. 'Tm in no humor for
music,'* she said.
He surveyed her for a few moments in silence. Her figure
was silhouetted against the tall French windows. The heavy
velvet curtains had been pulled apart to coax in the last glow
of the sunset; and now the moon was rising from behind some
black pines, that stood out, lance-like, guarding the city. The
small, red-shaded light in the room mingled strangely with the
white brilliance from outside.
^'A moment ago,'' Hugh said, ''I fancied you a saint set
in a stained-glass window, or perhaps one of the seraphim with
a harp; but a saint out of humor — "
''Perhaps you are not so far wrong," she interrupted.
'' Stained-glass saints are not sanctified, you know. I always
think of them in sections leaded together, sometimes most awk-
wardly. Your aunt has given you the pieces to form an image
as you like. Perhaps I won't recognize myself when you get
through; but it really doesn't matter."
^'I think it does," he said, a trifle disconcerted and not
knowing what else to say.
''What is the use of pretending?" she began, smoothing
her wavy hair back from her forehead as if she were already
tired of the interview. "We won't like each other."
'' I'm sorry," he said gently ; and he wondered if he felt, or
forced, the tone of regret in his voice. "But we need not
know each other if you don't wish it." He rose, preparatory
to taking his deparature.
"Yes, we must"; she said with a certain imperiousness.
" Please sit down. You see I have persuaded Mrs. Pelarue to
remain with me this winter, and she will expect to see a great
deal of you ; and then Marie likes you and feels so much
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I9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 503
sympathy with your work. Mrs. Delarue woald not under-
stand your not coming here freqaently. So we mast know
each other. I fear I have made a rude beginning."
''I don't know/' he said, and there was a gleam of hnmor
in his eyes, '' I have met many people ; bat I believe I never
made such progress in an acquaintanceship before. Of course
I can understand perfectly any one disliking me, but still, feel-
ling of any sort usually has some foundation. You see we
don't know each other. Don't you think your judgment is a
bit rash?"
She caught the expression in his eyes and smiled back at
him. ''Perhaps/' she admitted, ''but I have heard things."
"What things?" he asked.
"Oh, good things/' she replied hastily. "Marie tells me
you are so religious — few men are — I don't think I should
like the type. She tells me that you live in a settlement,
although you have a beautiful home of your own. I can't
understand any one choosing to be surrounded by the ugly,
vicious things of life when he could escape them. Marie tells
me that you studied medicine so that you could practice only
among the poor. I never could endure the sight of suffering.
When I was a child and we were living on a ranch, I ran
away whenever Father branded the cattle. I've run away now,
and I mean to stay away."
" I can understand that point of view, too," he said slowly.
She looked quickly up at him, incredulity in her eyes.
"I don't believe you can," she said. "You have never
been really poor yourself. You have only made believe."
"There are many things worse than poverty," he said,
falling back upon this platitude to urge her to go on.
" Then I don't know them," she said quickly. " Poverty
seems to embrace all other forms of misery. I seem to have
felt them all. I was born in a shanty out on the plains. My
mother cooked and washed and ironed for eight ranchmen.
We had nothing but the sheep — nothing in the house but the
barest necessities, and few of those— and my mother, now that
I am old enough to understand, was not used to privation.
She bad come from a beautiful New England village to teach
a little Western school She loved music and the artistic
things of life. The work was too hard for her. Her health
began to fail, and that summer we moved further on. The
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504 PATRICIA, THE PjtOBLEM [JulXf
sheep bad proved a failure. Father had heard that rich gold
mines had been discovered about a hundred miles away, and
again we moved on. We took possession of a little cabin that
had been abandoned several yeai;s before, ,and while Father
went prospecting. Mother, in her struggle for food and fuel,
began to furnish meals to some of the miners. Then Father
adde(^ several rooms to the cabin, and opened a bar, and called
the place tjbe Golden Eagle. Mother protested, but Father
could not understand her objections. His father and his fath-
er's father had kept a saloon, and he called my mother a little
Puritan. I remember the word — I puzzled over it as a child
—I was four when she died. Poverty killed her. It was the
grind, the burden, the ugliness, the cramping of her soul into
surroundings from which there seemed no escape. You have
never felt it. At any time you could give up. You have not
known the horror of it all—the sordid, desperate struggle to
keep a badly vitalized body when all energy of mind and soul
seem gone."
'' You could not have felt that either.*'
''Yes**; she said, ''I saw it and felt it. The woman who
came to take care of me when my mother died had not a
thought above her dish pans and her glass of grog at night
In the saloon men gambled and fought for infinitesimal nuggets.
One night there was a murder. I heard the angry voices and
then groans out of a sudden silence. I was only twelve, and I
put my fingers in my ears and buried my head under the bed-
clothes. Old Emily, who slept in the room with me, told me
to go to sleep. 'If it*s a killin*,' she said; "tain't goin* to
mend matters to have you settin' up all night* Oh, I want
to keep away from it — I could not go back. I hate the sight
of the struggle — the struggle of the body to live— just to
live.**
While she talked her face had flushed into beauty. He
bad listened in silent amazement. He had expected to find
Miss Cutbbert a snob, ambitious only for social supremacy.
He tried to fancy her in the old world society, of which his
aunt had spoken. Had they welcomed her candor as refresh«k
ingly American, after their satiety with ancestral codes ? Was
she always so frank as she had been with him; or had she
felt forced to explain herself mora fully, since Mrs. Delarue
had taken him into her confidence?
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''I know the lower world is an unlovely one,'* he said, ''but
we can't keep our hands o£f. After all, they are our neighbors.*'
"We can keep our hands o£f if we choose, and I choose.
I want to be happy for a little while, I want to live for my
own happiness alone.*'
"Some women could/' he said reflectively, "but I don't
believe you are one of them. You will never find your hap-
piness that way."
She went to the window, and turning her back upon him
she looked out into the garden. The bare trees were ice
laden and in the moonlight seemed to be hung with sparkling
fruit.
"How do you know?" she said stiffly. "Please don't
preach to me. It wouldn't do any good. I have the vaguest
ideas of religion. Life is so mysterious I don't want to think
about it. I want to accept what has been given to me as un-
questioningly as I can."
"For how long?" Again his eyes showed a humorous
light.
"Oh, I don't know. As long as I can. The world is full
of beautiful things, I'll see that side only; and keep away
from the dark corners." She spoke with the wilfulness of a
child.
"You can't," he said. And his lean white face had some
oi the severity of the anchorite about it. "The dark comers
are everywhere; and we depend upon our neighbors at every
turn. They build our houses, our bridges, our railroads. They
clothe us, they furnish us with food and fuel; our luxuries,
our necessities, depend upon that under world. Are we to
render it no service in return?"
" I cannot think as you do ; and that is another reason for
my being happy." She looked out again into the garden, and
then, as if animated by some sudden impulse, she took her
place at the harp and lightly touched the strings. " Now lis-
ten to my creed," she said.
The music began stealthily, as if it feared resistance, then
it spoke and revealed to him a wonder world. It led him
through primeval forests,^ where nature rioted unassailed, and
unfolded colors of changing green and gold, the tinkle of pale
lily ponds— birds drinking from unpressed grapes then singing
to their nesting heights— the whir of wings — ^the splash of tiny
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506 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [July.
waterfalls— then away with the wind — past^fidds of crackliog
corn, past lowing cattle dozing in the snn, across the m«rmar-
ing grasses of the plains— np— up to peaks of eternal snow-
flaming clouds— seas of molten fire-^widths of stars— die peace
of dark-riven gorges, broken only by the tumultoousness of
monntain streams.
The music stopped. Patricia sat silent, only half-consdotts
of her guest. He stirred uneasily. ''What a power. What
pagan power I '' he exclaimed.
"You understand ?•'
'' It's a mood/' he said. ** Only a mood/'
She shook her head. ''The mood is me.'' Then she
laughed. "I may be ungrammatical ; but I always try to tell
the truth."
Her tone and the forced laugh brought him back to the
ordinary world of couTentions.
"Your music is wonderful/' he said; and then, seeking to
relieve the tensity of the situation, he added: "That alone
would preserve you from pauperism"; and he arose to bid her
good-night, feeling, in some intangible way, that she wished
to dismiss him from her thoughts and her presence.
(to bb continued.)
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SOME THOUGHTS ON CRITICISM.
BY S. M. P.
|E suffered from critics who were forever shearing
the wild tresses of poetry between rusty rules,
who could never see a literary bough project
beyond the trim level of its day but they must
lop it with a crooked criticism, who kept in-
domitably planting in the defiles of fame the established
canons, that had been spiked by poet after poet. • • •**
So wrote Francis Thompson of a great forerunner of the
early nineteenth century, and so might it be written of many
another in the further past And if it is not to be true of the
poets of the future, it is needful for critics to reconsider their
office and its responsibilities. In all spheres of mental activity
we are gaining from new heights, new outlooks, and why not
in this one ?
It is true, indeed, that never has finer or more interpreta-
tive criticism been written than within the last hundred years,
but this work has been done, for the most part, on the ac-
knowledged masterpieces of the werld's literature, on dead
and gone authors, and with the assured approbation of an
almost entirely concurring generation. But the critic has an-
other and more difficult office, that of being adequate to a
new genius, or literary force, of his own day. It is here that
he should hesitate, that he should look to his qualifications, no
matter what good work he has already done. It is here that
disasters have multiplied, and too often he who has charmed us
with his interpretation of old authors is quite unfit to lead us
beyond the outer courts of the new.
In all departments of life or art there tends to grow
in die minds of proficients an ideal out of what has pleased
and attracted them in the past Before the bar of this ideal
original forces, coming on the scene, are too often doomed.
Those who have settled the graver problems of life or art for
themselves, and have lived along these lines, consciously or un*
consciously, cease to be much interested in what coming seers
would unfold. But ** a poet is not merely a purveyor to es-
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S08 SOME THOUGHTS dtf CRITICISM [July,
tablisbed tastes '* ; he is also ** a compelling and shaping force,
a light thrown on the dark places of changeful human ex-
perience/' His recognition therefore is more likely to come
from among those to whom, from the impact of temperament,
life can still bring surprising knowledge, who are searching
for those responses which ' their own time or the near future
alone can give. Out of such should come the apptedaUve
critic for whom every artist seeks. Great preachers have con*
fessed to composing and delivering their best sermons for an
audience of one, the ideal listener and exemplar of their theme
— hundreds were charmed, only one soul was deep enough for
the seed to bring fullest fruit. So too the poet or artist has in his
heart the ideal critic whose nature responds to his utterance
as thirsty 'earth to the summer shower, as sunflower to the sun.
He therefore who responds, who appreciates, who praises
where praise is due, fulfills one, and the most important, office
of the critic. Alas 1 the name carries with it the idea of a
different function : but — and a modern writer has put it well
-^^'the absolute naming of qualities, not the degree in which
they are present or absent, is the function of criticism '' . • ,
''criticism ideally is the perfect praise of perfect art, but,
failing the perfect art, it must needs be a measurer of imper-
fection.'* Too often it has been little more I It is so much
easier to find fault than to doff one's prejudices and enter into
the soul of another.
Hence the multitude of unqualified critics of indefinite
varieties, all keeping with the elements more or less kindly
mixed, the tendency to solve life and its activities by fixed
formulas, by old laws, rather than by conscientious study, or
sympathetic appreciation. And such is the apparent strength
of their attitude, that the result to their victim is a sense of
closing mental trap-doors; and a prison to which stone walls
and iron bars were comparative freedom.
''Failing the perfect art, it must needs be a measurer of
imperfection," this, the last resort, is still in many cases looked
on as the whole duty of criticism, notwithstanding the great
warnings of the past Francis Jeffrey and William Words-
worth stand out as clear-cut examples of unqualified critic and
victim. The lesson should have taught us all wary walking I
Yet still the dauntless critics rush in where angels fear to
tread, carrying with them the framework of " fixed criteria 1 "
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1910.] SOME THOUGHTS ON CRITICISM 509
Recently I beard a lecture on Francis Thompson that was
an example of this, a revelation of what might be called mislnttu
pretative criticism. The lecturer set up his '* canons *' and pro«
ceeded to test the poet by them. Fortunately Thompson passed
the trial with honor, though he failed to *' fit in '' completelyy
being condemned where he is most individual, and therefore
most precious to lovers of literature. The lecturer described
individualism as the bane of literature. Of course largeness of
utterance and height of vision are essentials, but all great poetry
is not objective. ''The Hound ol Heaven,'' for instance, not
only reveals to us the ways of the soul, but also illustrates the
continuous patience of God. The poet sings what he has learnt
of the winding ways of man to God. And in all great art there
is a certain individual coloring, a way even of touching or at-
taining to large issues, that constitutes no small part of its
fascination ; in the greatest passages of great poems what stirs
us beside their eternal truth is that a man has been here and
this is his soul.
As an instance of baneful individualism, our critic quotes
the following passage from '' Sister Songs '' as expressing a re-
lation of personal and psychological dependence such as no
healthy-minded man would acknowledge!
''In all I work, my hand include th thine ;
Thou rushest down in every stream
Whose passion frets my spirit's deepening gorge;
Unhood'st mine eyas- heart, and fliest my dream;
Thou swing'st the hammers of my forge;
As the innocent moon, that nothing does but shine,
Moves all the labouring surges of the world.
Pierce where thou wilt the springing thought in me.
And there thy pictured countenance lies unfurled,
As in the cut fern lies the imaged tree."
Multitudinous are the ways of man to God and diverse
surely and infinite in their variety His ways to men. Thank
God I some of us know, and carry with us stilU the strength
of a human influence that lifted us for a moment, held us poised
for a glance perhaps, yet sent us in the impetus of that mo-
ment far on the full tide of a higher life to a glad and holy
goal. These are but human helps, yet a human being may
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SIO SOME THOUGHTS ON CRITICISM [July,
bring a divine inflaence to poor starved soali beaten down with
the surges of misunderstanding and stress of work or loneliness.
And cannot a poet well sing for us, what many of us have
felt, tliat this loving influence entered into all we did and
stimulated us in our difficult feats ? Literary criticism can speak
from many altitudes. Its soundings can, so to speak, be taken
from various degrees of the literary compass. But it should
never forget that, given a poet, a great part of the interest and
pleasure he affords us lies in the fact that he sets forth a man's
discovery of the truth anew. "There is,'' says Paul Bourget,
''a deal of individual suffering, of defeated aspiration, an im-^
mense and tragic failure of countless life- histories in that em-
bodiment of a shade of feeling, sublime, or delicately touching,
which we call a work of art" How many and how great
obstacles has the spirit overcome ? The answer to this question,
as well as the vision of the spirit which overcame, counts in
art
Of course some critics deal out withering scorn to those
who do not apply universally their '' labor-saving apparatus,"
or venture to move without the ** established canons I " Hu«
mility and a sense of poetic beauty would seem to be excel*
lent substitutes for the '* canons." Jeffrey applied ''fixed cri«
teria" to Wordsworth's poems, and we know now who is
laughed at, though Jeffrey was a thoroughly logical man,
capable of appreciating recognized poetry, but in no sense
capable of recognizing or doing justice to a new poet
Again some critics lay it down as a test, that a great poet
must always set before himself a great and noble aim, and
this in the face of literary biography. The stuff of which great
poetry is made is, indeed, always noble and everlastingly true.
But the man who is a poet does not consciously set this end
before himself — it is set for him. He often exemplifies Mil-
ton's dictum, that he who would write an heroic poem, his
whole life should be an heroic poem. And how frequently is
die poetry greater than the life, greater than the poet realizes.
He does but sing because he must, out of an idealism that is
''the revenge of the mutilated desires of his heart." The
central love is there. It is that which sings, though the poor
wastrel may starve it sadly, while feeding on the garlic and
onions of Egypt I am sure Shakespeare felt that he was a
sorry sinner, but "Macbeth " teaches eternal truth in an eter-
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I9IO.] SOUS THOUGHTS ON CRITICISM 5U
nally convincing way. I do not think it irreverent to say,
one might me this play as a text-book for a retreat, and not
have ezhaosted the sublime snggestiveness of Act V . as a
commentary on the wages of sin. He and many more bnilded
better than they knew, but not better than God meant. Who
makes provision for the long road and the eleventh hour,
guiding home many far-wandering jsheep by the light of art-^
surprising souls, as we have seen in our own day, where they
least expected it, and sending them back to the bosom of the
Truth. He will always have His blind workers who give their
authentic witness to Him, as in the days of St. Paul.
Of such critics as move by arbitrary rules, Professor
Raleigh says:
The monkey and the parrot die hard in man. It is they
who foster the widespread belief that criticism is a kind of
shorthand system, whereby right judgments, based on ad-
mitted principles, can be attained at the cost of infinitely less
labor than was involved in the production of the work to be
judged. Given that the principles are sound and sufficient,
then, they argue, if there be no error of detail in the applica-
tlon, the result will be valid. They overlook, however, one
important element in the case. Poetry is original or it is noth-
ing. The admitted principles can never be sufficient to cover
all the cases that may arise ; if they were, there would be no
reason why men of fair intellectual abilities should employ
themselves in turning out goods to prescribed patterns. All
poetry begins at the beginning, it creates its own world, and
presents the eternally novel matter of experience in words
that charm the ear of the simplest listener.
Criticism must do the same ; it must follow the poet, if he
gives any token of being worth the following, step by step, re-
creatiiq; his experiences, hanging on his words, disciplining
itself to the measure oi his paces, believing in him, and living
with him, tmtil looking back on the way it has been led, it
shall be able to say whether the adventure is good and the
goal worthy.
There is no short cut to the end desired. Standards, eter*
nal principles, formulas, summaries, and shibboleths, if they
be substituted for the living experience, are obstacles and
pitfalls.
Let as, then, not make fixed and eternal what God has not
made so. He has made man of infinite variety.
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Sia Some Thoughts on Criticism. LJaly^
Interpretative criticism, as well as judicial criticism, has its
limits and dangers. Space- will allow me to point out only
one. The best interpreter and appreciator of the contem-^
porary genius, though he be polished to perfect clarity of
vision and acuteness in the sense of proportion, has, after all,
but one man's point of view, admirably as it may be focussed^
He can but suggest or set forth what has swung into his range
of vision from his angle of observation, and therefore he should
not claim, as Jeffrey did, to speak finally on the poets of hid
time.
Comparative and judicial criticism will grow out of a con*
sensus of views and must come later. They belong to another
branch of the art The contemporary critic is not in a posi*
tion to judge finally — for many poets have, over and above
their essential utterance, a message to their time that is beside
the question of their enduring fame. Byron and Wordsworth
may be cited as instances— tiie former was in harmony with
his age, the latter contravened it. But the harmony and the
discord have ceased to obscure the essential utterance of both.
If the poet is born, not made, so perhaps must be his
ideal interpretative critic — yet the literary sense can be taught
or developed, to a great extent, though it requires from master
and pupil what is too rarely given. Deep study, much sweat
of the mind, and long practice in differentiating, must accom-
pany the bitter gifts of nature. Literature is deep and wide
as life — indeed a knowledge of it is a splendid equipment for
any career— and perhaps nowhere else, but in religion, are the
disadvantages of a little learning or a hasty, irreverent spirit
so apparent
And criticism of the contemporary genius can only be
safely practised by those who have explored the depth and
breadth of literature, not finding therein rules, and crystalliza-
tion of soul, but the wisdom of humility. It is the science of
the humble, of those who know something of the possibilities
and limitations of their own souls, and who are still in sym-
pathy with the ever-questing hearts of men ; who have, more-
over, a keen instinct for the subtle differences of style that
are to be encountered in a region that has yielded such di-
verse spirits as Shakespeare and Milton, Pope and Walt Whit-
man, and such opposite productions as **Tam 0*Shanter'' and
''The Anthem of Earth.'*
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HAYDN,
BY EDWARD F. CURRAN.
[ROM the territory of Croatia, bordering on the
frontiers of Bosnia and Slavonia, came the an-
cestors of Franz Joseph Haydn. Caspar Haiden,
the composer's great-grandfather, is the first
relative in the direct line that we can trace, and
he was born close to Hainburg. His son Thomas afterwards
became a burgher of this town, and his grandson Mathias
tramped some ten miles distant and settled at Rohrau or Trstenik.
Here Mathias set up as wheelwright, and it would appear also
became sacristan of the little church, and in due time a kind
of magistrate.
Mathias married, November 24, 1728, in his twenty* ninth
year, Maria Koller, a young cook in the household of Count
Harrach. Of their twelve children Franz Joseph was* the
second, and was born on either the 31st of March or the
1st of April, 1732. The latter date was the one accepted by
Joseph in after years, and he used to say jokingly that his
brother Michael had selected the 31st of March so that he
would not have a brother an April fool.
Being in no way different from children of his class Joseph's
childish tricks and prattle were let go unrecorded, for nobody
saw in the wheelwright's toddling child anything out of the
ordinary. The father and mother were naturally of a musical
turn, though nreither possessed any knowledge of the art;
both parents sang a little, and the father spent his evenings
after the day's toil singing and accompanying himself on the harp.
The household was a typical CathoHc one. Mathias, being an
honest tradesman, loving his home, and the wife, a thrifty and
kind woman, doing all she could to make the family circle pleasant
and agreeable. It is no wonder, then, that their children grew up
filled with filial love and deeply imbued with Catholicity.
Little Joseph was not long attending the village school be«
fore his love for music showed itself. He could not play any
instrumeat, but his observing eyes noted the schoolmaster
playing the violin, and in the evenings as he sat by his father's
VOL. XC1.»33
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514 HAYDN [July,
side he imitated the teacher, asing two pieces of stick for
▼iolin and bow, and keeping perfect time to the singing of his
father. This childish amusement was the cause of bringing a
great change into his life in 1738.
It was the fond desire of the mother that one day Joseph
should be ordained a priest; the father, however, had more
worldly notions^ and hoped that his son would at some future
time bring renown to the family. But the choice of a voca-
tion for the child was settled abruptly by a visit of a relative,
Jobann Mathias Frankh, school-teacher and choir director of
Hainburg, the ancestral home of the Haydns. Frankh, with
the eye of a musician, observed Joseph keeping time with his
pieces of stick, and discovered that he had also a voice, so he
offered to bring the child to Hainburg and teach him music.
After some objection on the part of the mother, who with
maternal intuition felt that the dearest wish of her life would
not be fulfilled if the boy left her, Joseph, at the tender age
of six, was borne away from home.
Under Frankh and his wife the child had not a very happy
time. Frankh was a rough teacher of the hedge-school species^
obsessed with the idea that the end of a stick was the most
favorable means of driving knowledge into his pupils. Accord-
ingly Haydn was not spared but received his share, and a
goodly share, of cuffings from his master. Still, the little fel-
low was acquiring a solid ground-work in violin and harpsi-
chord playing, and his voice became so remarkably sweet that
his name was known throughout the surrounding country-
side. Frankh's tuition, therefore, although rude was most
beneficial, and Haydn in after years, when he had acquired
world-wide fame, attributed much ef his success to, and spoke
with kindness of, Frankh. Griesinger recorded that Haydn
said to him on one occasion: ''I shall be grateful to Frankh
as long as I live for keeping me so hard at work, though I
used to get more flogging than food.'* For Frau Frankh^
however, Haydn did not cherish the same kind feelings. She
was a slovenly, lazy woman, and allowed the boy to become
neglected, and failed to keep him clean ; indeed, the child sad-
ly missed the loving care of his mother.
But soon the scene was again to change for him. Georg
Renter^ the Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna,
came, in 1740, on a visit to the parish priest of Hainburg.
While there he heard of Haydn, and had the child brought be-
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I9I0.] HAYDN 515
fore him. Renter put Joseph through an examination in
music, and was greatly pleased with the ability of the little
fellow. On one point only, so runs the story, did Haydn fail ;
he could not perform that musical embellishment which nowa-
days every tenth- rate soprano must attempt and murder.
*'How is it that you cannot shake?'' asked Renter. ''How
can I when Herr Frankh cannot do it himself ? '' was the answer.
The Viennese then gave Haydn one lesson, and so rapidly did
the boy imitate Renter that the latter then and there deter-
mined on securing him for his choir.
In his eighth year Haydn arrived in Vienna, and was ad-
mitted to the Cathedral choir. If his two years' pupilage at
Hainburg was unpleasant, they compared favorably with the
succeeding years he spent under Renter. It has been asserted
that this Kapellmeister was jealous and afraid to teach Haydn,
lest^ the pupil should oust the masten This theory on the
face of it is too flimsy to bear examination. To me Renter
seems to have been merely a careless, bad-tempered musician ;
one of those men who, having once learned sufficient to ob-
tain a lucrative post, were (and are) accustomed to do as little
work as possible. Haydn avowed that he had received only
two lessons in composition while he was under Frankh.
But, like all who have a thirst for knowledge, the boy took
care to learn privately as much as he could of harmony and
counterpoint He managed to buy two celebrated theoretical
works, Fux's Gradus ad Patnassum and Mattheson's Perfect
ConducUr^ over which he pored incessantly. In the meantime
he was working also at original compositions, some of which
he had the temerity to show to Renter, and was promptly
snubbed for his trouble. He had now reached his eighteenth
year, and when his voice broke 'his term of usefulness in the
choir was at an end. The Empress Maria Theresa complained
that he sang like a crow, and Renter had no alternative but
to show subserviency to her Majesty. Still he did not imme-
diately dismiss Haydn. I feel more and more inclined to think
that underneath his rugged exterior Renter had a secret regard
for the boy, and loathed to send him adrift It had to be done,
however, and when Haydn broke the school discipline he seized
the opportunity to fly into a rage, and while in it to steel
his heart to the unpleasant task. In the rain and cold of a
November evening, 1749, Haydn was driven out, penniless and
unknown, into the streets of Vienna.
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Si6 HAYDN [July,
Utterly dejected he wandered abottt, not knowing where to
turn or what to do. But fortune befriended him in a chance
meeting with an acquaintance^ a tenor singer named Spangler,
attached to St. Michael's Church ; a man for whom every lover
of Haydn should have a special regard. Though as poor as
the proverbial church mouse, Spangler pitied the boy and asked
him to share his attic with him. What he offered was misery
itself, but Haydn would have a roof at any rate to shelter him
from the inclemency of a Viennese winter, and he gladly ac-
cepted the offer. During that winter (i 749-1750) he lived up
under the rafters, doing all that he could to earn sufficient to
keep body and soul together. There was nothing in the line
of music that he did not try. He sought pupils^ he made *' ar-
rangements '' for any one that would pay him, he serenaded
in the streets with his violin, he took part in the festivities
connected with baptisms; in a word, wherever a coin was to
be earned Haydn was easily found.
At last the first step up the ladder was made when a friendly
tradesman gave him a loan of 150 florins. He now hired an
attic room in what was known as the Michaelhaus, in the Kohl-
markt. Though this garret was cold and miserable, and in his
loneliness he thought the sky filled with black clouds, his coming
there was the real turning point in his career, for there dwelt in
the same house Metastasio, a poet then at the height of his fame.
He, like Haydn, had been through the mill of poverty, and knew
well what suffering meant. He was at this time educating a little
girl, Marianne von Martinez, daughter of an official attached to
the Nuncio, and when he heard of the struggling musician he
placed the musical tuition of the girl under Haydn's care.
Metastasio next introduced him to Porpora — the Wandering
Jew of the musical tribe — who was giving lessons to a woman
living under the patronage of the Venetian Ambassador. Haydn
was engaged to act as accompanist at the monthly wages of
six ducats (roughly about $13.00), and have the privilege of
blacking Porpora's shoes, brushing his clothes, and taking meals
with his servants I But Haydn did not mind these indignities
so long as he could learn. He was eagerly seeking musical
knowledge, and to be in the companionship of Porpora— a name
then to be conjured with throughout Europe-^meant much to
the young man. And nobody familiar with Haydn's life can
come to any other conclusion than that his period in the service
of the Italian was most useful.
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I9I0.] HAYDN 517
Haydn's reputation was steadily growing, and an opera, *' Der
Neue' Krummen Teufilf* which was staged in 1752, helped him
on considerably. In 1755 he was invited by Baron von Furn-
berg, an enthusiastic amateur who kept a private orchestra, to
direct a series of concerts, and at the same person's suggestion
Count Morzin appointed him, in 1759, Kapellmeister. This post
brought him about $100 a year, with free board and lodging.
Haydn had not long enjoyed his new office when two misfor-
tunes came; one to the Count, the other to himself. The for-
mer fell into financial straits and had to dismiss his orchestra.
Haydn's misfortune — both enduring and ever increasing — befell
him on November 26, 1760, when he had the ill luck to marry
a shrew whom no kindness could tame. Anna Maria Keller
made his life as unendurable as she could, but with characteristic
honor he was always reticent ot her misdoings.
After his premature dismissal by Count Morzin he was almost
immediately engaged by Prince Esterb dzy, to whom some of
his compesitions were known. The orchestra over which he was
to have control numbered from sixteen to twenty- two performers,
to which were added a small choir of eight very select voices.
Haydn appreciated the position exceedingly, for it gave him
the opportunity of having his own compositions tried over as
often as he wished. Here is what he said himself*: '* . . . As
conductor of an orchestra I could make experiments, observe
what produced an e£fect and what weakened it, and was thus
in a position to improve, alter, make additions and> omissions,
and be as bold as I pleased."
Year after year was spent in his daily duties with the Es-
terhizy band, and there is nothing out of the ordinary to chron-
icle in this brief risumi of his life. We must, therefore, jump
over a number of years until we come to that event which
raised him at once among the great masters of music— his visit
to England. Cramer, the violinist, in 1787, was the first to
invite Haydn to come to London; money was no obstacle,
any terms that Haydn demanded should be acceded to willingly.
Haydn felt he was not free to accept. Again, Gallini begged
htm to write an opera for Drury Lane, having in mind, most
likely, the possibility of tempting the composer across the
Channel to conduct the work. This was also declined. Then
Salomon, after making an unsuccessful attempt through an agent,
happened to be on the continent seeking singers when he heard
of Prince Nikolaus Esterhaey's death, and immediately went post
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5l8 HAYDN [July,
haste to Vienna, called upon Haydn, and, it is said, made him-
self known to the master in the following unconventioQal maa-
ner: "My name is Salomon and I have come to take yon to
London with me. We can settle terms to-morrow/' This time
Haydn gave way, for he was now practically free of duties with
Esterhazy. Prince Nikolans had left him a pension oi i,ooo
florins on the condition that he would retain the title of ICapell-
meister to the family. Prince Anton, the successor of Nikolaus,
had not the same musical tastes, and he at once dismissed all
the musicians, with the exception of a few necessary for reli-
gious service. To Haydn he gave a pension of 400 florins, and
only nominally retained his services. Therefore, having nothing
to do at Esterhdz, and having already settled down in Vienna,
it did not require much argument to persuade him to undertake
the visit to London.
In company with Salomon he started fr«m Vienna on De-
cember 15, 1790, went to Bonn, where he met Beethoven, then
on to Brussels and Calais. The two arrived in London on
January 2, 1791, after a rough passage across the Channel
As this was the first time Haydn had beheld the sea, he gazed
on it with curiosity. ''I remained on deck,'' he wrote, 'Mur-
ing the whole passage in order to gaze my full at that huge
monster — the : ocean. So long as there was calm I had no
fears, but when at length a violent wind began to blow, rising
each minute, and I saw the boisterous high waves running on,
I was seized with a little alarm and a little indisposition like-
wise."
When he had settled down at Salomon's house he was be-
sieged by callers, and every conceivable way of honoring him
was adopted by musicians and musical societies. He was not
in London long when he foresaw that if visiting and feasting
were to be kept up continually he would not be able to fulfill
his contract with Salomon, so he first of all moved away from
the hurly-burly of the city and took up residence at Lisson
Grove, and next decided that he would dine at home every
day at four o'clock, and furthermore declined absolutely to
receive visitors in the forenoons, which he reserved for com-
position. This shows what strength of character he had; work
and duty first, then pleasure, appeared to be his maxim.
Needless to say his concerts were a prodigious success^
though some of the more venomous of his opponents had tried
to belittle him in the newspapers. On March 1 1 the first
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concert took place before one of the most brilliant audiences
ever gathered together in the Hanover Square Rooms, and the
enthusiasm was great when Haydn appeared in the orchestra.
His benefit concert was given on May 16, and then began a
round of social successes both in London and in the country^
The first great event was the conferring on him of the degree
of Doctor of Music by the University of Oxford, where he
received an ovation when he appeared in his Doctor's robes.
Amid a number of visits to various people that to the Duke
of York is the most noteworthy, and it can only be charac*
terized by saying that he had a very pleasant time with all
the royalty gathered together at the Duke's residence. The
Duchess— a girl of seventeen— played the piano and sang fof
Haydn, and while he performed she sat by his side. The
party began their music at ten each night, (and continued
playing until two in the morning, when they had supper and
succeeded in getting to bed at three o'clock. All seemed
to have been captivated by the simplicity of Haydn ; the Prince
of Wales in particular was attiacted to him in an especial
way, and honored him by sending him back to London in
the royal carriage and horses.
When the year 1792 opened Haydn returned to the routine
of concert giving, and after a successful series had ended,
and he had visited some friends — which occupied a few weeks
of his time — he left London for Vienna. On his way thither
he touched at Bonn, where great honor was shown him, and
where he i^ain 'met Beethoven, who seized the opportunity
to open the question of becoming a pupil of Haydn's. They
evidently came to some arrangement, for in the following
December Beethoven arrived in Vienna and began taking
lessons. It is better to speak no further on the relations be*
tween the two, since it is a matter that could not be treated
with justice in a few words, and it is a point over which there
has been considerable useless wrangling by partisans of both
masters.
A period of comparative inactivity followed Haydn's return
home, and he scarcely did anything until i794» when he set
out for a second visit to London on the nineteenth of January.
This time he was accompanied by his servant and copyist,
Johann Essler, and both, after jeurneying down the Rhine,
arrived in London early in February. The welcome now ac*
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S20 HAYDN [Jttly#
corded the master eclipsed that of his previous visit; in fact,
England appeared to have gone wild with delight at seeing
his rugged, kind features once again. Just as before, the suc-
cess of the concerts he directed far exceeded the most sanguine
expectations, and Haydn found that from a monetary point of
view he was a made man. As usual, after the concert season
ended, he had to put in his time visiting friends throughout
the country, which occupied him till near the close of the
year. In the following February, 1795, he conducted another
series of concerts, but did not compose an)rthing new for
them; he also directed twenty-six concerts for the Prince of
Wales at Carlton House, for which he had to apply to Par-
liament to be remunerated. There was much more work for
him to do, but owing to an invitation to resume bis old duties
from the new Prince Esterhazy, who desired to reorganize his
household orchestra, he cut short his stay in London, depart-
ing from it on August 15, 1795.
When he arrived in Austria he found that the nation was
ready to lionize him, and one of the first to set the example
of honoring him was Count Harrach, In whose household, as
we have seen, the composer's mother had been cook. The
Count invited Haydn and a number of nobles to visit Rohrau,
and there they found a splendid monument erected in Haydn's
honor close to the house in which he had been born. This
monument is still standing, and is in the form of a large
square pedestal with paneled sides, surmounted by a fine
bust of Haydn. The old man was overcome with gratitude at
this unexpected honor, and he showed his characteristic hu-
mility by conducting his noble companions to the little thatched
house, where he pointed out to them the corner in which he
used to sit and keep time to his father's music; then falling
down he kissed the threshold of the door.
Among those who work in the arts, where imagination has
such play, it does not generally happen that a man of sixty-
five produces his most mature works, yet such was the case
with Haydn; he had done much, but he was to do even
greater things. In 1798 "The Creation'' was performed; and
in 1801 he finished ''The Season6." Of these it will be
necessary to say a passing word, but first we must glance at
the composition which he himself liked best.
To those who know '' The Hymn for the Emperor *' 6r, as
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1910.] HAYDN SSI
it is commonly called, ^'The Austrian Hymn/' all words of
praise in cold black and white will seem lacking in proper
enthusiasm. Only one word can do it justice — it is sublime.
Austria was without a suitable national anthem, and Baron
van Swieten, the composer's great friend, suggested to Count
Saurah, the Prime Minister, that Haydn should be commis-
sioned to write a melody which would be for Austria what
'' God Save the King '* was to England. The suggestion was
acted on immediately for, as Count Saurau afterwards explained,
there was great need of some national hymn to offset the
vigorous propaganda of French Jacobinism which had obtained
a fairly strong hold in Vienna. Accordingly the poet priest,
Lorenz Leopold Haschka, was commissioned to write suitable
words, which when finished were passed on to Haydn to set
to music Those who have a desire to peep into the work^
shop of the composer and learn what great pains he took to
produce the simple hymn, cannot do better than read a delight-
ful little volume entitled A Croatian Composer (by Mr. W. H.
Hadow), published a few years ago. From the various sketches
of the tune there given we can see the foundations built on a
Croatian folk-tune, Haydn's treatment of it, and the care he
exercised to produce well-balanced phrases. On January 28,
1797, a decree was issued that this composition was to be re-
tgarded as the national anthem, and on February u, the
Emperor's birthday, it was sung in all the theatres of the
capital. Since then it has become known all over the world,
being found even in Protestant hymn books. Osce beard it
is never forgotten.
Critics are agreed that, had Haydn never visited England,
it is more than probable that the literature of music should
not have been enriched by '' The Creation." While in London
he had seen the powerful influence of Handel's or&torios, and
there seems to be no doubt that his ambition was fired to
write something on the same lines as ''The Messiah." But
how he ever succeeded in writing such beautiful music to the
rubbishy libretto of '' The Creation " is a mystery. It can only
be accounted for by saying that genius triumphed. The work
.was first sung in private, and then publicly on the 19th of March,
1799. It at once took the public by storm, not only in Vienna
but in London, and, strangest of all, in gay Paris, where ora*
torio scarcely ever got a hearing ; everywhere the same enthu-
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Saa HAYDN [Jdly,
siasm was aroused by the delightful strains. Indeed it is no
wonder, for nobody with the slightest love for good music can
fail to appreciate the beauties of such numbers as "With
Verdure Clad''; "Now Heaven in Fullest Glory Shone '' ; "In
Native Worth''; or those two great choruses, "Achieved is
the Glorious Work " and " The Heavens are Tellbg." Haydn
was very much affected himself on the first performance of the
work. " One moment/' he tells us, " I was as cold as ice, the
next I seemed on fire. More than once I was afraid I should
have a fit."
"The Seasons," the text of which was based on the work
of Thompson the poet, was finished in 1891, and performed,
on April 24, at the Schwartzenburg Palace. There was no
appreciable difference between its success and that of "The
Creation." The same delightful atmosphere pervades the music,
and it is impossible to detect any signs of senile decay on the
part of the composer. Of late, however, this work has been
shelved to some extent, and most likely it will be forgotten
when " The Creation " still holds its own. A great misfortune
followed the production of "The Seasons "—Haydn's health was
shattered. He always attributed his loss of strength to the
composition of this work. "I should never," he told Ries,
" have undertaken that work. It gave me the finishing stroke."
And looking back to what he wrote in 1799 to Breitkopf &
Hartel we may understand how he suffered: "The world
daily pays me many compliments, even on the fire of my last
works; but no one could believe the strain and effort it costs
me to produce these, inasmuch as many a day my feeble
memory^ and the unstrung state of my nerves so completely
crush me to the earth, that I fall into the most melancholy
condition, so much so that for days afterwards I am incapable
of finding one single idea. . . ."
The end was now near. In the latter part of 1803 Haydn
made his last professional appearance, when he conducted his
"Seven Words." He felt himself daily growing weaker, and
therefore he withdrew from the public gaze to prepare him-
self for the lifting of the veil. He was constantly visited,
however, by a few friends, principally musicians or members
of the Esterh&zy household ; these were welcomed, but to others
a card was presented in excuse of his denying to see them,
on which were the words, " Fled forever is my strength ; old and
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I9I0.] HAYDN 523
weak am I/' set to four bars of music. Still he worked in
private at his beloved art, the principal works accomplished
being short symphonies and accompaniments to Scotch airs
for Thompson the publisher. There is just one humorous
touch connected with this work which is worth repeating.
Haydn had expressed a desire to obtain some Indian handker-
chiefs, and Thompson in sending them to him had the ill-luck
to include one for Frau Haydn who had (happily for the hus-
band) been gathered to her forefathers three years before.
*'The Creation '' was performed at the University on March
27, 1808, in honor of Haydn's seventy-sixth birthday. The
old man was carried up in an armchair through the hall
while the audience rose from their places as a token of respect.
It was a cold night and the ladies around him covered him
with their own wraps to protect him. At that striking chorus,
^' And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters:
and God said : Let there be light, and there was light,'' Haydn
became much moved and exclaimed : ^^ Not I but a Power from
above created that"; and as the performance progressed it was
seen that he was becoming so dangerously excited that after
the first part it was deemed advisable to remove him. As his
chair was lifted the most aristocratic in the land crowded
around him to bid farewell, and Beethoven came forward and
tenderly kissed him on the forehead and hand. When the
door was reached the bearers stopped and turned the chair
while the old man raised his hand in farewell to the audience.
It was a touching incident, and the last in the public career
of the master. He struggled on during the year, and on May
31, 1809, breathed forth his last. With a cordon of French
soldiers and oflSters— Vienna being then occupied by the French
—to give military honors, his body was placed in a grave,
where for five years it lay without any stone or mark above
to show who slept beneath.
And now a word on his character. He had all the marks
of a truly great man. Though successful far beyond the
dreams of vanity he was as modest and as ingenuous as a
child. His geniality of temperament as well as his kindness
to fellow-artists have become proverbial, and the unique name
of '^Papa," given him by musicians from Mozart downwards,
is in itself a testimony to his towering greatness and his lov-
ing, fatherly disposition. Yet if we look at a true likeness of
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SM HAYDN [July,
bim we are somewhat disappointed at the heavy, ragged, and,
in a degree, repulsive features. But in all portraits we miss
the great telltale feature, his eyes, which contemporaries tell
us ^'beamed with benevolence.". His own saying touches off
his character perfectly: '^ Anybody can see by the look of me
that I am a good-natured sort of fellow.''
His social successes may be attributed to his character, for
while he was genial he never forgot the serious side of life^
and was an honest, sterling friend. Religion was something
real to him, and his Catholic faith peeps out at almost every
turn and twist in his life. The most of his actions from early
life seem to have been dominated by the spirit of prayer; he
begun and ended all his work in that spirit, for on nearly all
his scores are to be found these pasons of religion. Salt Deo
Gloria f Laus Deo ei B. V. M(b. et 0ms. Sis., Laus OmnipotenH
JDio it Beatissifn(B Virgini Maries^ while before he penned a
note he wrote down the invocation In Nomine Domini. In
his old age he gave this advice to a number of boy choristers
who visited him: ''Be good and industrious and serve God
continually.'' And he tells us that never had he been so pious
as while composing "The Creation." "I felt myself so pen-
etrated with religious feeling that before I sat down to the
pianoforte I prayed to God with earnestness that He would
enable me to praise Him worthily."
Haydn had the peculiarity of being occasionally possessed
with an extraordinary love of fun and mischief ; " sometimes
a mischievous fit comes over me that is perfectly beyond con-
trol," he once told Ries. His dismissal from the Cathedral
choir of Vienna arose from his prank of trying a new pair of
scissors on the pig- tail of a fellow* chorister's wig; while in
London he had his laugh in the '^ Surprise" Symphony, when
he made his somnolent audience jump at a crash of all the in-
struments. ''There the women will scream/' he said. Another
practical joke was his " Farewell/' Symphony,* when one after
another the performers in the orchestra arose, blew out their
* It is now known that the introduction of the " Surprise *' chord was an afterthought on
the part of Hajdn, for there is no appearance of it in the original maauscript score of the
Symphony. This discovery, due to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, is related in Tht Musical
TimtSt May, 1909, p. 300, with which number was given a facsimile of the passage in question.
One important point which the Editor of that journal passes over in silence is that the entire
eleven bars have been crossed out by Haydn. There is, therefore, no good reason to declare
that the story of Haydn's exclamation is not based on fact. In all likelihood there is another
manuscript copy of the Symphony still undiscovered, and when it comes to light the "Sur-
prise " chord will be in evidence.
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I9IO.J HAYDN 52s
desk-lights, and departed until only two violins remained.
(There was practical point in his wit here, for he wished
gently to remind Prince Esterbazy that the musicians desired his
Highness to depart and give them freedom to visit their fami-
lieSy and the best; of it is that the Prince took the hint).
^'Jacob's Dream/' another outlet to his humor, was a compo*
sition intended to ''bog'' a pretentious violinist; and every
one knows that delightful production, the ''Toy Symphony/'
so pleasing to children.
Throughout life he was a hard-working man, keeping at com-
position steadily and regularly. There were none of these erratic
ways which a certain class of self-advertisers attribute to genius :
Haydn had no need to pose, no need to make himself remark-
able by eccentricities of conduct. From his childhood he felt
within himself that he had sufficient ability to produce good
work, and he depended on his own talents to arrive at success.
Hence his originality, and hence his position in the history of
music to-day. He is regarded as the father of instrumentation,
the first to raise secular music into a position equal to that
previously held by Church music, the man who made the first
steps toward placing orchestration on a firm basis, and as being
the first to make concrete the forms of the Symphony and the
pianoforte Sonata — forms which are now accepted as " classical."
It would be absurd to attempt here an examination of his
works, considering that they number, according to some, 1,178,
or, as others reckon, 1,407. The greater works, such as his
oratorios, symphonies, and string quartettes, are not to be heard
on the everyday concert platform, and those of my readers who
are acquainted with them will likewise know the position they
hold in the art. But many will be anxious to hear what is to
be said of his sacred music — fifteen masses, and an equal num-
ber of other works intended for church use. The least said,
I fear, the better. From these works excerpts could be made
which would be suitable for the Church, but on the whole Haydn
worked on wrong lines in this form of composition. The fault
was not altogether his; he lived at the wrong period to write
good sacred music. The plain truth is that he was dealing
with a clergy and a laity whose ideas of what was correct in
sacred music were warped. It will be noticed by those acquainted
with the period that Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (all prac«
tically contemporaries) failed lamentably in supplying any work
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526 HAYDN [July.
which could be added to the musical archives of the Universal
Church; the sacred worlcs they did write are more fitted for
the concert room than the church. What a chance the Catho-
lic Church lost when she had these three men at her call,
for when shall the world ever see again three men of like
genius ? There are 8ome« I am aware, who defend Haydn, but
even his blindest disciple on this point will admit that his
masses are light and airy. It will, then, be a test to one's
credulity to read that Prince Esterbdzy found fault with Haydn
for writing masses to« serious and severe. Yet such was the
case. What greater index of the ideas then prevalent is needed ?
His own defence given to Caspari was, ''that at the thought
of God, his heart leaped with joy, and he could not help his
music doing the same." There is a saying of his brother
Michael — a musician whose masses are still popular in Austria
—which if not authentic is certainly hin trovdto and touches
off the point nicely : " Joseph, Joseph I take care of thyself;
I am afraid that thy sacred music has not come from above,
and it will prepare for thee a cool reception there!''
As the pianoforte is the universal household instrument,
those who play it may like to know something by Haydn suit-
able to their executive abilities. It is well first to keep in
mind the secret of Haydn. It is to be found in his pure mel-
odies and simple harmonies. On melody he placed paramount
importance. ''The invention of a fine melody,*' he declared,
"is a work of genius. It is the air which is the charm of
music and it is the most diflScult to produce.'' To acquire the
true spirit of Haydn it is best to begin with his minor compo-
sitions, and gradually go through the entire pianoforte works
which are to be found in eight small volumes. How melodic
and delightful are his minuets I I do not think there can be
anything more beneficial for the musical training of the young
than a thorough knowledge of these simple compositions, or
of his charming Deutsche Tanze. After once becoming familiar
with Haydn's works, sound ideas of what is real music and a
sense of rhythm will in a great measure be developed. Mozart's
judgment on Haydn is worth remembering. Comparing various
composers he said: "None of them can be jocose or serious,
raise laughter or create profound emotions, and with equal
success, like Joseph Haydn." Such a man's works are surely
worthy of our attention.
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THE INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS.
BY P. W. BROWNE.
|F/' says Cardinal Gibbons, In a circular letter ad*
dressed to the hierarchy and laity of the United
States, ** the last three decades hare been marked
by trial and straggle for the Church of God,
they have been also singularly fruitful in conso-
lation and encouragement; and it is highly significant that
our age, so noteworthy for scientific* advance and material
progress, should hare witnessed so general an increase in de-
votion to one of the profoundest mysteries of our holy
religion/'
During these eventful decades the threatening clouds of
Jansenism have gradually been dispelled by the Eucharistic
Sun, whose beneficent rays have revived the warmth of devo-
tion in centres where indifference had ^' chilled the genial cur-
rents of the soul,'' and lighted anew the dim recesses of the
world. Countless thousands have enrolled themselves ''among
the forces of the King" (I. Mach. x. 36), and the great army
of adorers, not unlike the crusaders of old, are marching on-
wards to wrest the sanctuary from the forces of unbelief.
This marvelous renewal of faith and devotion is unquestion-
ably the effect of the stimulating influence of the Eucharistic
Congresses which, since 1881 have given organization and
energy to Catholic action.
Just thirty years ago, to the month, a tiny spiritual seed
was planted in European soil; to-day its offshoots are firmly
rooted in the soil of every country in Christendom. The
Eucharistic International Congress originated in France, and
Lille shares with Paray-le*Monial the honor of giving birth to
the movement
In 1879 a saintly woman confided to Mgr. de Segur (who
is justly termed the apostle of devotion to the Eucharist) the
idea of extending devotion to the Eucharistic Christ by means
of gatherings, to be convened successively in different coun-
tries, in which, for several days, in prayer and study, matters
pertaining to the Blessed Sacrament should be discussed. The
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S28 THE INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS [July,
zealous Bishop at once decided to take up the work ; but bow,
and where ? France, at the moment, was a much disturbed coun-
try; and it was unwise, be deemed, to hazard the inaugura-
tion of such a momentous movement within its borders. He
turned to Belgium as a jpossible cradle-land, and communi-
cated with Mgr. Deschamps, the Archbishop of Malines, who
heartily endorsed the project. Then, with the assistance of
an enthusiastic confrere — M. de Benque — Mgr. de Segur drew
up a circular which he addressed to the Belgian Bishops and
the various associations and tommunities in which the devo-
tion of Perpetual Adoration had been established. The response
to the circular was hearty and encouraging; and all that re-
mained to give the movement concrete form was the selection
of a fitting place for the meeting of the Congress.
But, suddenly, unforeseen difficulties arose. The Belgian
Bishops decided that, owing to the intense feeling then reigo-
ing throughout Belgium on the school question and the coming
general elections, the projected gathering would incur the risk
of being swamped in the tide of political issues. Mgr. de Segur
(whose health had become seriously impaired) wrote, under date
of March lo, 1881, to M. de Benque: ''No further light is being
shed upon our undertaking ; on the contrary, our difficulties are
increasing, and its execution now seems to me impracticable.''
To her who had suggested to him the idea of the Eucharistic
Congress he wrote: ''Formerly, when I was in a position to
lead, I never faltered ; now that (like an old swallow no longer
able to cleave the air) I am forced to the rear, I can do but
little. ... I am^ entrusting the whole matter to M. de
Benque, who will, doubtless, find some means of solving the
difficulty." The latter, also, had his misgivings concerning the
successful issue of the undertaking; for under date of April 20,
he wrote to a friend: "I consider the project impossible, at
least for this year.''
But Providence willed otherwise. An enthusiastic layman
tendered his services to the cause ; and within a week M. de
Benque could write, in the most optimistic terms, to Mgr. de
Segur, assuring him that ^'the work was making marvelous
progress." This zealous layman was none other than Philibert
Vrau, the saintly father of the well-known publicist, M. Fer6n-
Vrau, whose services to the Church at the present hour are
invaluable. One thing further was necessary for the consum-
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I9IO.] The International eucharistic Congress 52^
mation of the undertakiog-^tbe approbation of the Holy See.
M. Vraa set oat immediately for Rome, and there, in conjunc-
tion with Father Picard (the recently- elected Superior General
of the Assumptionists) and Viscount de Damas, he drew up a
petition to the Holy Father, which opened with these words:
''It is at such a moment as this, when Catholic nations are
seriously menaced, that it behooves us to have ^ recourse most
urgently to Him Who deigns to dwell among us ; in Whom
alone there is salvation. . . .** In response to the request
of the petitioners, Leo XIII., on May 16, 1881, issued a Pontifi-
cal Briefi addressed to the President of the Committee of Or-
ganization, in which he not only sanctioned the holding of the
Eucharistic Congress, but commended it in the most felicitous
terms, as the following extract proves: '*It is fitting that the
faithful should solemnly celebrate the remembrance of the in-
stitution of the Holy Eucharist. Thus we shall honor th^ in-
effable manner in which God is present in this Adorable Sac-
rament Thus we may praise the divine power which operates
such wonders, and render to God acts of thanksgiving due Hini
for such an inestimable favor. Hence, beloved son, we grant
you and all who may participate in this pious work our Apostolic
Benediction.''
In further proof of his sympathy with the cause, the Holy
Father, through Cardinal Alimonda, Official Protector of Eu-
charistic works, delegated Canon Ruggieri to present his heart-
iest congratulations to the Congress at Lille, which opened oii
June 21, 1 88 1. The attendance exceeded the most sanguine
expectations of the promoters, more than three hundred being
present, and was representative of the religious life of France
and Belgium. In addition to episcopal delegates, there were
members of the religious orders, parish priests, and curate^,
and a large contingent of professors — lay and clerical — from
the faculties of Catholic institutions. Under the presidency of
Mgr. de la Bouillerie, titular bishop of Perga and co-adjutoir
of Bordeaux, various resolutions were formulated, and a per^^
manent committee was organized which, at the end of th^
Congress, prepared and published a report of the proceedings.
This committee consisted of the President, Canon Didiot, MM.
de Benque, Philibert Vrau, and Gustave Champeaux, who was
named its secretary.
The second Congress assembled, under the presidency of
VOL. XCI.— 34
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530 THE INTERNATIONAL EucHARiSTic Congress [July,
Mgr. Halsey, at Avignon, in 1882, with an attendance larger
and, perhaps, more enthusiastic than that of the preceding
year. The third Congress was held at Li^ge in the following
year; and the number in attendance exceeded, by hundreds,
the Congress of Avignon. Bishops, religious, the secular
clergy, and the laity had now entered enthusiastically into the
work; and when, on September 9, 1885, the fourth Congress
met, under the presidency of Mgr. Mermillod, at Fribourg, in
Switzerland, members of the Cantonal government, oflScials of
the municipality, oflScers of the army, judges, and lawyers oc*
cupied places on the , platform, while thousands of Catholics
from various sections of the Continent joined in the formal
procession of the Blessed Sacrament. The fourth Congress,
held at Toulouse, June, 1886, was attended by fifteen hundred
ecclesiastics, and fully thirty thousand laymen were present at
the closing exercises. The sixth Congress met in Paris, July,
1888, in the great memorial Church of Montmartre, with an
attendance of three thousand clerics and fifty thousand lay-
men. Antwerp, in Belgium, was the scene of the seventh Con-
gress in August, 1890. The attendance numbered one hundred
and twenty thousand. The eighth Congress held its sessions in
Jerusalem, from May 14 to 21, 1893, under the presidency of
Cardinal Langenieux, Archbishop of Rheims, legate of the
Holy Father. At this Congress the union of the Orient was
the subject of serious discussion, and special sermons on the
Eucharistic propaganda were delivered on the very spot where,
tradition says, the Agony of our Lord took place. The ninth
Congress was held at Rheims, July, 1894 ; and at this Con-
gress, for the first time, a special place was given to the study
of social questions. Faray-le-Monial, the " City of the Sacred
Heart '' was the scene of the tenth Congress ; and the eleventh
was held at Brussels. The twelfth — one of the most remark-
able which had yet been held— convened at Lourdes, under
the presidency of Cardinal Langenieux (the Pope's legate), in
August, 1889. The thirteenth was held at Angers, in 1901 ;
the fourteenth at Namnr, in Belgium, 1902. At the fifteenth
Congress, held at AngoulSme, in 1904, the Government of the
Republic prohibited a public procession of the Blessed Sacra-
ment. By special request of the Holy Father the next Con-
gress was held in Rome, in 190S, amid splendor hitherto un-
known: the Pope celebrated Mass at the opening of the ses-
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191 o.] THE INTERNATIONAL EucHARisTic Congress 531
81008, and gave a special audience to the delegates at the
close of the proceedings, at which he presided.
Tonmait in Belgium, was the scene of the seventeenth Con-
gress, 1906; and the eighteenth went to Metz, in Lorraine, in
1907. Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli was the Pope's represen-
tative; and, by a singular act of respect for the Church, the
German Government suspended the law of 1870 forbidding re-
ligious processions, in order that the customary public func-
tion might be held. At the close of the Metz Congress, at
the invitation of Archbishop Bourne, it was decided to hold
the nineteenth Congress in London — the first under the auspices
of English-speaking members of the Church. This was un-
questionably the most significant event in the history of the
Church in England since the Reformation. The Congress was
solemnly opened on September 9, 1908, at the Cathedral of
Westminster, by the Papal legate, Cardinal Vincenzo Vannu-
telli, assisted by Cardinals Gibbons, of Baltimore, Logue, of
Ireland, Sancha y Herv^s, of Toledo, Ferrari, of Milan, and
Mercier, of Belgium; with them were representatives from
every nation on earth. The sessions of the Congress were
closed on Sunday, September 13, with Mass by the Apostolic
legate and a sermon by the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore.
Solemn Vespers followed, and then the procession took place.
Untoward circumstances precluded the carrying of the Blessed
Sacrament in the procession; otherwise everything was sol-
emnly observed. After the Congress the Holy Father sent a
special letter of congratulation to Archbishop Bourne, stating
that, though the Congress was the first of its kind held in
England, it must be regarded as the " greatest of all, for its
concourse of illustrious men, for the weight of its delibera-
tions, for its display of faith, and for the magnificence of its
religious functions.''
Last year the Congress was held at Cologne — the city
which ranks as the veritable centre of the artistic, commercial,
and intellectual life of western Grermany. An
pository had been erected in the great squar<
around which were assembled sixty bishops and
priests. The entire city, with its population of
faithful souls, seemed transformed into a vast t
rose a Tantum Ergo which cleaved the skies,
paniment of booming cannon and silver truna
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532 THE INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS [July.
great assembly had dispersed fervant prayers ascended to the
Eucharistic Christ to bless its sticcessor, which is, seemiDgly,
destined to eclipse in grandeur and solemnity any Catholic
gathering which the western world has ever witnessed; for,
says Cardinal Gibbons, ** The impulse of faith, which has hitb<-
erto found its expression in Europe, directs the Congress this
year to Canada* -It will be held upon ground that is rich in
memories of the early days when Christianity and ciTilization
came together to these shores — borne by men to whom the
entire continent of America stands indebted. It is not merely
as discoverers and explorers that their names are written in
our history, but as heralds of the kingdom of God and as
bearers of the Cross of Christ'*
From September sixth to eleventh the city of Maison-
neuve— the humble burg where Mile. Mance and Marguerite
Bourgeois taught and nursed the redskin and the poor three
centuries ago— will be the scene of the grandest manifestation
of faith that America has ever witnessed. A papal legate,
hundreds of bishops, thousands of priests, tens of thousands
of pious worshippers will assemble under the shadow of Mont
Royal, in the city of Mary (''Ville Marie 'Ot to render public
homage to the God of the Eucharist Wonderful are the
vicissitudes of human things. This never-to-be-forgotten dem*
onstration will be held under the protection of the flag of
Protestant England, whose armies vanquished the forces of the
'^ Eldest daughter of the Church'' two-and-a-half centuries
ago on the Plains of Abraham. France no longer permits
public homage to the Eucharistic Christ England lends pro-
tection to the worshipper. Montreal is not unlike Cologne as
regards its population and its faith; its position is somewhat
similar. The mighty St Lawrence lacks the charm of antiquity
and the poetic enchantment of the picturesque river whose
banks were the pathway to victorious fields; though it echoes
not adown the centuries the memory of a Clovis or a Charlc*-
magne, it speaks, as does the Rhine, of noble deeds wrought
for humanity and Christ. Here will be gathered in early Sep«-
tember representatives from every section of the Canadian
commomwealth, from Cape Sable to Vancouver; aye and pil*
grims from every corner of the American continent.
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fiew £ooh8*
As the successive volumes of The
CATHOLIC ENCTCLOPEDIA« Catholic Encyclopedia come out» it
becomes increasingly difficult to find
fresh words of praise for the undertaking. Its sdbcess has been
so thorough and so consistent that laudation has exhausted itself,
and the best thing that the critic can say of a new volume is
that it is up to the standard of its predecessors. The volume
to hand, the 'seventh/ brings the work practically half-way
towards completion ; and, at the present rapid rate of publica-
tion, the whole splendid set of fifteen volumes will soon be at
the disposal of those who wish to obtain exact information
concerning the history, doctrines, and practises of the Catholic
Church.
Three important geographical articles are incorporated in
this seventh ;volume: ''Holland,'* by P. Albers, S.J.; ^'Hun-
gary," by Dr. Aldasy; and "India," by E. Hull, & J. ''Hun-
garian Catholics in the United States " is a topic handled with
customary ability by Mr. Andrew Shipman. Further knowledge
of India is contained in articles by Dr. Aiken on " Hinduism "
and by Professor Benigni on the patriarchate of the "East
Indies."
Noteworthy contributions to general history are those of A.
Degert, on "Huguenots"; Edmund Gardner, on "Guelphs
and Ghibellines"; Georges Goyau, on the "House of Guise";
Dr. Edwin Burton and M. Marique on " Guilds "; p>r. Wilhelm
on " Hus and Hussites " ; and Herbert Thurston, S.J., on " Henry
VIII." The articles on "Huron Indians," by A. E. Jones, S.J..
and on "American Indians," by Mr. James Mooney, are espe*
ctally complete, being possibly, at least in the former instance,
too ample for a cyclopedia. A number of biographical articles
are contributed by Dom Chapman, who writes on " Honorius,"
Dr. Kirsch, Dr. Mershman, O.S.B., Michael Ott, O.S.B., Father
Pollen, S.J., Dr. Remy, etc.
Father Delehaye treats of "Hagiography," Dr. Adrian For-
tescne of " Hesychasm," i. e., a system of Quietism among the
Greeks. Father Schulte, of Overbrook, and two learned Bene-
dictines, Cabrol and Leclercq, treat of things liturgical. The
• rA/ Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. VII. Grcg.-Infal. New York: Robert Applcton
Company.
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534 -'VXir BOOXS [July,
article on ''Ecclesiastical Heraldry/' by Fox^Davies, is very
complete and well illustrated. Scriptural topics are well handled
by Dr. Gigot, Dr. Fenlon, Father Maas, Dr. Driscoll, Father
Fonck. Canon Law is represented by contributions of Dr.
Boudinhon and Father Hilgers, S.J. In connection with the
work of Fathcfr Hilgers on the ''Index of Prohibited Books/'
a suggestion might be made. When an article is written by a
foreigner, it would be well to see whether the bibliography he
submits does not need supplementing with books written in
English. On this topic, for instance, the works most STailable
for consultation are Index Legislation^ by Dr. Hurley, and CV^-
sorskip of the Church of Rome^ by G. H. Putnam. Neither of
these is listed.
In theology proper, M. Bainvel writes on the "Heart of
Jesus," Jacques Forget on the "Holy Ghost." Father Holweck
on the " Immaculate Conception," W. H. Kent on *' Indul-
gences," while Dr. Toner has contributed the banner article of
the volume in a thorough discussion of the important question,
" Infallibility." In philosophy the most noteworthy articles are
those of Father Maher on " Immortality," Dr. SurUed on " Hyp-
notism," Dr. Windle on " Heredity/' Dr. Fox on " Hedonism,"
and Dr. Turner on " Hegelianism." Of special interest to
Americans are the contributions of Dr. Hayes on " Archlnshop
Hughes," Father Kenny on " Joel Chandler Harris," Miss Guiney
on her father, " General Guiney," Father M. P. Smith on " Isaac
Thomas Hecker," and Father Henry Wyman on "Augustine
Francis Hewitt."
In this second volume of Father
PIONEER PRIESTS OF Cwai\ltA\onPioneer Priests of North
NORTH AMERICA. America • the scene is changed
By Campbell. from the land of the Five Nations
to that of the Hurons. This work
narrates the brief and tragical, but glorious, annals of the
Huron mission. Just as Isaac Jogues was the central char-
acter in the sacred tragedy enacted among the Iroquois, so
on the Canadian side we find one dominant figure, that nobilis
athleta Christie John de Br^beui. In all the annals of martyr-
dom one can scarce find a more heroic soul. Other names, hardly
^PiofUtf Friists of hifik AwuwUa, i64»-t'jto. By Rev. T. J. Campbell, S.J. VoL II.
' -^-mg tht Hurons, New York : The America Press.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 535
less glorious, lend interest to this volume, among the first his
fellow-martyr, the lovable Gabriel Lalemant. Father Campbell
informs as of the present state of the proceedings for their
canonization, in which every Catholic on this continent should
be interested. Having referred to the proceedings instituted
immediately after their death, he continues:
After two hundred and sixty years the cause has again
been taken into consideration. The tribunal established for
the hearing of testimony was in session for more than two
years in Quebec in 1906 and 1907. An investigation into the
turn culi, that is, an inquiry whether any public worship has
been approved or tolerated by any one in anticipation of the
action of the Holy See, was also made. A great number of
witnesses were summoned, and the documents recounting
what has been done are now awaiting examination in Rome.
If they are canonized the New World will have two glorious
patrons.
When this much desired result is attained, the way will be
made for the introduction of the cause of other missionaries
whose witness to the faith is here narrated, Daniel and Gar-,
nier, Chabanel and Garreao. The author also tells the pathetic
story of young Father de Noue, frozen to death and found
kneeling in the snow. Two other Lalemants, Charles and
Jerome, are very interesting persons, though they lack the halo
which a heroic death placed upon the brow of Gabriel Lale-
mant.
The work is not altogether confined to the Huron missions.
As a proper introduction to these missions, the author has
deemed it best to give a short account of an attempt made
by the Fathers to evangelize Acadia. An interesting feature
of this part of the book is the letter of Father Peter Biard in
defense of the missionaries. Graphic, shrewd, humorous at
times, it 4s quite delightful. It must surely have aroused an
answering chord in Father Campbell's heart, for, whenever the
nature of his tragical subject will permit, his style also takes
on similar qualities. The work is, therefore, most interesting
and most readable. It is well that to such a competent pen has
fallen the task of recalling to the minds of men the deeds of
these pioneer priests, whose work is thus summed op in the
epilogue :
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536 NEW BOOKS [J«lyf
To have attempted to convert such a people during the'
briet period of ten years, every |noment ot which was marked
by wars, massacres, starvation, disease, and pestilence, and
nevertheless to have established flourishing missions In every
Huron town, to have made many thousands of Christians, to
have developed very many splendid examples of exalted
sanctity, and, 'finally, to have closed their books of account
with the Lord not only by years of suffering almost unpar-
alleled in Christian annals, but to have sealed them with the
blood of seven ot their noblest men, is the glorious record of
the Huron missionaries.
In the hands of Father Thomas
THE WAYFARER'S VISION. J. Gerrard, theology is a liTing
By Father Gerriard. science. This phrase does not
imply the substitution of new
creeds for old. That means death. To be living implies iden*
tity and continuity, developing while remaining the same.
Father Gerrard combines freshness of view with staunch ortho-
doxy, and a subtle discernment in spiritual things with a just
estimate of life as a whole. He partakes of Aquinas and of
Newman. Too many have been interpreting the great Oxford
thinker in terms of philosophies which he would have rejected.
Father Gerrard views him as a devoted admirer, but from the
viewpoint of a convinced Thomist.
His present volume* is a collection of essays, many of
which have already seen the light in the columns of The
Catholic World, the New York Review, and the Dublin
Review. The title is a reminiscence of St. Paul's saying, ** We
see now through a glass in a dark manner." In an introduc-
tory letter to Dr. Adrian Fortescue he indicates the spirit and
method of his work. *'Our present vision of God has been
made dark and eiigmatical for a moral purpose. That purpose
is to try and to strengthen our wills, to generate that love of
God by which alone the beatific vision may be gained. That
purpose, moreover, could not be accomplished if the dark vis-
ion were so dark as to result in agnosticism, or so enigmatical
as to result in [unauthorized dogmatism.'' It must be ''a
revelation and a mystery,'' a revelation to guide us, a mystery
to stimulate our wills. The process of development of Chris-
» The Wayfartr^s Vision. By Rev; Thomas J. Gerrard. London: Bums & Oates; St.
Louis: B. Herder.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 537
tian doctrine uses all the powers of man's soul. ''Such a
process is best accounted for by a combination of the work of
St Thomas and Cardinal Newman. By combining St. Thomas
and Newman we are saved on the one hand from pragmatism
and humanism^ for we expressly exclude any substitution of
will or feelings for intellect ; on the other hand, from dialecti-
cism and rationalism, for we set the will, feelings, and intellect
in right relation to each other."
On these principles he discusses a number of topics more
or less closely related to one another, such as tb« psychology
of religious assent, the Divine Personality, the problem of evil.
The first chapter, on ''The Enigmatic Vision,'' and the last
two, on "An Old Dilemma" and "The Happy Fault," are
especially suggestive and stimulating.
It is not an unusual experience
THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN for the Catholic student to find
LIFE. authors with whom he fiilds him-
By Eucken. self like-minded in general views
on philosophy and religion, but from whom he finds himself
divided by a whole sea of differences when it comes to more
definite points of doctrinal belief. Dr. James Martineau is a
good example of such thinkers. On matters concerning God,
the soul, and the moral life, we consider him as a potent ally;
but in dogmatic theology we have to treat him as an adver-
sary. So, too, we rejoice in the successful work of Dr. Ru-
dolf Eucken at the University of Jena to offset the ruinous
influence of Ernst Haeckel. But when we come to estimate
his definitely constructive theological work, we have to part
company with him. Nevertheless, viewing the present condi-
tions of religious life and belief in University circles, we can
welcome his contribution to the religious probl^*" »• ^^^^ ^^
one who, in the main, gathers rather than scatte
ent work* is a translation of his Die Lebensans
grossen Denkir^ based on the seventh German
It gives, as the sub-title indicates, a history ol
ment of the problems of human life from Plato
time. The problem of human life, in the au*
evidently at bottom a religious one. The methc
* TIU ProiUm of Human Life ms Viewed by the Great Thinkers frm
Time. By Rudolf Eucken. Translated by Williston S. Hough and, >
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.
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538 NEW BOOKS [July,
combination of the history of philosophy and the philosophy of
history. The viewpoint of the author is that of a religions-
mindedf or, at least, idealistic philosopher, who feels that man
is not to be satisfied by bread alone. The conclusion is
vaguely optimistic, but points to no certain way of redemp-
tion. The style is elevated and clear, the translation excellent.
Since the [days of Duns Scotus
CRITICISM AND PRAO- Irishmen have not done much to
MATISM. udd lo the reputation for meta-
By O'SttUivan. physical acumen which that most
subtle of schoolmen conferred up-
on the race. That this neglect of philosophy was caused by
political disturbances is proven by the growing frequency with
which Irish names are nowadays seen on the title-pages of
learned treatises. The latest among such is the present work*
of Dr. J. M. 0*Sullivan, which is a criticism of the systems of
Kant and Hegel, with additional remarks on the new Prag-
matism. The first and longest section, on Kant and Hegel,
originally appeared in German, and was published in Berlin as
a monograph of. the Kant^Studien. The author first gives a
remarkably lucid exposition of the standpoints and methods of
Kant and Hegel. He then devotes two long chapters to a
criticism of their treatment of the category of Quantity. There
follows a shorter chapter on Kant's treatment of the all-im-
portant category ef Substance. All of this portion of the
work is for the initiated, of course, but even a tyro in philos-
ophy might read with profit the introductory chapter and the
one on Substance. The treatment of Pragmatism occupies a
much shorter section of the work. The author shows its de-
pendence on the critical philosophy and its points of depar-
ture from it ** One of the main distinctions between Kant and
the present-day Pragmatists is to be found in the fact that,
whereas both took as their starting* point the individual of
psychology, the Pragmatists adhere more steadfastly to this
position and its implications. A consequence is that truth is
regarded by them as a dynamic relation, whilst with Kant it
tended to be static.'* Kant's inquiry is epistemological ; that
* Old Criiieifm and Niw Pragmatiim, By J. M. 0*Sullivan, Ph.D., Fellow of the Royal
University of Ireland. Dublin : M. H. Oill & Son ; London and New York: Longmans,
Green & Co.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 539
of the Pragmatists is in the main psychological. The author
does not believe that the recent philosophers have been more
successful in their attempts than the philosopher of Konigs-
berg. ''We want a Lo^c of Values; but this is precisely
what Pragmatism seems unable to give us. But even had we
this Logic, even could we reduce all the different values to
one common measure and so estimate their claims, yet the
difficulty of applying the canon thus got would be practically
insuperable; it would 'not worlc/*'
Asiatic immigration, the conquest
CHINA AND THB FAR BAST, of the Philippines, the rise of
Japanese power, and our trade in-
terests in China, are four factors which have brought the
United States face to face with a new set of questions which
are usually summed up as "The Problem of the Pacific/* At
a recent celebration at Clark University the department of
history wisely decided to present a series of papers by eminent
authorities on various aspects of the situation in the Orient.
The more important of these are published in the present
volume.* They treat of the relations, actual or possible, be-
tween the United States and China, and of many questions
concerning the internal affairs of the Celestial Kingdom, its
economics, monetary system, the opium problem, the army,
studies, religion, etc. There are also three papers on Japan,
and three on Korea. All of these form a series of interesting
documents by men of experience and authority. They should
be read by all who are anxious to become informed on Oriental
ideas and institutions.
To us, as Catholics, the most interesting chapter is one
that does not touch on a new problem. It is that entitled
" The History of Christian Missions in China.'* It is written
by Professor Harian P. Beach, of Yale University. If Father
Wolferstan ever gets out a second edition of his work on
Th$ Catholic Church in China, reviewed in these columns a (ew
months ago, he will find in this chapter a further testimony to
the work of our missionaries to add to the hundreds already
presented in his book.
* Ckima and tki Fmt Bast, Clark University Lectures. Edited by George H. Blakeslee,
Clark University. New York : Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
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540 NEW BOOKS [July,
Mr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, United
GOVERNMENT BT INFLU- States Commissioner of Education,
ENCE« has published in a volume* Tar-
By E. E. Brown. j^us addresses which he delivered
in different parts of the country.
The addresses view education in its relation to different elements
of individual character and national life — religion, morals, in-
ventiveness, motherhood, industry, agriculture, international ar-
bitration. They are thoughtful and serious, but rather heavy
productions. The author expresses his respect for religion,
or rather for what may be called '' religiosity,*' but he is out of
sympathy with religion as a definite principle of belief and
conduct.
Religion in its modern relations, sectarian religion, is a
breeder of disturbance in those national systems of education
in which it now holds a place in accordance with a tradition
all unconsciously outgrown. Where the tradition has al-
ready passed away, or where it has never become established,
the teaching of any system of religious doctrine is to be stead-
ily excluded from public and common schools.
Protestants in England and America should see in this the
writing on the wall, and, if they sincerely desire the propaga-
tion of Christian beliefs, should unite with the Catholics to
secure the equal rights of schools in which the children of
Christian parents are taught the truths of religion.
Brief, but extremely well done,
ON EVERTTHINQ. laden with fruits of wide reading
By HUaire Belloc. and extended travel, made pre-
cious with judgment that is exact
and thoroughly sane, a new volume of essays entitled: On
Everything f comes to us from the pen of Hilaire Belloc.
Readers of The Catholic World know the worth and char-
acter of his writings from the paper contributed to its pages
by Virginia M. Crawford in the May issue. Within these cov-
ers Mr. Belloc really treats of everything, or of almost every-
thing, and there is no subject which he handles which be does
not present attractively, and none to which be does not bring
* Gwtmmeni by Injluetiee : and Other Addresses, By Elmer Ellsworth Browii. New
York and London : Longmans. Green & Co.
t On Everything, By Hilaire Belloc, New York : E, P. Dutton & Co.
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I9IO.] NEW Books 541
a wealth of knowledge and a grace of expression. For example,
take this from ''On Song/'
Song also is the mistress of memory, and though a scent is
more powerful, a song is more general, as an instrument for
the resurrection of lost things. Thus exiles who of all men
on earth suffer most deeply, most permanently, and most fruit-
fully, are great masters of song. . . . All the songs that
men make (and they are powerful ones) regretting youth are
songs of exile, and in a sense (it is a high and true sense) the
mighty hymns are songs of exile also.
Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria,
that is the pure note of exile, and so is the
Coheredes et sodales
In terra viventium
and in this last glorious thing comes in the note of marching
and of soldiers as well as the note of separation and of longing.
It is a handy volume, and a most enjoyable one — a de-
ligbtfal book to read aload. He who reads it or hears it read
will go away richer and happier.
Father F. X. Lasance some time
A GUIDE FOR YOUNG MBN. since published a little book of
spiritual doctrine and advice for
young girls. It found a ready sale and did much good, where-
by he has been encouraged to undertake the more difficult
task of similarly helping young men.*
Take care of the boys and the girls will take care of them-
selves, has passed into an adage. Here is a practical attempt
to aid our young men to tide over the difficult era of dawn-
ing consciousness of passionate inclination. Persuade a boy
that the true ideal of life is found in the life and passion of
our Redeemer, as presented to him by Holy Church, and you
do a work entirely necessary for the right formation of hit
character. That girls are apt to be silly and boys sure to be
bad during their teens — alas! how true it is. A good book,
serious enough to be a solid nourishment to the soul, and at-
tractive enough to entertain religiously, is surely one of the
best means of saving boyhood and early manhood from ship-
♦ Tki Y0ung Mam's Guidt, Counsels, Reflections, and Prayers for Catholic Young Men,
By Rev, F. X. Lasance. New York : Benziger Brothers.
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542 NEW BOOKS [J«ly,
wreck. Father Lasance has, we believe, gone far towards
achieving success in his worthy endeavor.
The Arst part of the little work is devoted to a doctrinal
suminary of the Catholic faith, pleasantly stated and driven
home by good illastrations. After that, the whole scope of
life is divided into an excellent arrangement of topics, embrac-
ing the praise of virtue and the condemnation of vice, includ-
ing a plain and yet guarded treatment of the preliminaries of
marriage.
At the end there is found all the material of a good prayer-
book. The print is good and the binding first-rate; a book
for hard usage and permanent benefit.
This volume * is a Latin version
ECCLESIASTICAL BISTORT, of Father Albers* well-known
Church Histoty^ originally written
in Dutch, and already translated into French and Italian. The
Latin translation is made by the author himself. It leaves
nothing to be desired in point of accuracy and clearness. The
style is limpid and easy, and thus adapted to the needs of
seminary students.
When Father Albers* work first appeared in Holland it did
not attract the attention it deserved, as it was written in a
tongue not widely known ; but when translated into French by
the Dominican Father Hedde (Paris, Lecoffre, 2 vols.) it was
accorded a very generous reception by Catholic scholars
throughout Europe. This reception was well merited, as the
work combines the qualities which are sought for in a manual
of this kind : comprehensiveness, clearness, accuracy, and scien-
tific method. The bibliographical references are also more
abundant and more up-to-date than in any other Church his-
tory manual we know of. This is especially true of the sec-
tion relating to early Church history, in which are treated
briefly, but satisfactorily, the most recent questicns of Chris-
tian archaeology, liturgy, controversies, etc.
The work in its Latin form will consist of four volumes,
of about 350 pages each. The first, which has just appeared,
covers the Christian era down to the year 692. Type, paper,
and press-work in general are good. The book is to be highly
commended for the use of priests and seminary students.
* Bnckwidion Historic EccltsiastUa C/mtverAte, Tom. I. Atias Prima tin CkrisHsna
Amiiquiiat^A, Z>. 1-691, St. Louis: B. Her(|er.
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i9ia] NEW Books 543
We have received for review a book entitled LitUrs to His
Hclimss^ Pope Pius X» by a Modernist^ from the Open Conrt
Pablishing Company, of Chicago. The antbor's name is not
given. The preface implies that he is a Catholic priest still ac-
tively engaged in the ministry. Considering the book, this
seems to us to be impossible. In the first part of the volume
the aathor pretends that he is zealons for the welfare of the
Church, and would have it purified of all abuses. His love for
its welfare urges him to speak out plainly. ''But/' as Mr.
Chesterton has put it, ''no man ever did, and no man ever
can, create or desire to make a bad thing good or an ugly thing
beautiful.** And it is soon evident to the reader that the
author has lost every shred of belief in and love for the Church.
He would reform the Church by destroying her. A personal
hatred of her supreme head, "the steps of whose throne are
built of the bones of murdered men,** stains its pages. Pius X.
is " ignorant ** and he is " filthy/* There is not one of all the
religious beliefs sacred to mankind for thousands of years
which the author does not tear to pieces and throw to the
wild winds of modern "criticism** and the "religion of the
spirit.** The Old Testament is unreliable and little more than
fabulous. The Synoptic Gospels are not to be depended upon.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are, in great part, " theological apolo-
getic and not history.** The Fourth Gospel was written by
some one who looked not at the facts but who was bent
on squaring Christ with the Logos of the Greeks. "The mod-
ern critic is far more dispassionate in writing the history of
Jesus than were the Evangelists.** All external religion must
go. Holy water, consecrated oil, all the sacramentals are super-
stition. A celibate clergy is a superstition. There is no priest-
hood; no altar; no sacrifice. There are no sacraments. The
account of creation is mythical. There was no fall; no origi-
nal sin. Belief in a personal devil springs from Manicbaeism
and the heathen notion of tat>oo. Biblical inspiration, in any
true sense of the word, is an impossibility. All dogma must
go. Organized Christianity must go. There is no Church and
"the idea of a Church was perhaps utterly unintelligible to
Christ.** The atonement for our sins by Christ is untenable;
the doctrine of the redemption cannot be held. That Christ
is God is utterly impossible. He did not establish a Church
with Peter as its head. Miracles are but "legend and apolo*
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544 NEW BOOKS f JulXf
getic.^' Christ was not born at Bethlehem. The Virgin birth
is not to be believed. The Immaculate Conception is, of coarse,
ridiculous. Infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff is utterly un-
tenable Of course there is no Holy Spirit, no Trinity, Yes,
there is a God — ''the Ideal which men call God.'* But neither
Bible nor ten commandments nor Church is necessary for moral-
ity. Were all of these unknown ''not one ray would be les-
sened in the resplendent divinity of duty.'*
Our readers will pardon us for burdening them with this
recitaL One word we would say in conclusion. It is of the
very essence of our Lord's work that He came not to destroy
but to build up. After His example must every man who has
a spark of goodness or a vestige of love for human kind labor
to-day. The writer of this book will meet many who are har-
rassed by difficulties against faith, against Christ and God, and
yet are working upwards through their very difficulties to the
light of truth and the joy of peace which the Church alone
can give them. A word of help and of encouraging guidance
will mean everything to their souls for time and eternity. Will
this man fling them back into the pit of darkness and despair,
into the hell of doubt and denial ?
The author of this book may meet some who, faithful still,
are yet weakened by the difficulties and the temptations born
of modern research. Will it be his aim to help them retain
all that they now possess, or will he urge them ; to give up
everything that has made life noble and eternity real, and ex-
change faith and hope and love for subtle and fruitless scep-
ticism ?
MothiT Erin^ Her People and Her Places ^ by Alice Dease
(B. Herder), describes life in Ireland anew for children. Sketches
of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford, and Killarney, with brief
accounts of Ireland's customs, traditions, games, amusements,
etc., make up a readable narrative to which good illustrations
add interest.
Dun Dealgan, latterly known as Dundalk, is the name of
an ancient Irish stronghold overlooking the town and bay of
Dundalk. This fort has, after much agitation, been secured
for the use of the public. A short sketch of its history has
been issued by the Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, in aid of the
purchase fund which has yet to be raised.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 545
A priest of Mount Mellaray has translated from the Italian
a Catholic work on sociology and economics. While we are
preparing {if we are) men who will write original works on
the same topics. Father McLoughlin's work* will render good
service. The Italian author is an archpriest in Northern Italy.
He is a parish priest in active touch with the life of the peo-
ple. Knowledge thus gained of the needs of his times has moved
him to prepare these lectures, primarily for the benefit of cler*
ical students. His bishop is warm in his praise, and he speaks
modestly of himself — ^both excellent recommendations. The work
is a study of principles and elements, which fact gives it its
value for beginners. Readers who have gone beyond the early
stages in these sciences will find the book worth while as an
excellent commentary on the views laid down in the encycli-
cals of Leo XIII. After that great Pontiff, the author follows
the eminent Catholic authority. Professor Toniolo, of Pisa. The
tone of the work is thoroughly Catholic, but not reactionary.
As a follower of Leo XIII., and as a priest of Northern Italy,
the author is sympathetic with the better elements in the spirit
of the age. The work of the translator is well done, though
an exception might be taken against the use of the word ** pol-
icy*' (p. 21) to express the art of government Father Mc-
Loughlin has also added footnotes applying some of the prin-
ciples of the work to conditions in Ireland.
Father Semple borrows from Cicero a title for his pamphlet, f
which indicates the shock given to his mind and to the minds
of many other thoughtful men by the articles of Mr. Bolce on
'' Blasting the Rock of Ages.'' Father Semple does not merely
give a summary of the Cosmopolitan articles. He adduces testi-
mony from various sources to show how far the present age is
drifting from sound and tried views in education, government,
and morals. He then discusses in a special way the views of
Professor Lichtenberger, of Pennsylvania, on divorce, and Presi-
dent Butler's attempt to reply to the remarks of Bishop McFauh
When that eminent Catholic educator, the Abb^ Hogan,
was professor of Moral Theology at Saint Sulpice, Paris, be
* Thi BUwunU •/ ^Social ScUnc* and Political Reomomy, Rsptcially ftr Ust im CoUiga,
Scho9ls, CMt, GmUds, itc. By the Yen. Archpriest Lorenxo Dardano. Translated by Rev.
Williaxn McLoughlin. DubUn : M. H. GiU & Son.
t What Timts I V^hai Morals I Whin en Earth art Wif By Rev. Henry Churchfll
Semple, S.J. New York : Bensiger Brothers.
VOL. XCU— 35
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546 NEW BOOKS [July,
ttsed to make it his business to go around among reputable,
coQScientioas men in professional and business life and find out
from them what was the opinion prevalent amongst them on
the ethics of their avocations. He considered that such a course
was necessary in determining the application of moral princi-
ciples to the complex details of modern life. A theologian who
desires to be equally thorough in his work will find much help
in the series of Yale University lectures now under review.*
The first series is a symposium on modern business conditions
and the questions of right and wrong which they create. The
second deals with a variety of problems in Journalism, Ac-
countancy, the Law, Transportation, and Speculation. The third
is a course of lectures on Citizenship, which requires no further
recommendation than to say that it is the work of Hon. James
Bryce.
This is a popular workf on British flowering plants, but
it will appeal to lovers of plants in all lands. The two first
chapters are devoted to the general characters of plants and
to pollination and fertilization. Chapter III. deals with climb-
ing plants. The remainder of the book treats of the flowers
of spring, summer, and autumn, arranged according to habitat
For example, there is a chapter on ''Woods and Thickets in
Spring ** ; another on " Wayside and Wastes in Spring '' ; also
one on *' Meadows, Fields, and Pastures in Spring,** There
are also chapters on flowers having special habitats, like the
chalk, down, and moor. And the last is devoted to carnivorous
plants.
The work is abundantly illustrated. It is to be regretted,
however, that the size of the volume prevents its being used
as a pocket field-book. A useful list of flowers (common
name) classified according to habitat, is given at the end of
the volume, also a list of orders and genera, followed by a
short glossary of botanical terms.
The first word to say about the volumes that compose the
Round the World series (Benziger Brothers) is that they are
good samples of worthy book-making. The quality of the
*Uorals in MpeUrm BuHmss. Page Lectures at Yale Uniyersity. Evtryday Etkus,
Page Lecture Series. Thi Hindrancts to Gopd Cititaukip, By James Biyce. Dodge Lec-
tures at Yale Uaiversity. New York,: The Yale University Press.
t FUld and Wo^dkmd Plants. By W . S. Fumeaux. London and New York : Long-
mans. Green & Co.
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I9I0.] NEW BOOKS 547
paper and illostrations if in itself an attraction; but, beyond
the dresft there is much to commend in the interesting articles
which treat of a great variety of subjects: trees, furs, gold-
mining in Mexico, mountain* climbing in America, out-door
bird taming, landmarks of old Virginia, for example, are sub-
jects selected at random from Vol. VII., which we have re-
cently received. For grown readers, as well as for boys and
girls, these books will be instructive and interesting.
A Bit of Old Ivory; and Othir Stories^ contains fifteen
complete short stories written by well-known Catholic writers.
The name of the author speaks for the merit of each individ-
ual story. We notice several typographical errors in the vol-
ume and the story of an author whose name appears in the table
of contents is not to be found in the book. Richard Aumerle*s
Brownie and /, a story for young folks, has to do with a dog
—a very kind dog«-and a young boy. The story wins attention
from the very beginning and it will entertain girls as well as boys.
Mary T. Wi^gaman*s latest juvenile. Captain Ted^ is, as we
expected to find it, a very delightful story. Its hero will find
many admirers. Clare Lorraine ; or^ Little Leaves Hiom a Little
Life, by '' Lee,*' is another story that takes ita place with the
worthy ones for boys and girls. They are all published by
Benziger Brothers.
A re-written and enlarged edition of a treatise on the
Holy Sacr^ce of the Mass, by the Rev. Charles C. Clarke, is,
in its new dress, a Handbook of Divine Liturgy (London:
Kegan Paul ; St, Louis : B. Herder). The author is to be com*
mended for his care in simplifying the subject for the general
reader and for his timely solicitude that all Catholics should
have a keener realization of the meaning of the Holy Sacrifice.
How to Walk Before God^ translated from the French of
T. F. Vaubert, S. J., is a little treatise on the manner of keep-'
ing ourselves in the presence of God (B. Herder).
It is a pleasure to note that the demand for The Divine
Story^ by Rev. Cornelius Joseph Holland, S.T.L., has been
large enough to warrant a fourth edition of the work. This
short life of our Blessed Lord is written specially for children
(Providence, R. I.: J. M. Tally).
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548 NEW BOOKS [July,
The Teaching of Latin, by Eugene A. Hecker (Boston:
Schoenhof Book Company), sets forth the benefits derived from
the study of Latin, and compares in a detailed way the place
of Latin in the school programmes of various countries.
Teachers and those interested in the subject will find its many
suggestions useful.
Our Faith is a Reasonable Faith is a book translated
from the German of E. Huch by M. Bachur and published by
the Society of the Divine Word, Techny, 111. It has been
said that if St. Paul lived to-day he would be the Apostle of
the Printing Press. The signs of the times seem to point to
the fact that Catholics are at last awakening to the value of
the press as a means to combat error and to expound and de-
fend Catholic truth. The present volume aims at giving a
clear statement of Catholic doctrine and thus fortifying the
layman and preparing him to refute current objections against
religion. The volume consists of twenty- three chapters, and
covers quite thoroughly the field of popular apologetics.
The Escapades of Condy Corrigan^ by Cahir Healy, and A
Brother's Sacrifice, by Aloysius J. Eifel, are the names of two
story books recently published by this same Society. The
first volume is a series of amusing fireside stories, and the
second is more serious, but none the less readable.
The Library and the School (New York : Harper & Brothers).
The problem for American educators is to see that all, and
especially the young, read that which is morally pure and
strengthening, which will instruct as well as entertain. What
books are our children reading, and why? What efforts are
being made to guide them away from the trashy and the sen-
sational ? How far can country people, with few educational
facilities, remedy their own deficiencies ? These, and like ques-
tions, form the subject of the present volume of eight short
essays by educators and librarians, especially from the Western
Central states.
Peter of New Amsterdam and Richard of Jamestown, by
James Otis (American Book Company). These historical stories
show children the home- life of the colonists. They are told
from the viewpoint of a child, and purport • to have been re*
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I9IO.] Neiv Books 549
lated by a child. This renders them both real and attractive
to the average boy and girl. Numerous pen and ink drawings
illustrate the narratives. Lucia's Stories of American Discoverers
for Little Americans is an entertaining juvenile from the same
publishers; from whom we have also received, The Human
Body and Health, by Alvin Davison, a practical and useful ele-
mentary manual based on the idea that the study of physiology
should lead to the conservation of health.
B. Herder, of St Louis, has arranged with the Catholic
Truth Society of Ireland to publish for American readers The
lona Series of tales. The four volumes which we have received
are entitled : The Coming of the King, by Arthur Synan ; Earl
or Chieftain, by Patricia Dillon ; Peggy the Millionaire, by Mary
Costello ; Hiawatha's Black Robe, by E. Leahy. They are pub-
lished at a remarkably low price.
Margaret's Influence, by the Rev. Peter Geiermann, C.SS.R.,
is a story embodying the special instruction which the Re-
demptorist Fathers address to the young people on Catholic
missions. The narrative is, the author tells us, founded on fact.
A Bunch of Girls, by ** Shan " ; The Fortunes of Philomena and
Joan and Her Friends, by E. M. Buckenham ; are the titles of
three juvenile publications. The last two stories would have
been more attractive if the illustrations had been omitted alto-
gether. They offend good taste. A counsel of eight practical
instructions on how to make a good confession is entitled : The
Penitent Instructed. This is a new and revised edition of the
work of the Rev. £. A. Selley, O.E.S.A., a small booklet at a
reasonable price. First Communion of Children and Its Cendi^
tions, a pamphlet translated from the French of F. M. de Zu»
lueta, S.J. All are published by B. Herder.
In France they are still interested
MODERNISM. in the matter of Modernism. At
least they keep on writing books
about it, which may or may not be a proof that the question
is a live one. The clergy in this country do not write books
until a demand is felt-rnor even then, as a rule. But it would
seem that no cultured Frenchman is happy until he sees his
name and academic titles on the yellow paper cover of a book.
And just now Modernism serves as a convenient excuse for
writing.
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55d -^VSFT BOOKS [July,
Of the works lit hand^ the two which sustain modernistic
positions are, as might be expected, from the Noorry publish-
ing house^ P. Saint-Yves delivers a broadside against the value
of miracles as a proof for doctrine.* He goes over the familiar
ground of the objections against the possibility of determining
whether any given fact is or is not miraculous in the theologi*
cal sense. He writes as if nobody had ever before thought of
these difficulties. A pilgrimage to Lourdes is what his case re*
quires.
Marcel H Aert makes a study f of two mystical works, the
Confessions of St. Augustine and the Treatise on the Love oj
God of St Francis de Sales, to show, against the ultra* Prag-
matists, that there is a form of religious experience which is
characteri2ed by the sense of the absolute, the perfect, as its
essential element. The author cannot help admiring the great
saints whose works he is studying, but his notes and comments
are generally critical and destructive.
On the other side of the question that stormy petrel of the
sea of controversy, the Abb^ Fontaine, flaps excited wings over
the billows and the wreckage. He has had the happiness of
discovering a new kind of Modernism — sociological, this time.|
When the Holy Father, two years ago, placed the name Mod*
ernism on the definite system of heterodox thought, of which
he purged the Church, it was an easy prophecy that extremists
on both sides would extend the term to cover views which the
precise pontifical document did not contemplate. Some critics
of the Church seemed to have an idea that it was an attack on
everything modern^— public schools and manhood, suffrage and
wireless telegraphy, and the like. And some of ourselves, like
the Abb^ Fontaine, play the part of the adversary, by a reck-
less use of the term. Not that the situation at which be aims
is not bad enough^ in all conscience. For he Is attacking the
execrable poUcy of the leaders of thought in France, which is
dMtroyIng the bases of religion and society^ Their actions and
principles are deserving of the strongest denunciation, and, m
Ux forth, this book is a pleasure to read. But there Is nothing
•LtDtcitnumimti^iiiimdi. Pat P. Sflint^Ytts. trails: Hottfry.
f ^ Fami iMtUitU i*r Simti m m^i Riiigieme. D«be Bi«qplasi 6l« AMfpu^n «t St.
Fraa9oU de Sales. Par Marcel Robert. Paris : Nouny.
U Uddifnitm Sftl^Uiigui: DHadmc€ $m ^iiM&aH&B f Par 14« 1 'AbM J. pMUHid.
Paris . P. LethieUeux.
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I910.] NEW BOOKS 551
to be gained by assailiog the loyalty of those on one's own
side who do not see eye to eye with one on all questions of
method. One can be strong and unswerving without being
cantankerous.
M. Ledire's attitude towards Modernism— or, rather, the
philosophy of Modernismi to whith he strives to limit his in-
quiry—is that of the historical critic* He treats of its origins,
its relations with other philosophical systems, its various forms.
He traces its origin to the philosophy of Kant and the Liberal
Protestantism oi the last half-century; it is related collaterally
with British-American Pragmatism. In the Catholic Church
its protagonists are 011^-Laprune, Cardinal Deschamps, and
Cardinal Newman; its representatives in its more definite foim
are Blondel, Laberthonni^re, Le Roy, Tyrrell, and Loisy. The
name of Cardinal Newman dans cette galhre will give a shock
to those who know that his work and memory have been ab-
solved by the most eminent authority from the stigma of Mod-
ernism. A summary of M. Lecl&re's more startling conclusions
concerning the tendency of Newman's teaching will serve as a
basis to estimate his competency as witness or as critic. He
believes that Newman's views, as expressed in the Grammar
of Assentf render grace unnecessary for the act of faith ; put
the individual conscience above the Church; lead to the belief
that external and organized religion is unnecessary; open the
way to pantheism. '* Everything," he says, in his sweeping
way, ** everything that has been made a reproach to Modernism
by the theologians who represent Catholic orthodoxy is more
than in germ in this pragmatism (of Newman), of which the
most manifest characteristic is its resemblance to Protestantism.'^
Speaking on The Development of Doctrine^ he says : '* Relativ*
ism, individualism, are at the bottom of Newman's teaching, as
well as humanism and naturalism." In one place M. Lecl^re
seems to get a momentary glimpse at the unfairness of his
presentation: ''We are forcing the meaning of the celebrated
Cardinal's teaching, no doubt " ; but he instantly hardens his
heart, saying: ''but does he not invite it?"
It is a relief to turn from this sort of stuff to the calm and
rational discussion of the eminent Dominican philosopher. Father
• PragwuHstmi, Modirmismt, '^rotatatUiswu. Par A. Led&re, Professeor i l^niyersittf
de3enie. Puis: BhmdetCte.
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552 New Books [Julyr
Garrigou-Lagrange.* Here we have St. ThomaSi his spirit as
well as his doctrine. The author takes up the views propounded
by M. le Roy four years ago in favor of the purely moral
value of doctrinal formulas. He discusses the questions at issue
on the deep philosophical bases on which they really rest.
The work is a good defence of the intellectualistic position^ or
the philosophy of Being, against both Phenomenalism, the phi-
losophy of Seemingt and Hegelianism, the philosophy of Be-
coming.
Cardinal Mercier's pamphlet f is a compilation from three
sources: an address at the University of Louvain, a pastoral
to his diocese of Mechlin, and a letter to the University Acad-
emy of Madrid. They reflect the calmness and authority both
of the true phiUsopher and the Christian bishop.
The history of the Merovingian dynasty {St. Bathtlde, Queen
of the Franks. Par Dom Couturier. Paris: P. T^qui) is as re-
markable for its queens as for its kings. The last of its queens
was St. Bathilde. Although a slave and a foreigner^ Clovis II.
made her his wife. The volume gives the reader a good in-
sight into the Gallic- French society of the period, its institu-
tions, domestic life, habits, luxury, and morals, and presents to
him the career of Bathilde from the workshop of Erchinoald
to the palace of the king. He who loves the curious in his-
tory will find much profit in the study of this book, and it
will have its measure of edification and instruction for every
Christian because of the life which it presents of one of the
greatest saints of France in the seventh century.
The copy of Pire Monsabr^*s posthumous work on the Pater^X
which lies before us, is of the fifth edition, though the work was
published only last year. iThis is a sufficient proof that it ranks
with the other homiletic efforts of the great preacher of Notre
Dame. It consists of a series of conferences, twenty-four in
all, on the first five petitions of the Lord's Prayer, tlie approach
of death having prevented the writer from finishing his dis-
courses on the last two. The conferences possess the certain
theological knowledge, the breadth •f view, the religious fervor,
* Li Sens Commun, la Philes^phU dt V^trt it Us FirmnUs Do^wtoH^is. Par Fr. R..
Garrigou-Lagrange. Paris : Librairie Gabriel Beaachesne et Cie«
t Li ModiTuismi, Par Cardinal Merder. Paris : Bloud et Cie.
% La PrUri Divtm : U •• Patirr Par J. M. L. Monsabr^. O.P. Paris : P. Lethielleux.
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1910.] NEW BOOKS 553
which are familiar to all who have used his numerous works
on religious subjects. For each conference there is supplied a
careful synopsis, which will facilitate the work of a preacher
who wishes to make use of the ideas of the eloquent Dominican.
M. TAbb^ Vigourely professor at Saint-SulpicCi and author
of a Cours Synthitiqui de Liturgie^ has arranged a number of
points concerning the liturgy of the Church in a manner to
make them available as matter for meditation or for sermons
on Sundays and feasts.* He treats of liturgy in general, the
divisions of the ecclesiastical year, the various parts and acces-
sories of the Mass, the liturgy of the sacraments, the principal
feasts, the office, the litanies, and other recognized liturgical de-
votions. The matter is arranged to fit well into the spirit of
the diverse seasons and festivals. The points selected are pre-
sented in a suggestive rather than an exhaustive fashion, and
are thereby all the better fitted for the preacher's use. The
work will be of assistance to the clergy in making the faithful
appreciate more than they generally do the treasures of spir-
itual benefits which lie enshrined in the magnificent liturgy of
the Church.
No saint should be more read about
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES, in our day of high aspirations than
St Francis de Sales.t He devoted
his life entirely to the progress of souls striving for perfection,
and the saving of souls infected with heresy. In our time and
country the holy ambition to be entirely under God's guidance
is beginning to stir multitudes of hearts. No sign of the times
is more consolfng than the instant response to the Holy Fa-
ther's urgent invitation to more frequent and even to daily
Communion. Confessors are everywhere increasing the number
of penitents, men and women both, who, in the — -^—
tions of life, are yearning for entire devotedness
ards so well advanced by St. Francis.
And with equal prominence stand forth missi
tions of Catholic Americans, who can learn from 1
methods of love in convert making. There is not i
* La LUmr^U etlavU ChritUmtu. Par A. Vigourel, du S^minaire Sai
P. Lethielleux.
i Francis d* Salts. A study of the gentle saint. By Louise M.
New York : Bensiger Brothers.
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5S4 NEW BOOKS IJuly,
out some converts. Many dioceses have missionary bands of
secular priests, aiding the zeal of the ordinary parish clergy, and
greatly extending the reign of Catholic truth. Everywhere the
religious communities are winning souls to Christ and the
Church.
The writer of this book has imparted fresh interest to a
narrative of loving activity and holy persuasiveness, adorning
a personality of eminently heroic sanctity. She writes with
sympathetic spirit, though not unduly thrusting forward her
own statements of absorbed discipleship, and lets the saint tell
his own story as far as possible.
One easily rides on the tide of love for God and man that
this narrative exhibits as flowing out of the heart of St Francis.
There is a beautiful romance in the story of the young noble-
man laying down his high lordship, and setting aside the
attractive marriage schemes of his parents, in order to take
the place of a humble priest in a ruined and despoiled die*
cese of the Alpine foothills. Then the dauntless daring of
his apostolate in the Chablais, where in a few. years he con*
verted a whole province from rankest Calvinism to sweetest
Catholicity. The contrast between Calvin, the gloomiest of
Protestants, and Francis de Sales, the happiest of Catholics,
between the apostle of wrath and the apostle of love, is well
shown in this book.
The author was rightly guided in using very abundantly the
letters and other personal memorials, for St. Francis wrote his
own life, his own very soul, in his letters, and, indeed, in all
his devout treatises. Next to ^ Kempis there is perhaps no
uninspired teacher so often quoted by devout Christians as
St Francis de Sales, and quoted, too, because known by
heart. Read this book to become acquainted with one who is
all that is meant by a gentleman and all that is meant by a
saint.
The Life of SU Clare • edited by
LIFE OF ST. CLARE. Father Paschal Robinson, and pub-
lished by the Dolphin Press, is
an altogether worthy volume. Father Robinson fias made a
fine translation of the biography of St Clare attributed to
* TksLifffSt. Clan. Ascribed to Father Thomas of Celano. Translated ttd edhed
by Father Pasdial Robhison, O.F.M, With an Appendix contahiing the Rule of 8t Clare.
Philadelphia: The Dolphin Press.
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I9I30 NEW BOOKS 555
Thomas pf CelanOy and also of the Rule of St. Clare. His in-
troduction and notes leave nothing to be desired in the way
of scholarship and literary merit. The Dolphin Press has also
done well its share in the work. Paper, type» and illustrations
are of the best. In every way this is a noteworthy contribu-
tion to English Franciscana.
In a famous passage Cardinal New-
ENGLISH LITERATURE man says that, no matter what
AHD RELIGION. use writers may make of it, ^* Eng-
By Chapman. Ush literature will ever have been
Protestant'* Mr. Chapman, in the
present volume,* essays to estimate how far it has been, in
the last century. Christian. Or, rather, that is part of his
theme. He recogni2es the reciprocity between religion and lit-
erature, the one supplying ideas, and the other supplying modes
of expression to its mate — which is the idea underlying the
Cardinal's dictum. Mr. Chapman gives us a history of English
literature in the nineteenth century from an interesting point
of view. He neglects no feature in the problem, whether for
or against the progress of religious ideas. The work will repay
reading.
* Bn^Hsk LUirutmrt in Accommt with Rtligitm (iSoo-igoo). By Edward Mortimer Chap-
man. Boston and New York : Houghton MifBin Company.
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jFoteian petiobicals^
The Tablet (7 May): ''Juvenile Labor and Unemployment/'
Child labor is, undoubtedly, one of the chief causes of
unemployment ; for such labor is merely temporary, and
instead of leading to something better, leads to nothing,
save to the ranks of the unemployed . **The Casting
of St Edward's Bell/' This delicate operation was per-
formed last Saturday, in the presence of his Grace, tbe
Archbishop of Westminster, and of the Duchess of Nor-
folk, the donor of the bell.
(14 May): ''The Royal Declaration." A plea for the re-
vision of a declaration that is most offensive to all Roman
Catholics, blaspheming, as it does, against the most
sacred mystery of our holy religion.^——" Catholics and
the French Elections." The results following the cast-
ing of the second ballot, though, as a whole, not of
a very decisive character, yet show at least a loss on
the part of the Radical Socialists.— ~" King Edward
VII. and His Catholic Subjects." Incidents indicative of
the friendly attitude of the late king towards his Catho-
lic subjects. " The Terror of the Comet." Provided
the world lasts sufficiently long, an encounter with the
comet is bound to take place.
(21 May): "Pentecost" is a day of a triple commemo-
ration: one a thanksgiving for the gifts of the nation at
the end of the harvest ; another the remembrance of the
law-giving on Mount Sinai ; a third, the memory of the
visible descent of the Holy Ghost.— ~" Two More Years
of the Bloc." The municipal elections, to renew one-
half the City Council of Rome, are to be held in June,
yet it appears to be a foregone conclusion that the year
191 1 will see the Anti- Clericals masters of the situation.
(28 May): "Decisions oi the Biblical Commission."
Eight answers regarding the authors and the date of the
composition of the Psalms. Answers approved by the
Pope and published at his order. Among other decisions
is that it would be imprudent to affirm that only a few
of the psalms are to be attributed to David, or to deny
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his authorship of certain specific psalms. Certaia psalms
are to be recognized as prophesying the coming, passion^
resurrection, etc., of our Redeemer.
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (l/Lzy)i ''St Paul to Masters
and Servants/' by Rev. E. T. CuUen. The chief cause
of trouble between masters and servants is the want of
a clear understanding of the rights of both parties con-
cerned. The writer proffers a solution of the difficulties
based upon the principles laid down by St. Paul in his
Epistle to Philemon. Masters should be solicitous for
the spiritual and temporal welfare of their servants, while
the latter should render their services freely and from
high motives. ''The Story of the Tithes/' a sketch
of the troubles arising from the attempt to tax Irish
Catholics in support of the clergymen of the English
State Church, by R. Barry O'Brien. "Eschatology
of the Old Testament/' by Rev. Martin O'Ryan.
" The Irish Catholic Abroad and at Home." The writer.
Rev. P. Sheridan, thinks dogmatic theology is "a mat-
ter of too little concern with our ordinary students and
priests." But this must be overcome If priests are to
be successful in their labors abroad.
Le Correspondant (lo May): "The Chinese Press/' by Fernand
Farjenel. The awakening of the East has led to a vir-
tual creation of a Chinese Press. There are at present
over fifty papers published in China, consisting of dailies,
periodicals, and illustrated journals. Their context "is
analogous to that of the European and American papers
which have served as models." The press is infusing
new and modern ideas into the popular mind; advoca-
ting and supporting the national assembly, and, on the
whole, is bringing China into a closer re'-*'^'^- •^•^^ ***-'
modern world.-—" The Economic Life
Movement — Socialism." A. Bechaux wr
progress of French Socialism and the Iw
calls for a complete economic, politic
emancipation of the workingman. The p<
pation is to be achieved by the central
government and the development of the
and law. Moral emancipation is to be re
materialistic conception of history and
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558 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [July,
writer doubts that the Socialistic Ideal will ever be es-
tablished, because of the '' instioctive need of individiial
property and personal independence; also because of
the moral and religious forces of the French soul.*'
Revile du CUrgi Francois (15 May): *' Modernism in Italy/' by
J. M. Vidal, reviews the present activities of the Mod-
ernist foUowingi and sketches the work and character
of the principal Italian leaders. The movement has
practically no following among the masses, but attracts
here and there certain groups of young people, fascinated
by its promises of novelty and liberty.-— Ch. Calippe
writes of the'' Social Ideas of Chateaubriand.*'
£tudes Franciscaines (April): ''The Return to the Church,** by
P. Gonzalve. The Conversion of Dr. A. de Ruville, a
noted professor in the University of Halle. His con-
version was due mainly to the influence of "Catholic
Theological Literature.**
(May): "Christian Men of Art,** by Alphonse Germain.
A summary of the works of art by Christian artists of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The writer
wishes to give, in a brief survey, the life, the where-
abouts, the schools, and the teachers which influenced
the individual painter. He enumerates the more impor-
tant works of art produced by the various men and
states the time and place of exhibition.-— "The Nature
of State Education,** by P. Joseph d*Auresan. The
writer takes up the question of official teaching in the
various countries of Europe. In Germany we find two
noted adversaries of the Catholic teaching attempting to
do away with "Confession Schools.'* The writer goes
on to show how the "Anti-Christian spirit reigns very
forcibly in Spain, Italy, Russia, Belgium, and England.**
La Revue des Sciences Ecclesiasti^ues et La Science Catkolique
(May) : " Separation of School and State,** by M. C. de
Kirwan, is an appreciation of the campaign— begun by
M. Pierre Bi^try— in favor of the separation of the school
from the State. The State authorities took from the
Church the right to educate because the Church fashioned
the young in its own way. These same men, however,
are now training and teaching according to their own
ideas. They condemn churchmen for the very thing
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with which they now concern themselves. M. Bi^try in
his book gives the history of education from La Con*
vention of 1793 to the present day.
R$vue Pratique d^ Apologitique (i May): '* Observations on a
New Theory of Sacerdotal Vocation/' by G. Letourneaui
is a brief account of the noted work written by Canon
Lahitton. Quoting Lahitton, he defines the priestly
sacerdotal vocation as : *' The appointment or call of a
subject to the sacerdotal state/' The prime factor in
Lahitton's theory is the importance which is attributed
to the approval by the Church authorities: it is not
enough, says he, that the subject perceive that inner
voice calling him to the sacerdotal state.
(15 May): "The Devotion to the Sacred Heart/' by J.
V. BainveL The writer endeavors to give a definite
idea of the '* Devotion to the Sacred Heart" from an
etymological point of view, inquiring whether the word
" Heart " be taken in the material, metaphorical, or sym-
bolical sense. Later he shows the historical, the theo-
logical, and scientific basis of this devotion, and proves
that it is not based on the vision of Blessed Margaret
Mary. Pope Pius VI., in the Bull Auctorem Fidei^ 1794,
approves of this devotion.
JStudes (5 May): Benoit Emonet thinks the dramatic work of
M. Eug&ne Brieux, recently elected to the Academy,
immoral and commonplace.-— Louis des Brandes re-
views a curious mystery play, " La Charit^ de Jeanne
d 'Arc," by Charles Peguy. '* Le Sillon and the French
Bishops/' The chief charge is that Le Sillon mixes re-
ligion with a democratic political programme and claims
to be independent of the Bishops.
(29 May): ''La Question Syndicaliste," by Gustave de
Lamarzell, senator from Morbihan, was suggested by Paul
Bourget's play dealing with strikes and lockouts, ''La
Barricade." The author writes sympathetically of labor's
struggle. He thinks that the privilege of organizing is
a right natural to the laborer and his only effective
defence against capitalistic exploitation.
La Revue du Monde (i May): "Letters of Marie de Medici to
Louis XIIL," by Eugene Griselle. " A Pilgrimage to
Subiaco/' by Yves d'Aubi&res.-— "Improved Arma*
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560 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [July,
ment/' by A. de Sach| is a plea for the necessity of a
nation adopting the most improved means of offensive
and defensive warfare.
(15 May): ''The School Question in the Canadian
North West/' A short history of the origin of this
question by Arthur Sava&te. ''In Old Castile/' a
lecture by Yves d'Aubi^res on some still unexplored
regions of Old Castile.
Annales di Philosophie Chritientu^ (I^&y): Albert Dufourcq, in
''The Evolution of the Greek Religion/' makes the ad-
mission that it originated in a sort of zoolatry.-— " The
Religious Attitude of St. Francis of Assisi," by Louis
Canet, examines the latest attempts of Sabatier, Thode,
etc., to separate fact froni legend in the records of this
saint. It is clear, M. Canet thinks, that his outlook on
life was purely religious, and that any political or social
consequences, arising, for example, from his doctrine of
poverty, were entirely accidental.
Chtanique Sociale de France (May) : Max Turmann, under the
caption " Protection of Labor," reviews the operation of
laws in the United States and Australia, with particu-
lar reference to high tariff and limitation of immigra-
tion. He seems to favor a state-established minimum
wage.
Revista Intetnazionale (April) : " The Problem of the Family in
its Social Aspect at the Present Day/' by G. Tomolo.
The baneful sociological theories which deny the divine
institution of marriage, combined with economical con-
ditions which necessarily break up the family relations,
are bringing about the destruction of the family. The
Catholic faith, and the awakening of the entire con-
science of the nation to the evils within it, must pro-
tect, restore, and elevate the family, especially the
Christian family.
La Civilth Cattolica (21 May): "Religious Instruction in the
Elementary School." From a comparison between the
States anent this question, he concludes that France
alone excludes religious instruction from all the elemen-
tary schools. Italy, led on by the activities of the anti-
clerical party and by the feebleness of the Catholic op-
position, is moving rapidly to the same abyss.— "The
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History of Frequent Communion,'^ reviews the more re-
cent studies bearing on the history of frequent Com-
munion.*-^— '' The Truth of the Case of R. Murri'* is
made manifest in the pastoral letter of the Archbishop
of Fermo; it shows to the whole world, both to the
faithful and to the opponents of the Church, the more
than paternal kindness with which ecclesiastical authority
dealt with this refractory priest.
Espatia y Amirica (May) : " The Social Action of the Clergy/'
by Sr« D. Victoriano Guisasola y Men^ndez, is reviewed.
The author's thesis is that the times demand '^an in-
tense, constant, and universal social action from the
Catholic priesthood.
Raz6n y Fe (May): P. Villada points out the duty of Catho-
lics in ''The Legislative Elections of. 1910." The de-
clared anti*clerical policy of certain candidates makes
indifference criminal.— —*' Unconscious Cerebration'' by
Francisco Segarra. This first of two articles examines
the teaching of modern philosophers on this question.
—Pablo Hernandez sketches the history of Aranco,
formerly an independent state, now a province of Chile.
VOL. xci*— 36
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IRecent Events*
The elections left M. Briaad and
France. his Cabinet in power, with the
prospect of an indefinitely pro-
longed tenure of office. M. Briand at once took systematic
steps to ascertain the wishes of his supporters in the Chamber
of Deputies. To all the Prefects of Departments he sent in-
structions to make an analysis of the speeches made to the
electors by those who, in virtue of those speeches and in reli-
ance upon the promises made therein, had secured the confi-
dence of the people. He proposes to regulate his policy in
accordance with the promises made by the majority of the
successful candidates. A perfectly definite .programme will be
laid before the Parliament prepared in order to hold the ma-
jority to its pledged word.
The most widely accepted of these proposals was that of
electoral reform. The adoption of scrutin de liste received
the support of the electors by an overwhelming majority, and
there was a large majority in favor of some method of pro*
portional representation in order that to minorities the oppor-
tunity of a hearing might be given. Electoral reform, therefore,
will be the first of the measures brought forward by M. Briand
in the early part of the first sessions of the new Parliament.
It is expected, too, that it will be proposed to prolong to six
years the term of service of the Deputies, combined with a
system for the renewal of the mandates of one-third of the
whole number of the Deputies every three years.
Fiscal reform, in the shape of the adoption of an Income
Tax, has received a favorable reception ; but the form in which
it was adopted by the last Chamber of Deputies, and in
which it was sent up to the Senate, has not received the ap-
probation of the larger number of the electors. To State
monopolies in the sale of alcohol and in insurance a consider*
able majority manifested its hostility. In favor of administra-
tive and of judicial reforms, and for the better regulation of
the relations between the State and its servants, the clear de-
sire of the people was indicated. It is satisfactory to note
that out of the 597 deputies who have been elected only
66 ventured to advocate the State monopoly of education
which would, if adopted, close the Catholic schools. Two
hundred and thirteen, however, advocated State control of the
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ecoUs UbreSf that is to say, the shotting out from Catholic
schools of any control by the clergy. The Minister of Educa-
tion is determined, it is said — although the number of the sup-
porters of his proposal is, as has been said, very moderate — to
proceed with the Bills which were introduced during the last
session in consequence of the protests of the Bishops against
the non-neutrality of the State schools. The object is, it is
announced, to consolidate and defend the State neutral school
and to organize the working and the control of the Scales
libres, or private schools, both as regards the efficiency of the
teacher, and with respect to the selection of school books.
This is equivalent to making the State supreme in the schools
supported by Catholics at their own expense. It is the same
thing as would be a proposal of the Board of Education of
New York to judge of the qualifications of the teachers in the
parochial schools and of the suitability of the text-books.
This is the way in which liberty is understood in France at
the present time.
The strikes of the inscrits matitimes at Marseilles and other
parts have come to an end, but other disturbances have taken
place. The most significant of all is the mutiny, for it cannot
be called by any other name, of a number of Reservists at
Ntmes. Finding the ground on which they were encamped too
damp to suit them, they, contrary to the orders of their officers,
marched into the town singing the ''Internationale,'' and were
guilty of sundry other irregularities. They did not persist,
however, in this unmilitary insubordination. The military au-
thorities showed no lack of resolution, and put in prison a large
number of the mutineers, leaving the rest of the regiment in
its damp encampment outside the city.
The State management of the Universities does not meet
with the approbation of those over whom it seeks to exercise
control. So little were certain examinations of the Medical
School of the Sorbonne to the taste of the students that they
assailed the examiners with volleys of eggs, tomatoes, and simi-
lar missiles. This was kept up for several days, in spite of the
fact that the police were brought upon the field of action to
bring about peace. Information has not been published as to
what it was in the examination that was so obnoxious, but it
would seem as if the State's authority is no more relished by
the physicians of the body, than it is by the clergy.
The fact that at the funeral of King Edward, at Windsor
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564 RECENT EVENTS [Jqly,
the Get'man Emperor went out of his way to show special at*
tention to M. Pichon, the French Foreign Minister and Special
Ambassador, gave rise to rumors of a tappfochement between
Germany and France. It was even said that a secret treaty
had been made between the two countries. This is recognized
as an exaggeration ; but it is equally well recognized that there
exists at the present time between the two countries a desire
to keep peace and to deal with all questions at issue in that
spirit which makes for peace. There is in France a small num*
ber of eminent men who have long cherished the hope of a
permanent reconciliation, and worked with that object in view.
Every good cause has in its beginning been advocated by a
minority only, and sometimes a very small minority. It is too
soon to be sure that this minority will become a majority, but
there is no reason to despair. It is worth mentioning in this
connection th'at the late King Edward gave active support to
the efforts of Baron d'Estournelles de Constant to bring about
a better understanding between France and Germany, and was
resolutely opposed to the policy of '' hemming in,'' advocated
by some Englishmen and bitterly resented by all Germans.
Morocco has persistently protested agsinst being kept in or-
der by main force against its will, and having to pay for it as
well. After protracted delays, however, the Sultan, Mulai
Hafid, was constrained to consent to the raising of a loan for
the indemnification of French and other foreign interests. This
consent he subsequently withdrew. Whereupon France seized
upon the Customs in part satisfaction of those claims. There
seems to be no other way of securing payment; for, even if
the Sultan were loyal to his word, his power is in reality so*
limited that, although nominally absolute, he is unable to carry
out his promises. The latest news is that his army has been
defeated and that in all probability he will be dethroned by
rebellious tribes.
By the election of Mgr. Duchesne to the Academy honor
has been shown to a genuine scholar, who has proved that the
most perfect integrity of mind in dealing honestly with histor-
ical evidence gives support to the teachings of the Church.
The first attempt to pass a legis-
Oermany. lative measure of importance made
by the new Chancellor, Herr von
Bethmann*Hollweg, has failed. The Prussian Franchise Bill as
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19 10.] RECENT EVENTS 565
introdoced into the Lower House, did not do mtich to remove
the anomalies which have made the Prussian system of election a
by* word. It was transformed in passing through the House by
the combined efforts of the Conservatives and the Catholic Cen-
tre. It received further modifications, at the instance of the gov-
ernment in the Upper House — modifications meant to win the
support of the Liberals and Radicals. On its return to the
Lower House, the Liberals and Radicals could not ag^ree, and
thereupon the government withdrew the Bill. It is not yet
known whether any further effort will be made to remedy a
situation which has caused so much dissatisfaction. A large
number of persons in Prussia possess property and have a long
line of ancestors behind them who imagine that the safety of
the country — as well as that of the Empire which depend s,
they think, upon Prussia — requires that all power should be
left in their own hands. The people are not to be trusted, as
they do not know what is good for themselves. It is to these
that the maintenance of the present situation is due. It is not
yet known how long the people will acquiesce. The recent
demonstrations in support of franchise reform have shown that
they are as well organized as is the army itself, and there-
fore great danger is involved in disappointing expectations
recognized as just.
The Navy League, the great organization that supports the
government in that expansion of the Navy which causes so
much anxiety in other parts of the world, has been holding
its tenth annual meeting. No very startling proposals were
made, perhaps because the programme of the League has been
accepted by the government to almost its complete extent.
Disarmament, the President said in his speech, was a purely
ideal question, and all talk of it was dying out; even the
limitation of armaments was being more and more recognized
as practically impossible. All possible agreements, arbitration
treaties, and international conferences, could not confer abso»
lute security. Although the growth in numbers of the League
during the past year was not so great as to give satisfaction
to the President, the 11031,339 members form a body power-
ful enough to exert considerable influence upon any govern-
ment. The German Emperor sent a message to the meeting
to express his appreciation of the valuable support the League
had given to his efforts to strengthen German sea power and
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566 RECENT EVENTS [Jutyf
of his intention to continue to regard with special interest and
favor the well-directed efforts of the League.
Reference has already been made to the rumors of a rap^
prochetnent between France and Germany. The new Foreign
Minister of Italy has been paying a visit to Berlin, in order
to confer with Herr von Bethmann-HoUweg ; and as a result
it is announced that the relations between Italy and Germany
have become more than ever friendly and settled upon a
secure and peaceful basis. To Berlin the first official visit of
the new King of the Belgians has been paid, that which his
Majesty made to England to the funeral of King Edward
having been of a ceremonial and personal character. The ex-
tension of the influence of Germany throughout the world,
while not the object, was one result of Prince EitePs trip to
Jerusalem. He was received with great ceremony, not only
by Protestants, whose hospital he went to open, but also by
the Catholic clergy. And it is said that there is not a
Bedouin tent throughout Arabia in which the power of Ger-
many is not extolled.
The Emperor himself has been so unwell that he has had
to devolve upon the Crown Prince the function of signing the
documents which have received the Imperial approval. The
illness was painful rather than serious. But subsequently an-
other ailment has supervened, declared, indeed, not to be
serious. Official declarations are, however, not always trust-
worthy.
The Emperor of Austria and King
Austria-Hungary. of Hungary has been paying a
visit to the provinces of Bosnia
and Herzegovina. This he did in order to conciliate the good*
will of the various populations, who had for the most part
rather sullenly acquiesced in the exercise of the authority of
their over-lord, especially as it was done in the good old
medieval way, without consulting the will of the subjects at all.
It was, however, so it professed, for the purpose of bestowing
upon them constitutional government that the annexation was
made, and this promise, so far as the government is concerned,
has, after some delay, been kept, although the Constitution still
awaits the ratification of the Hungarian parliament.
The Emperor proved himself a most practical politician in
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I9IO,] RECENT Events 567
the course of his visit, and succeeded in winning for himself
in the end an enthusiastic reception. In Bosnia the religious
order takes precedence of the civil, and it was by the repre-
sentatives of religious communities that he was received in the
first place, and only afterwards did the civil authorities pay
their respects. The Emperor responded in the most impartial
manner. In the first place he went with his Staff to the Catho-
lic Cathedral, where he was received by the Archbishop and a
brief service was held. Then he went to the Serb Orthodox
Cathedral, where he was received by the Metropolitan and
conducted through rows of maidens dressed in the national
costume to the Throne. Thence he passed to the Mosque and
listened to, if he did not take part in, the prayers which are
said for the monarch every Friday. He then went to two
synagogues, one of the Spanish Jews and the other of the
German Jews, and in the end visited the Protestant church.
The Burgomaster was the last to be called upon. In all his
utterances the Emperor exhorted his new subjects to concord,
moderation, and earnest work for the development of the
country. He manifested his hope that the inhabitants of the
provinces would find in material prosperity compensation ior
the political disappointment which so many have experienced
through the annexation.
The ancestral subjects of the Emperor stand in need of some
consolation, as they are finding it hard to bear the expenses
involved in the recent acquisitions of territory. They are al-
ready over-taxed and are now confronted with heavy deficits
both in Austria and in Hungary. The ^proposed increase of
the Navy will entail a still further large expenditure. The gov-
ernment seems afraid to disclose the full truth. It is said that
private firms are to be allowed to ,build some at least of the
new Dreadnoughts, and that when progress has been made
the nation is to be confronted with a fait accompli and held
bound in honor not to let the ships go elsewhere.
The elections in Hungary have at last taken place and have
resulted in a great surprise. For a long time nobody knew
what was going to happen. The government was in a minority
in the last parliament and upon its dissolution was treated with
contempt and insult In the new house it will have a majority
of at least 157 votes, which may be raised to 165. This un»
looked • for success is due to the formation of the National Party
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568 RECENT EVENTS [July,
of Work through the efforts of the former Liberal Premier,
Count Stephen Tisza— a party which seems to have given ex-
pression to the disgust felt by large numbers at the insincerity
and impotence of the former coalition ministry and its disre-
gard of the work for which it was called into existence.
The election has completely transformed the whole political
aspect Independence of Austria, the only bond being the per-
sonal one of a common sovereign, seemed to be the goal shortly
to be attained. Dualism, as established in 1867, was thought
to have received its death blow. But the Coalition Government
so mismanaged things that, in the words of a leading political
writer, it disturbed internal peace, brought to a standstill the
economic and political development of the country, diminished
the influence of Hungary within the Monarchy, cast a shadow
upon the prestige of the Hungarian State in Europe, and shook
faith in the political maturity and potentiality of the nation.
The electors seem to have agreed with this writer's indictment^
and have given to Count Khuen Hedervary and to his very
powerful coadjutor an opportunity to conduct the affairs of the
nation on quite other lines.
A General Election has been held
Spain. in Spain as well as in Hungary,
and has resulted in a victory for
the present liberal government. The political intelligence of
the Spanish people is so little developed that there is no such
thing as a defined political programme. If seven Spaniards,
it is said, were to agree upon the desirability of obtaining an
object, in six months' time they would have split into three
parties, and one independent. The recent elections are in
seme degree an illustration of this, for in a house consisting
of 404 members these members were divided into no fewer
than ten parties. It would be tedious to give the names of
these parties, although it is curious to note that two members
were returned as forming the Catholic Party. The Liberal
Ministerialists number 227, although, as is well known, they
are divided among themselves into several factions; the Con-
servatives are 105 in number and the Republicans 42, being
three more than in the last Parliament. Nine are supporters
of Don Carlos' heir. Spain's first Socialist deputy has been
returned for Madrid, and Sefior Lerroux, with four foUowerF,
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has been elected for Barcelona. In fact, both in Madrid and
in Barcelona, Republicans and Socialists have trinmphed. The
majority of Sefior Canalejas, although large, may not be effec-
tive, on account of the divisions referred to. An interesting
point is that for the first time in recent history no attempt
was made by the government to ** make the elections''; at least,
if the orders of the Premier were obeyed.
In the Senate the Ministerialists number 103, while the
Conservatives have 42. The rest of the seats are held by
various groups, four being held by Republicans.
The first use made by the government of its majority is
to embark upon the anti-religious measures which have been
80 long threatened. A Royal decree was published on the
31st of May requiring all religious associations and organiza-
tions to submit to certain rules and regulations made in 1887,
and taking steps to enforce coercive measures in default of
compliance. Religious associations carrying on industries and
those formed of foreigners, or numbering foreigners among
their members, are also dealt with. On the nth of June a
second decree appeared authorizing religious bodies not be-
longing to the Church to display the insignia of public wor-
ship on their edifices, and giving them untrammeled liberty in
the conduct of their services.
The Cretan Question is, perhaps.
The Cretan Question. the one most likely to bring about
a collision in the immediate fu-
ture, although there are good grounds for the hope that such
a collision may be averted. It will require, however, no small
skill in diplomacy to find a peaceful solution. The Cretans
possess complete autonomy with the recognition of Turkey's
suzerainty. Four Powers, Russia, France, Italy, and Great
Britain, stand as guarantee for the rights both of Turkey and
of Crete.
The Cretans, however, are not satisfied, and nothing less will
satisfy them than union with Greece and the sepding to the
Parliament that meets at Athens deputies elected in Greece.
When Bulgaria declared her independence it seems certain that
the Powers promised that this desire should ultimately be re-
alized, on the condition that they remained quiet, and put for
a time their demands in abeyance. The wish of the Powers
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570 RECENT EVENTS [July.
was, on acconnt of their sympathy with the new order of
things in Turkey, to do everything in their power to give
strength to that new r/gime, hoping that Turkey would fall
in with their wbh to gratify Crete when a suitable time should
come.
In this they have been disappointed, for if there is one
thing more than another upon which Turkey's heart is set, it
is that no further loss of territory in any shape or form shall
be allowed. Upon this both government and people are de-
termined. In fact, large numbers of Turks feel that a war
would lend greater prestige to their cause than anything else
could do. So the Powers— finding Turkey determined, and
not being willing to permit a war between Greece and Turkey,
a war which might result in the conquest of Greece if Turkey
were permitted to carry it on unopposed by any of the great
Powers — have had to bring pressure to bear upon Crete. To
this pressure the Cretans have been unwilling to submit. In
fact, the members of the Assembly which has been held in
Crete took the oath of allegiance to the King of the Hellenes,
thus setting at nought the suzerainty or sovereignty of the
Sultan; and, what was worse, would not permit the Mussul-
man members to take their seats in the Assembly unless they
took the same oath of allegiance to the King. This is the
problem to be solved by the Protecting Powers, to avoid war,
and to satisfy the conflicting claims of Turkey, the Greeks,
and the Cretans. They have exercised or claim to exercise
the dispensing power, declaring the oath of allegiance to King
George null and void, and have declared the determination t»
take serious measures and to put Crete in a less advantageous
position than that which at present she enjoys; to restore, that
is, the Commissionship regime^ thus forcing the Cretans to
take a step backwards rather than forwards. The Powers have
the cause of peace more at heart than the patriotic and nation*
alistic aspirations of the smaller races, and what is called the
love of liberty. The Cretans may protest that their cause is
sacred, that they find it impossible to live apart from Greece
and its institutions, that the attraction to union with the
mother country is so great that no other government is possible;
but these protests fall upon deaf ears in view of the necessity
of preserving peace.
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THE need to-day of Catholic men and women who will coura-
geously and intelligently, in public and in private, stand for
the principles of the Catholic faith must be evident at once to any
one who walks with his eyes open.
In private life there was never greater opportunity than now
for the Catholic layman who can, without giving the slightest of-
fence, show the worth of spirituality to a world that is rapidly grow-
ing more materialistic ; the worth of principle to a people that rushes
after pleasure ; the value of Christian dogma to souls that know no
certain starting point, no place of rest ; the strength of the man who
knows whence he came, whither he aspires to go, whose universe
has its sure terms of beginning and of end, who reads that universe
in the reasonable harmony of the revelation of God through Christ —
to show all this to his acquaintances who may not understand, but
who will certainly admire and Inevitably be attracted. To live
happily with others does not mean that we must never speak of those
things which ought to be most important and most sacred to all.
We need not argue ; we need not intrude where evidently we are
not wanted ; we need not seek to oppose. But there is a kind-
er and more effective way apparent when the opportunity comes
to the Catholic lajrman whose faith is his very life. And the
opportunity will inevitably present itself to every one. We are liv-
ing under sorely artificial conventionalities. We speak of every-
thing except that one thing which is everything. I^t us not be
deceived by the generally accepted agreement to relegate religion to
the distant background and never to allow it to be exposed in any
public way.
Such a policy, if carried out logically, means the death of re-
ligion and is absolutely at variance with the genius of Christianity.
Nor can the compromise which it begets change human nature. The
soul of man was made for God and for Christ. And one may be cer-
tain that, however blatantly, the self-satisfied commentator on modem
institutions may protest to the contrary, there are many within his
immediate circle of acquaintances who will be interested and perhaps
honored, and, best of all, perhaps comforted and guided aright, if
at the acceptable time he speaks to them courageously, intelligently,
zealously, of those things which make life so worthy and eternity
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572 WITH Our readers [July,
so real. He will find to his joy that he is doing the work of the
Master, and that the hearts of his hearers also may bum within them.
• « •
EVEN if we be but stammerers and are tongue-tied, all of us
have at least within our reach that powerful attraction of duty
performed, of principle {faithfully adhered to, which must make its
impress even upon the most callous. The very secrets of our hearts
are a measure of our love for our fellows and our zeal for Christ.
We do not and we cannot live alone. Matters which we believe are
known only to God and ourselves, that we persuade ourselves affect
only ourselves, actions that apparently begin and end with ourselves,
really reach out and, in their measure, affect all humanity. Every
thought, every aspiration, every design, every act of ours, is like a
pebble dropped in the great ocean, which inevitably but surely
affects the farthest shores. If we but bring the consciousness of our
Catholic faith, our Christian responsibility, into the whole of our
life, and really make ourselves new men in the sight of God, if we
but do even this, we are surely and eloquently preaching the Gospel
of Christ and extending Christ's kingdom among men. If we live
for another world, if we are constantly looking out for the things
that are to come, the very fixity of our vision will teach other men
that there are things beyond worth living for.
• « •
ONE of the dangers of democracy is that every man will think he
ought to do as the crowd does. The crowd, believing that
every man is equal, that no one should act differently from any one
else, will freely criticise, and criticise adversely, any pronounced in-
dividual action. Democracy may be more tyrannical than absolut-
ism, and it often places upon the individual the burden of defying
the crowd, whereas the crowd .ought to encourage and help the in-
dividual to attain the highest fulfillment of his personal ability.
And yet what the crowd opposes, it often respects most. To-day,
when we are thrown so closely together — when institutions, once so
sacred that criticism never dared touch them, are being ruthlessly
handled by the tyro in history and comparative religion ; when the
temples of belief are being razed to the ground ; when by many it i^
thought a mark of real intelligence to smile away dogma and to as-
sert that the basis of duty must be re-examined and the ten com-
mandments be re-written — the individual action of the Catholic,
faithful, earnest, intelligent, stands forth in tragic contrast against
this background of ruin, of desolation, and of waste. To the souls
of his fellows, souls made for God and for truth, such a picture of
constancy, of peace, of conviction, must come home with telling
effect ; its appeal must and will be heard.
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ARE we living and working In this spirit 7 How far does the con-
trary spirit of the world eat into our souls, and, through compro-
mise, through cowardly self* consciousness, weaken the vitality and
the watchfulness of our Catholic dignity and our Catholic responsi-
bility ? The ringing call is sounding to us from the heart of the liv-
ing Christ. Personal indifference, personal laziness, which have led
us to neglect the powers of our intellect and our will, have deafened
the ears of our soul. Christ does not send His angel to us. We
Jbave the teachers and the prophets. To hear the call, to know our
opportunity, we must by prayer, by reading, improve our powers ;
exercise our ability ; know what the world is doing, even in secu-
lar, political fields; know the burden and the suffering oi our
Church; know her problems, the way to combat her enemies; and
stand in our own personal dignity most steadfastly and most potently
for her honor.
• • •
IN conferring the degree of Doctor oi Literature on T. A. Daly,
the genial author of Canzoni^ Fordham University has appro-
priately honored a Catholic writer who has thousands of admirers
throughout the English-speaking world. The Cathouc World
has the right to offer very special congratulations to this now recog-
nized poet, for his first published work was printed in our pages.
The easy grace and the perfect melody that have come to be consid-
ered characteristic of his lyrics are qualities not to be counterfeited
by any art ; the breath of spontaneity is present in every stanza he
has given us. What in some sense is still more laudable, as it is
more rare, is the ever-abiding kindliness of his tone. In all his sing-
ing we find never a trace of sourness, never a sting of cynicism. To
be so true a wit and to have retained his innocence untarnished in
this respect is, on the whole, our best reason for being proud and
fond of T. A. Daly. Prosit/
m • •
THE death of Sir William Butler on June 7 marked the passing
of an able and distinguished Catholic layman, a military com-
mander of exceptional ability, and a writer of unquestionable talent.
William Francis Butler was bom at Suirville, County Tipperary,
Ireland, in 1838. He began his career as a soldier in the Crimean
war ; showed himself from the first an earnest student, a courageous
fighter, a man of sincere honesty and of strong personal convic-
tions. During his long career he saw service in Canada, in West
and South Africa, in Egypt, and in the Sudan.
This is not the place to treat of his military or his political
career. Right or wrong, he was sincere in all his convictions ; he
was also' able to defend them intelligently ; and he never lacked the
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574 WITH OUR READERS [July,
courage to stand for them against all odds. Nature might stand up
and say of him to all the world : ''This was a man." And being a
Catholic he was a fearless Catholic. As a youth in private life, as a
man of public prominence in later life, Catholic principle was, with
him, the inspiration of his conduct, his service, his patriotism. It
was the pleasure of the present writer to know Sir William Butler
personally, and his cordial, genial manner ; his thoughtful sympathy
with men because he really '* cared " ; his frankness, his idealism;
would make any heart captive and any man proud to call him friend.
We wish particularly to pay tribute to his ability as a writer
and to say that his books are too little known among our people.
All of them — even the story for boys — are inspired by that Catholic
faith which animated everything he -dlfTand lent the glory of
another world to his whole life. The London Tablet recalls the
tribute paid by Ruskin, '* that he [Sir William Butler] could have
written all my books." The Great Lone Land and Ihe Wild North
Zran^f are captivating works that " need no gloss of fiction." His
enthusiastic appreciation of Charles George Gordon is soul-inspir-
ing. His latest work, 7he Light of the West, which gives much of
his philosophy of life, appeared in 1908. His personal {memoirs are
about to be published, and it is also reported that he left in manu-
script a life of Napoleon.
Under the title that he used for his latest book, he once con-
tributed a paper to an English magazine in which he speaks of St.
Patrick. The passage that we quote shows something of the ideals
that animated the author himself, and illustrate also the poetry and
the power of his style. Sir William Butler has been describing the
beginnings of St. Patrick's mission, when outwardly everything
spoke of disappointment and of failure, but :
Beyond the bleak ridge and circle of firelight, perchance those deep sunk
eyes are beholding glimpses of future glory to the Light he has come to
spread ; and it may be that his ear, catching in the echoes of the night-wind
the accent of ages yet to be, is hearing wondrous melodies of sound rolling
through the starlight. Look well upon that fire, great messenger of God to
the Gael I The fiame thou feedest with the furze and the oak-faggot is a
light never more to die from this island. Kings of twenty lines shall rule the
ridge of Tara. Wars and devastations, inroads and invasions, shall sweep
the land, and its hillsides shall see fire and famine, and its valleys shall hear
wail and lamentation ringing through myriad ages yet unborn, but never
through the vast catalogue of thy children's sorrow shall this light of thine
be quenched. * Nay, the travail of coming generations shall be but fresh fuel
to spread over God's earth this holy fiame — ^beyond the shores, beyond the
oceans, into continents yet unborn, the sacred light will touch the hilltops
of Time until it merges at last into the endless radiance of eternity.
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I9I0.] WITH Our Readers 575
THE March issue of \The Bibelot, published by Thomas B. Mosher»
contains the last of three memorials written by Katharine Tynan
to certain of her dear friends who have passed from this earth. The
tender, abiding love of a daughter for her father, Andrew CuUen
Tynan, here finds expression in exquisite prose and verse. It bears
the only possible appropriate title : i^ The Dearest of All."
THE InternationairCatholic Truth Society earnestly requests that
all who have Catholic magazines and papers which they wish
to dispose of would communicate with the office of the Society, 407
Bergen Street, Brooklyn, New York. The Society will, in turn,
send the names of an individual or family who are in sore need of
Catholic literature and who will be much benefited by the missionary
work of all those interested in the ^read of Catholic truth.
• • •
IN answer to inquiries, we wish to state that the novels of Mrs. de
la Pasture, of whose work Agnes C. Brady (wrote in the June
Cathowc Wori,d, are published by E. P. Button & Co., New
York.
• • •
THE American Catholic Who's Who, edited by Georgina Pell Cur-
tis, will be issued some time in the autumn from the publishing
house of B. Herder, of St. I<ouis.
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BOOKS RECEIVED.
Longmans, Gkkkn ft Co., New York:
Theorits of KnowUd^t. By Leslie J. Walker, S.J, Pric_ ^ . ^
Ctcil John Rhodes, By Sir Thomas E. Fuller. Price $z.6o net. French Secondary
Schools, By Frederic S. Farrineton, Ph.D. Price $2.fo. EdmcaHom tmd CUtMenshU
in India, By Leonard Alston. Price $z.85 net. Service Abroad, By Rt« Rev. H. H.
Montgomery, D.D. Twentieth Centmy SodaJism* By Edmond KeOly. Price $z«75
net. Life of Reginald Pole, By Martin Haile.
Bbnziobk Brothers, New York:
History oftheAwterican College, Rowu, By Rt. Rer. H. A. Brann, D.D. Price $a. The
Laws of the King; or, Talhs on the Cotnm a n dment s, Price 60 cents.
Funk ft Wagnalls. New York:
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City Streets. By Hutchins Hapgood. Price $1.50 net.
Thb Ardbn Prbss. New York:
Problems of Yonr Generation. By D. Dewey. Price $z.
Cbarlbs Scribnbr's Sons. New York :
History of the Christian Church, By Philip Schaff. Price $3.S5 net,
B. W. HUBBSCH, New York:
Karl Mats, His Life and IVorh. By John Spargo. Price $0.50 net.
The Cbnturt Compant, New York :
A History of the United States, By S. E. Forman. Price $z net.
John Lanb Company, New York:
Simon the Jester, By William J. Locke. Price $1.50.
United Charities. New Yerk:
Seventeenth Annual Report of the State Charities Aid Association to the Commission in
Lunacy for 1909, Thtrty-Seventh Annual Report of the State Charities Aid Association
for 1909,
United States Catholic Historical Society, New York :
Diary of a Visit to the United States of America, By Charles Lord Rnssell.
Thomas J. Flynn ft Co., Boston :
Catalogue of Catholic Literature, Price 15 cents.
Little, Brown ft Co., Boston:
Whirlpools, By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Price $z.So.
B. Herder, St. Louis, Mo. :
Sermons for the Christian Year, By Dom Wilfrid Wallace. O.S.B. Vols. I., 11., and
in. Frice, 3 vols, $4 net. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle A^es, By
Rev. H. K. Mann. Vol. V. Price $3 net. A Wtnnowini, By Robert Hugh Benson.
Retail price $1.50. The Diary of an Exiled Nun, Price $z net.
Arthur H. Clarke Company, Cleveland :
A Documentary History ofAwurican Industrial Society, Byljohn R. Commons and E. A.
Gilmore. Vols. IV.. V., and VI.
Bibliotheca Sacra Company, Oberlin, Ohio :
• Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism, By Harold M. Wiener.
Atlanta University Press, Atlanta :
Effitrts for Social Betterment Among Negro Americans, Price 75 cents.
Burns ft Oates, London :
Pire Jean; and Other Stories, By Aileen Hingston. Price 70 cents net.
Edward Arnold, London :
Madame EliMobeth de France, By Mrs. Maxwell-Scott. Price 12s, 6d, net.
Brown ft Nolan, Dublin :
The Priests of Mary, By Rev. T. McGeoy, P.P.
Bloud et Cie., Paris, France :
Joseph de Maistre, Par J. Barbev d'Aurevilly. La Foi, Par P. Charles. VEvangile
la Sociologie, Par** Grasset Price o/r. 60. Vie de Sainie Radegonde, Par Sain.
Fortonat. Price o fir, 60. Comment il Paut Prior, Par Alice Martm. Price z y>. ao.
Le Schisme de Photius, Par J. Ruinaut. Price o fr,6o. La Vie de Saint Benoii
d'Aniane, Par Saint Ardon. Price ofr, 60. Ausone, Par de LabrioUe. La Nation
de Catholicite, Par A. de Ponlpiquet. Price ofr, 60. Les Idies Morales de Madame
deStail, Par Maurice Soorian. L Rial Modenu et la NeutraliU Scolaire, Par George
Fonsegrive. Price 0/^.60. Que Devient VAme apris la Mortt ParWilhehn Sch-
neider. Price oft, 60,
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P. T6QUI, Paris :
Le Discemement des Esprits. Par P. J. B. Scaramelli.
M. Bretselneider, Rome :
.^Ztf Diftsa del Cristianesimo, Par Nicola Franco.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. august, 191a No. 545.
DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH.
BY ANDREW J. SHIPMAN.
|N theory the question of marriage in the Russian
Orthodox Church seems to rest upon a reasona-
bly solid foundation, but in practice it is quite
different In the Orthodox Greek Church matri-
mony, as in the Catholic Church, is a sacrament,
and is indissoluble— at least that is the underlying sacramental
theory. The Russian catechism gives the following definition:
*' Marriage is a sacrament in which, upon the bride and groom
giving before the priest and the Church their vows of marital
fidelity, their espousals are hallowed, being the figure of the
union of Christ with the Church, and they receive the grace
of a pure union for the begetting and Christian rearing of
children/* And it is an admitted axiom of Christianity, that
the union of Christ and the Church is indissoluble.
The theologians of the Eastern Church have always had
the weakness of leaning too strongly upon the civil arm. The
early emperors of Constantinople had the Roman law before
them as a civil rule of conduct for themselves and their sub*
jects. In the earlier ages, when Christianity was recognized
by the State, the lax notions of paganism were not to be
lightly uprooted. Besides, a very large proportion of the citi-
xens were pagans of one kind or another. Hence, it was not
likely that the civil law would easily recognize, and still less
likely enforce, the higher morality of Christian teaching as to
marriage and divorce. For the Roman civil law, even under
Justinian, allowed divorce for six different causes. The Greek
Copjrifi:bt. 1910. Thb Uissiojiart Society op St. Paul thb Apostlb
m the State op New York.
VOL. XCI.— 37
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578 DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Aug.,
theologians, who were most suppliant at the court of Constanti-
nople, used their reasoning powers to bring the Christian teach-
ing into some sort of relation with civil law, in order, perhaps, to
please the powers that were. They relied much upon the ex-
ception of adultery mentioned by St Matthew (xix. 9), and
took a curious reasoning to show why it applied. While that
might justify a man in separating from his wife — literally di-
vorcing her — they admitted that there was no explicit permis-
sion for him to marry again. But they curiously reasoned as
follows: *' Death dissolves the marriage bond, putting an end
to it, and a man has then a right to remarry. If, therefore,
something causes the death of the marriage relation, and adul-
tery is its moral death, not only has the husband the right to
put his wife away, as our Lord has said, but it follows that,
as there is this moral death, he may then marry again.'' Then
they stretched the point even a little further. Not content to
reckon adultery as moral death, they reckoned other things as
death, or as having the e£fect of death. If the other party
was condemned to life servitude, or had gone away and was
unheard of for a long time, so that one might conclude he was
dead, these things were like unto death, and so destroyed the
marriage relation. And thus the Greek theologians of the later
and the lighter sort, managed after a fashion to reconcile the
ecclesiastical and the civil law. Not all of them did so, and
some of the great saints of the Eastern Church stand out firmly
and clearly for the doctrine of marriage as defined in the Catho-
lic Church. Other saintly writers merely admit that the words
of our Lord in the Scripture — for they are writing commen-
taries, not deciding cases — are capable of different constructions
according to the point of view, and it is their obiter dicta^ as
it were, which form the groundwork for the class of Greek
theologians already mentioned. Photius, Patriarch of Constan-
tinople, was one who gave the widest interpretation in the
Greek Church to the causes allowing a dissolution of marriage,
together with permission to marry again.
All these laws of the Greek Church, and the commentaries
on them, were taken over by the Russians after they were
converted to the Christianity of the Greek rite, and became
identified with the Greek schism ; and sometimes, in the trans-
lation from the Greek to the Slavonic, just a slight touch of
even greater liberality was given. Yet even these exceptions
to the rule of indissolubility of marriage, no matter how
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laboriously argued and set forth, did not quite meet the views
of the Russian rulers. Professor N. S. Suvoroff and Dr. A.
Zavialoff (author of the article ''Marriage/' in the Russian
Church Encyclopedia) say:
Among us in Russia, matrimonial legislation and practice
was more or less severely observed until the time of Peter the
Great ; and from his time until the codification of the laws in
1832, and the Regulations of the Ecclesiastical Consistories
in 1841, there was a long-drawn-out attempt at a reconcilia-
tion of the severity of the teaching of the Church, with the
laws of Byzantium and the customs oi the people, but now it
appears to be completely ended.
It was ended by civil legislation directed by the Czar, and
then enforced upon the Ecclesiastical Consistories of each dio-
cese, at the various dates above mentioned.
Before coming to the actual practice in divorce matters,
specified in the Russian Code in 1832, *it is well to look at
what was done in the matter of marriage and divorce during
the 'Mong-drawn-out attempt at reconciliation,'' etc. During
the reign of Alexander I. (1801-1825) his brother, the Grand
Duke Constantine, the Viceroy of Poland, desired to marry
another during the lifetime of his first wife. The Czar was
willing that he should do so. But what was to be done?
The Russian Greek Church at that time would not permit di-
vorce except in a case of proved adultery, or something laid
down within the lines of the commentators, but no one dared
to bring any such accusation against the Grand Duchess Anna
Feodorovna. If such a violation of the canons were to be
attempted by the authority of the Czar, would it not have
been the duty of the Holy Synod to protest? They dared
not protest or forbid, as St. Theodore the Studite had done
in 809. when the Emperor Constantine VI. (Porphyrogenitus)
cast off his wife, Maria, to marry Theodota, or as Pope Clement
VIII. had done at the divorce of Henry VIII. To protest
courageously was their duty, for it touched their Honor as
bishops, and the honor of the Church in Russia. But in
matters ecclesiastical, as in civil matters, the will of the Auto-
crat was all powerful, and the Holy Synod could no more
resist than any other department of State,
On the 20th of March, 1820, after reciting the express ap-
proval of the Holy Synod, the Czar solemnly informed his
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S8o DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Aug,,
sabjtcts, the people of Russia, that the marriage of his brother
had been dissolved, and that he was authorized to take an*
other wife. Here is a literal translation of the Prikag:
Our well-beloved brother, Czarevitch and Grand Duke
Constahtine Paulo vltch, has addressed a petition^ to our
mother, the well-beloved Empress Maria Peodorovna, and to
us, to call our attention to the domestic situation which has
been created for him by the prolonged absence of his wife,
the Grand Duchess Anna Peodorovna, who lelt this country in
1810, because her health was entirely shattered, and who
since that time not only has not returned to him, but who will
never return, according to her personal declaration. Conse-
quently, the Grand Duke has demanded that his marriage
with her should be dissolved. We have submitted this
matter to the Holy Synod, 'which, after having compared the
circumstances with the ecclesiastical prescriptions based upon
the precise text of the thirty-fifth canon of Saint Basil the
Great, has declared as follows : '' The marriage of the Grand*
Duke and Czarevitch Constantine Paulovltch with the Grand
Duchess Anna Peodorovna is dissolved, and he may contract
a new marriage if he wishes." Considering all these circum-
stances, and relying upon the exact text of the ecclesiastical
prescriptions, we consent publicly that the declaration of the
Holy Synod shall be carried into effect.
And the effect itself soon followed. The Grand Duke shortly
afterwards married the Countess Joanna Grudzinska, who for
that marriage was created Princess Lowicz. He, however, re-
signed his rights to the throne, and his younger brother,
Nicholas, became Czarevitch and afterwards Emperor.
The grounds for this divorce were strange, to say the least.
If one turns to the ''precise text'' of the canon of Saint Basil,
upon which the Holy Synod relied for its decision, it will be
found that the canon in no way refers to the case under dis-
cussion, as the Holy Synod said it did. The canon reads as
follows :
If it is the husband who has been left by his wife, the cause
of the abandonment must be examined, and if it appears that
the wife has left him without reasonable cause, the husband
is to be favored and the wife punished ; but favor towards the
husband shall consist in his not being separated from the
communion of the Church.
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^ 1910,] DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 58 1
Besides, this caaoa did not treat of the question of adulterjr,
nor of abandonment of the husband by the wife, but treated
of the penances, more or less severe, which should be inflicted
tspon married couples who separated and thereby gave scandal
to the faithful. Yet, upon this slight basis, the Holy Synod
permitted the Grand Duke to marry again.
But even this lax interpretation of the law of marriage and
divorce was not sufficient for the Russian government. In
1832 there was a complete revision and codification of the
Russian Laws, including those of marriage (Svod Zakoncv.
Vol. X. Part I.), and following this, in 1841, there was issued
by the Government and the Holy Synod a complete form of
procedure, called Regulations for Ecclesiastical Consistories. {Us-^
tav Dukhovnikk Konsistoru), which, together with the amend-
ments and supplementary legislation (always in favor of laxity
of divorce, although sometimes requiring stricter proof), are
now the law of the Russian Church upon the subject of divorce.
Each diocese in Russia has its consistory or diocesan council
and court, of which the Bishop is president, and above them
all is the Holy Governing Synod at St. Petersburg, which
ultimately decides all marriage and divorce questions (Regla--
ment. Part II. Sec. 5).
According to this existing law imposed upon the Church
by the State, and thereby being the only canon law now valid
in Russia, the dissolution of marriage and subsequent remar-
riage, is regulated. Marriage is ended by the death of one of
the parties, and afterwards the survivor may enter into a new
marriage, if there be no impediments (Re£. Ecc. Con., page 222).
But marriage may be also dissolved in two other ways: (i)
by petition of one of the parties ; or (2) by a suit brought by
one party against the other (p. 223).
One of the parties may file a petition with the Ecclesiasti-
cal Consistory of the diocese, requesting an absolute dis
of the marriage where (a) the other party has been se|
to a punishment (usually exile to Siberia) which is acco;
by the loss of his civil rights, which, of course, embr
family rights; or (b) when he has been absent without
been heard from, or, what is practically in our langu
sertion.
Loss of family rights is, from their view of the cai
of marriage, apparently equivalent to death, and disso'
marriage. There is this difference, however, between si
|-
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58a DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Aug.,
and death : the marriage is not considered to be dissolved be*
fore the other party expresses a desire for its dissolution.
Until such time, the marriage to the person under sentence,
including the loss of civil rights, holds *good. The complete
procedure as to this, is found on .pages 225 to 229 of the
Regulations.
Absence of one of the parties without news of him by the
other, is reckoned in the same category of death, by canoni-
cal fiction. According to the Regulations^ a period of five
years of such absence must appear and be proved by the es-
tablished procedure. The usual method of supplying such
evidence is by an advertisement in a church paper, of which
more will be said later. The same rule as to the continuance
of the marriage prevails in this case. Until the abandoned
party expresses the desire for a divorce and the ecclesiastical
court decrees the dissolution of the marriage, it is regarded as
in full force and effect.
In regard to the matter of divorce by petition for deser-
tion, the procedure was fully revised by the Imperial Orders
of January 14, 1895. Proceedings as to divorces of persons
belonging to mixed classes, or exclusively to the peasant class,
are finally decided by the diocesan authorities. Other cases
may be appealed to the Holy Synod, and in the case of nobil-
ily or royalty, the divorce proceedings are brought in the Holy
Synod in the first instance.
Suits brought for divorces are divided into two classes:
divortia sine damno and divortia cum damno ; that is divorce
without criminality, and divorce arising from transgression. To
the first belong matters of incapacity, and to the latter the
violations of the marriage vows {Reg. Ecc. Con.^ p. 238). The
suit is begun by the filing of a bill of complaint with the
diocesan authorities (or Holy Synod, as the case may be) by
the party seeking divorce, paying the stamp-tax thereon, and
depositing the necessary costs, advertising expenses, etc. (p.
240). The diocesan authorities, upon the receipt of such com-
plaint, refer the matter to a reliable ecclesiastic, directing him
to admonish the parties to end; their differences by setting a
Christian example and to continue united in marriage. This
is usually perfunctory. When these admonitions have no result,
the diocesan authorities then proceed to the formal examina-
tion of the matter (p. 240). For these divorce cases the per-
sonal attendance of the parties in court is prescribed, since
Digitized by V^jOOQIC
I9I0.] DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH 583
the court (or consistory) stands as the preserver and defender
of the marriage tie, and, on the personal appearance of the
parties before it, takes every means towards the discontinuance
of the suit At least that is the theoretical view. Attorneys
are allowed to represent the parties in cases where it is shown
to be impossible for the parties to appear in person (p. 34i)»
Any and all sorts of excuses prevail in this respect, so that,
by a series of legal fictions, the parties to-day are almost uni-
versally represented by attorneys.
In a suit for dissolution because of incapacity, a decree
will not be granted where the suit is brought more than three
years after consummation of the marriage, and upon proof ad«
duced according to the specified procedure (pages 242-243X
In a suit, however, for adultery, proofs are taken through
the evidence of witnesses and by circumstantial evidence, to
the satisfaction of the consistory, establishing the offense (p.
349). The party found guilty in the divorce proceeding is not
allowed to remarry (p. 253), but the other party may at once
contract a new marriage. Later developments have made it per-
missible for even the guilty party, after several years, to make
application, perform the prescribed penance, and then receive
permission to marry. Special regulations have been formulated
for the dissolution of marriages between persons belonging to
the Orthodox Church and those belonging to other denomina-
tions (p. 257).
It must be remembered that in Russia the civil courts have
no jurisdiction over matters of marriage and divorce, and, in
the case of the Orthodox, all matters relating thereto, or con-
nected therewith, are wholly reserved to the ecclesiastical
authorities, who in that respect exercise both temporal and
ecclesiastical power. There may be some exceptions in rela-
tion to Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and Mohammedans, but
the cases of the Orthodox lie wholly within the province of
the Church authorities, so that any abuses or corrupt practices
must be attributed to the State Church and to its ecclesiasti-
cal law and procedure.
Of course this granting of divorce in the Russian Orthodox
Church, together with its wide departure from the early canons
and teachings of the Church, has produced many laxities and
abuses, so that a state of things has been produced which is
not even tolerated here in some of our very liberal divorce
States, and at least it fairly equals any of them. The govern-
Digitized by LjOOQIC
584 DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHVRCH [Aug.,
ment wants the stamp-dutiesi which are required upon the
various papers, the necessary advertisements are not objected
to by the church papers, the various consistories reckon upon
the costs and fees which come to them, as a part of their
revenue, their officials frequently engage in divorce litigation
as experts familiar with the entire routine of the court, and,
lastly, the lawyers look upon it as a safe and profitable source
of professional income, something like conveyance and search-
ing of titles with us.
As might be expected, the majority of divorces in Russia
are obtained for desertion, or, as it is euphemistically put,
''continued absence without news'' ol the other party. These
.divorces involve much less proof and need not be of a dis-
graceful nature, and are usually obtained through petition to
the Ecclesiastical Consistory. Often a divorce is obtained by
the wife in one part of Russia, and a divorce by the husband
in another part of the empire, for this same cause. Usually
the only notice given is by advertisements, which are published
as a rule in the Church papers (of limited circulation) and not
in the newspapers. Even in the United States the Russian
Orthodox Church grants divorces for this same cause* It is
quite a usual thing to see a list of divorce advertisements in
the leading church papers in Russia, particularly the diocesan
organs having charge of such matters.
On the adjoining page a fac-simile of the advertisements
appearing in the Tsetkovny ViedomosH (Church Gazette), organ
of the Holy Synod, is given. We translate in full one of these
advertisements :
The Kieff Bcdesiastical Consistory, by these presents,
announces that on March 19, 1905, a petition of the peasant
Peodor Bvthimov Oleinik, residing in the village of Bzema,
Vasilkovski County, Government of Kieff, was filed for disso-
lution of his marriage with his wife, Theodosia Grigorieva
Oleinik, a native of Kereshunova, which was celebrated by
the pastor of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God,
Kzema, Vasilkovski County, May 29, 1889. According to
the statement of the petitioner, Peodor Bvthimov Oleinik, the
absence of his wife without news of her began In the City of
Odessa in the year 1899. Upon the strength of this statement
all places and persons capable of submitting testimony ^i^ff-
ceming the amtiwued absence without news of Theodosia Gri"
gorieva Oleinik are bound to furnish the same Immediately to
the Kie£f Bcclesiastlcal Consistory,
Digitized by
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ipio.] Divorce in the Russian Church 585
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586 DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Aug.,
A summary of the other advertisements will be sufficient
to show that all of them follow the same formula:
Ecclesiastical Consistory of the Don, concerning the Cos-
sack, Constantine Peodor Derezutzki, who filed a petition on
July 19, 1905, and who says he was married in 1887, and his
wife, Parasceve, has left him more than five years ; — Kieff
Ecclesiastical Consistory, concerning Peodor Bvthimov Ole-
inik (which is above translated in full) ; — Saratoff Ecclesiasti-
cal Consistory, concerning Alexander Prokopovich Sosiedov,
of mixed class, who filed a petition on September 6, 1905, and
who says he was married in 1887, and his wife left him in
1900; — Tamboff Ecclesiastical Consistory, concerning the
peasant Stephen Dorimendontor Popoff, who filed his petition
June 28, 1905, and says he was married in 1872, and his wife
left him nine years ago ; — Tver Ecclesiastical Consistory, con-
cerning the city freeholder, Anna Petrova Polozovei, who filed
her petition May 22, 1905, and says she was married in 1894,
and her husband left her in 1898 ; — Tomsk Ecclesiastical Con-
sistory, concerning the peasant Anicia Nikiforovna Shikovei
(no date to filing of her petition), who says she was married
in 1894, and her husband left her in 1898 ;*Kharkofr Eccle-
siastical Consistory (three advertisements), the first concern-
ing the peasant Peodor Gordieff Bashkatoff, who filed his
petition September 16, 1905, and says he was married in 1885
and his wife left him in 1893 ; the second, concerning the
peasant Maura Kovnilevei Peodorchenkovei, who filed her
petition, August 23, 1905, and says she was married in 1892,
and her husband lefl her in 1893 ; and the third, concerning
Parasceve Aristarchovei Borodavkino, of mixed class, who
filed her petition, August 16, 1905, and says her husband was
married to her in Pebruary, 1891, and left her in September,
1891.
This fac-simile is merely one page from an old number of
the Viedomosti^ and will give an idea of how these divorce
advertisements appear in the church papers of Russia.
But this is not all. Most of these peasants and persons of
the mixed classes, even if they know how to read and write
in a most elementary manner, have no idea of how to draw a
petition in divorce, or of the varied machinery of Ecclesiastical
Divorce Court procedure. Consequently, the Russian lawyer,
who makes a specialty of divorce court business, is much in
evidence, and does not hesitate to advertise himself in a way
that would put to shame the most daring of the advertising
Digitized by
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ipio.]
Divorce in the Russian Church
587
OGECCKOE CROBO. ApRit, 1910.
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TRANSLATION.
DIVORCE^ PROCEEDINGS
brought in all Diocesan Consistories and be-
fore Holy Synod. Advice in matters of inher-
itance, adoption, lawsuits, dvil cases. Prep-
aration of legal papers, contracts, and peti-
tions to the Imperial authorities. Apply to
N. £. Philipchbnko, LL.B., Moscow, No.
3 Gazetny St., Room 8. Telephone, 206-48.
Office hours, daily, 9-9 A. M., 4-6 p. M.
SPECIALTY
DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS.
I practice in all Diocesan Consistories ; also
criminal and civil cases ; lawsuits, adoption of
children, family matters, inheritance, powers
of attorney, separation, change of residences,
business, and drawing contracts in all matters.
Papers and petitions to Imperial authorities.
Advice in every matter. Information, com-
missions. Many years' experience. Office
hours, daily, zo-a and 4-8. Holidays. 12-4.
Moscow, No za Roshdestvensky St., Room
18. A. Andrbbv. Telephone. 187-66.
DIVORCE
and Court Proceedings. Ad-
vice in all matters. Prepara*
tion of petitions. Business papers. Poor
persons free. A. Smirnoff, No. 4 Tver-
Yamsky. Borodin Building, Room 21. Tele-
phone, 78-40. Office hours, 9-2 and 5-8 p. M.
DTVORrF ^ATTBRS, advice. Ex-Seo-
retary of Consistory, and now
temporarily Secretary of the Divorce Division
of the Holy Synod. Nikitin has his office
hours on Sundays, in Moscow, from a-8 p. 11.
No. 26 Tverskaya St.. Room 24. Telephone,
174-08. On other days he recommends his
colleague. Assistant Solicitor Chbkhovski.
DIVORCE
from 100 rubles up. in all Consistories. Pay-
ment at the end of proceedings. Information
in separation cases ; inheritance ; civil and
criminal cases ; serious and complicated liti-
gation. From 9-2 and 4-8 ; holidays, from Z9-6.
Moscow. V. JAKIMANKA. Panushova, Room
No. 86.
DIVORCE MATTERS
and Church matters brought in all Consisto-
ries, gives advice upon them. Ex-Chief Clerk
of Chancery in Divorce Division of Tabris
Consistory. Samarskt. Office hours, zo-a
and 5-8. No. 6 Roshdestvensky. Room z6.
Telephone. a44-3Z.
Digitized by
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588 DIVORCE IN THE RUSSIAN CHURCH [Aug.
lawyers in the United States. Imagine our Dakota or Nevada
practitioners using the methods of their Russian contempor-
aries! A fac* simile of some advertisements, recently clipped
from the Russian daily newspapers, is given on the preceding
page, with a translation of their contents.
Imagine Counsellor Nikitin, who, employed during the
week in the Divorce Division of the Holy Synod, comes down
to Moscow on Sundays and drives a thriving business that day
in divorces; or Counsellor Jakimanka, who charges from fifty
dollars up and no pay until he ''delivers the goods."
The matter of divorce in Russia is growing more lax each
day. Were it merely a civil matter, as in the United States
and in various European countries, the Russian Church miglit
lift up her voice against the growing evil. But, bound as she
is by the State, she is becoming the chief promoter of the
divorce evil, because all the proceedings have to be consum-
mated through her agency. Thus we have the spectacle of a
Church and Hierarchy practically aligned on the side of easy
and frequent divorce, instead of being unalterably opposed to
it. In a word, its practice every day contradicts the teacbiog
of its catechism and the noble traditions of the Church of
God.
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PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM.
BY ESTHER W. NEILL.
Chapter V.
NL CUTHBERT went West that winter as one of
the wealthy members of a powerful syndicate to
invest in copper mines. Mrs. Delarae was pray-
erfully grateful.
^ ''It makes my way so much clearer/' she
confided to Hugh. " Of course every one will understand that
Patricia cannot live alone, and, since my position as her friend
and chaperon is one of dignity, I can entertain all my old
friends. I foresee a very pleasant winter if it were not for
Marie—"
Hugh smiled. He always found something amusing in his
worldly aunt's candor. "Why, what has she done?''
''Done — why nothing. She is just too— too perfect. Pa-
tricia wants her to stay here this winter as her guest ; but Marie,
impelled by some absurd idea of independence, has gone to
live. in a boarding house and has become a paid charity worker;
and the pitiful sum she gets out of it seems to worty her."
"Is it so small?"
"Oh, she doesn't worry because it's so small; she worries
because it's — anything at all ; and she talks of going to a con-
vent so she can work without having to consider her bodily
necessities."
He showed no surprise. " I thought it would end that way."
"Well, she hasn't gone yet," said his aunt, shutting her
thin lips decidedly," and I think I'll oppose it. I have other
plans for Marie."
" What ? "
" Well I would like her to marry money. Of course I love
her and I hate the idea of her denying herself through a life-
time."
" So you would advise martyrdom ? " he said slowly.
" Not at all," she contradicted him with some show of vex-
ation. "You know, dear Hugh, that money is desirable; and
Digitized by
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590 Patricia, the Problem [Aug.,
I feel that this winter I have an unusual opportunity. Patricia
wants gayety — ^Tom Cuthbert does not care bow much money
she spends in entertaining. We have this immense bouse, which
is wonderfully improved since Patrjcia refurnished it ; and you
know, Hugh, I have not been away so long that all my old
friends have forgotten me. Our social position here has always
been assured. I intend to have a ball in December and I want
you to give us a house party some time in the early winter."
' Me I " he exclaimed in some dismay.
Of course, your house in the country is ideal for a week
end. You ought to get out of your atmosphere of pauperism
occasionally. Hunt up some interesting men and Til invite
the women."
" Must I ? "
'^Of course. I'll not accept a refusal."
She forced him into an amiable promise before he left her.
He was beginning to take a coldly sociological interest in the
plans of his aunt.
The ball, engineered by Mrs. Delarue, was a great success.
It was heralded diplomatically for days in the papers and ex-
cited the envy of the uninvited. Her exclusive relatives ac-
cepted her invitations with the vague conviction that **poor
dear Eleanor," on the death of her aristocratic, incapable hus-
band, had married a multi-millionaire. Tom Cuthbert's name
did not appear in the social register, but then there were some
favored persons whose position did not require such publicity.
Later on, when they saw Patricia, and the situation was con-
scientiously explained to them, they decided to help launch the
young lady, since they understood that this ball, with its costly
favors and elaborate supper, was but the beginning of a series.
Marie begged to remain away from these functions. She
was too tired and too busy, she said. But her mother entreated,
and she came dutifully, finding some solace in the fact that
Hugh was always ready to take her home early in the evening.
Meanwhile Patricia plunged into this social whirlpool with
an enthusiasm that taxed even Mrs. Delarue's power of endur-
ance. Dinners, luncheons, teas, and after-theatre suppers began
to wear upon the good lady's digestive organs; but she made
no protest, for it was the life she adored and loved. She felt
a maternal proprietorship in Patricia's popularity. The girl's
beauty and unusual musical ability, emerging from a background
Digitized by
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I9IO.] Patricia^ the Problem 591
of glittering gold mines, had created a sensation even in the
critical orbit in which Mrs. Delarue moved.
Since that first evening in the conservatory Hugh bad never
seen Patricia alone. At times he thought she purposely avoided
him ; but, be told himself, this was an unreasonable conclusion,
since be had never made any effort to seek her society.
During the winter he went North to spend some weeks
studying the methods in hospitals for defective children — a sub-
ject in which he was much interested. For a long time he
had wished to establish an institution of this sort in connection
with the settlement in which he worked. He was an ardent
believer in the theory that much of youthful crime can be
traced directly to unhealthy physical conditions. In restoring
these poor little hampered bodies to a normal state he hoped
to make their souls better, too.
One morning, during his absence, Mrs. Delarue came into
Patricia's room in a state of horrified excitement. She was
panting from her hurried flight through the hall. Her hair,
which was always arranged so carefully, streamed down in
scant locks around her ears, and the purple dressing gown which
she wore emphasized the pallor of her face.
Patricia was still in bed, but Mrs. Delarue's unusual appear-
ance roused her to energetic action.
<<What is the matter?*' she said, jumping up. ''My dear
Mrs. Delarue, what has happened ? *'
'* Oa, it*8 dreadful,'' said Mrs. Delarue, sinking limply on
the bed.
Patricia's eyes showed real alarm. '' What — what is dread-
ful?"
'* Oh, it's all in the morning paper," sobbed Mrs. Delarue.
^* Hugh has failed— failed utterly. He's a bankrupt, just like
his poor uncle."
** How — why?" said Patricia bewildered. '' I thought he was
a doctor."
"Oh, you don't understand, and I can't explain, because I
never could comprehend business matters. But you see by the
paper that the firm of Farrell has failed — the firm was estab-
lished by my grandfather— the name has always been the same.
Hugh has never been an active partner in the business, but he
was one of the largest stockholders. Now he will have noth-
ing — nothing — and what will become of me ? "
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59« PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aug.,
"You?"
''Yes; ohy you know I am no longer young. Hugh hu
begged me many times to go and live in his country place—
his mother's old home, you know. I*ve never explained to
him my real objections. Of course il I were fifteen years older
I would be willing to go and bury myself there ; but the lone«
liness of it now would be more than I could stand. He also
wanted to give me an allowance, and I gratefully accepted that,
but now — now — I thought things were going too smoothly— I
thought it couldn't last. My child, I've had so much trouble
in my life that I have reached a stage when I actually dread
happiness. Something is sure to occur when one feels peaceful
and contented.''
'TU gladly increase your allowance here/' said Patricia,
seeking some practical solace for such woe. '' I meant to men-
tion it before, going out as you do requires so many clothes."
'* I know,'* said Mrs. Delarue, wiping away her tears, *' but
I couldn't accept anything more from you, you are so gener*
ous. And, of course, I did not want to be dependent on Hugh
if it could be avoided, but I did intend— -when I was older—
I thought I might allow him to provide for me thep— "
*' Perhaps it is not as bad as you think. Papers so often
exaggerate," said Patricia, putting her white arm protectingly
around her friend. ** Where is Dr. Farrell ? "
"Oh I don't know — somewhere in a hospital."
"Why, is he ill?"
*' Oh, no, my dear; he's studying hospitals. He's so im-
practical. He*8 founding some sort of an institution for crazy
children, or deaf mutes, or something. It seems to be my
fate to know nothing but impractical men— my poor dear
husband had no business instinct, and Hugh seems to have
inherited his incompetency."
«' Bat how could he ? "
'' Oh, I don't know how. Of course they were not rela-
tions. Hugh's father was a business man. I suppose Hugh
must inherit his weakness from his mother. Oh, I wish Hugh
were here — I suppose he will come at once — and I wouldn't
be surprised if he would treat the whole a£fair as if it were
of no importance- — he's so indifferent to money — "
" Because he has always had it," said Patricia with con-
viction. '* He doesn't know what it means to be poor."
Digitized by
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 593
"But we do/' said Mrs. Delarue. •* We've had to face it
out West Ah 1 Patricia, what a dreadful life that was out on
the prairie; I don't know how we stood it. My one prayer
was to get East. I suppose Hugh won't give us the house
party now — I wouldn't care to burden him with it if a slight
expenditure meant that he would have to live around at hash
houses for a week. Oh, I hate poverty, Patricia — it's the
great sin in society. The poor have no place^ — no place."
Patricia regarded the good lady in some dismay. She had
had no experience with hysterics.
'' Please let me help you to your room, dear Mrs. Delarue,
and do spend the morning in bed. I'll send for the doctor and
get him to give you something to soothe you. You are over-
wrought. I'm sure when Dr. Farrell comes you will find out
that the whole affair has been exaggerated."
"Please see if you can find Hugh, he may have returned
to his office. Telephone the settlement — I want to know the
worst — I cannot stand the su^ense. Telephone at once, dear
Patricia ; I promise to go to bed and I'll try to compose my-
self. I can go to my room alone. Please telephone to both
places and ask him to come here at once."
Patricia watched her go with a sense of relief; all her
young life she had been so schooled in the repression of all
her feminine feelings that she had a masculine contempt for
scenes. She threw a soft wrapper over her nightgown and
sitting down at her little rosewood desk she picked up the
telephone book and began to search for Dr. Farrell's number.
She tried the office first. He was not there, his man told
her; he had returned to town the night before, but he had
g»ne to his place in the country on the early morning train.
Patricia looked dreamily out of the window, wondering what
she should do next; then, acting on impulse, she decided to
go and bring him to his aunt. She ordered her electric ma-
chine, which she alwa]r& drove herself — twenty miles into the
country in this beautiful sunshine was a short trip, she told
herself — and secretly she was glad that the journey would
give her a charitable reason for remaining away from Mrs.
Delarue's sobs and lamentations. She had never been to Dr.
Farrell's before, but she knew the general direction. She
dressed hurriedly and her maid brought her her long fur wrap
and tied a light blue veil over the brim of her broad hat.
VOL. XCI.'38
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594 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aug.,
Patricia did not once question the propriety of her going
alone. She always welcomed the emergency that gave her an
outlet for her surplus energy. The air was bracing* but not
too cold; white flecks of cloud, huddled near the horizon,
promised flurries of snow, but Patricia never heeded threaten-
ing weather; she was in an introspective mood and she felt
provoked for having to confess to herself « mild curiosity in
wanting to see how Dr. Farrell would regard the loss of his
fortune. He had seemed so superior to her in his attitude
towards money that she found herself entertaining a half- de-
fined hope that some of his philosophy would desert him in
this crisis. Was it philosophy or religion ? she asked herself.
She knew that his faith was very definite, while she had none.
She had always grown rebellious at the thought of authority;
the Church of Rome was so positive, so far-reaching, so power-
ful; she had often watched Marie Delarue at her prayers,
wondering at the look, approaching ecstasy, in her young
friend's eyes; she could not understand why she gave up
afternoons of pleasure in Paris to spend them in moldy smell-
ing cathedrals, she could not comprehend a faith that domin-
ated the trivial as well as the great things in life, that held
the balance so unswervingly in a world of juggled ethics, that
gave its followers such surety of truth, such security of im-
mortality.
The little machine sped along noiselessly over the well-
kept roads. Once in the gray woods she missed the way, but
a friendly signpost set her right again. After traveling the
twenty miles she had to stop at a farmhouse to inquire how
to reach the gateway of Oakview. A boy, blowing on his
bare hands to keep them warm, emerged from the stable.
''I jest dunno how to tell you/' he said, ''but I kin run
along and show you the place to turn in."
** Then get in here," said Patricia, making room for him
on the cushioned seat.
'' Lordy I " said the boy, his face breaking into a broad
grin as he scrambled to the place beside her. ** Lordy 1 I
never did think I*d ride in one of these here things."
*' Cover up," said Patricia, offering him half of the fur
robes; then, animated by a new sense of comradeship, she
said: '<I*ve come to get Dr. Farrell for a friend of mine, but
1*11 run a mile past his place if you care to go."
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 595
" Gee I wouldn't I ? '' said the boy. '' Then take me into
Doc Farreirs afterwards and 1*11 walk home.'*
When at last they turned into the beech-bordered avenue
that led to the old colonial house the boy's freckled face
radiated joy.
''It beats a steam engine all hollow/' he said, getting out
reluctantly. ''Run by lightning, so to speak, electricity^the
same thing, ain't it?"
The door opened and Dr. Hugh came out on the porch.
"Why, Miss Cuthbert," he said in some bewilderment,
" and Dicky Green."
" I came to show her the way to yer house," said Dicky,
who saw no reason for the doctor's astonishment, "and she
give me a ride, for which I am thankful. I'm goin' now.
Good-bye."
" Good-bye, Dicky," smiled Patricia. " I'll call again some
other day." The child notes in her voice answered Dicky's own.
" Don't you forget me." And then she turned defensively to
Dr. Hugh, as if he were challenging her present mood.
Chapter VI.
"Mrs. Delarue is anxious to see you, and I came to take
you to her when I found that you had no telephone here and
that the train does not leave until three."
He noticed, with a sort of humorous interest, that her tone
was far from friendly.
" It was kind of you. I trust my aunt is not ill."
"Hysterical." The one word showed her distaste for such
feminine frailties.
"I wish she wouldn't be," he said, as if he had suddenly
become conscious of the cause of his aunt's nerves. "I don't
want sympathy."
She turned her tyts searchingly upon him as if she doubted
the truth of this statement. "No, I suppose not; and I'm
quite sure that no man prefers hysterics. Will you go?"
" Of course ; but I'll have to ask you to wait a minute. I
have a friend with me to-day; I'll excuse myself. Will you
come in ?"
She looked a little curiously through the stately doorway,
with its fanlights and big brass knocker, and then, without
hesitation, she jumped unassisted to the ground.
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596 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aug.,
'' I would like to see your stable man, Bob Bingham. If
he*s in the stable, and you have company, 1*11 walk around
there."
'< I'll tell him to come here.''
'' Don't trouble," she said imperiously, '^ I would like to
look at your horses. |I hear you have some fine stock. One
of the famous Spitfire's colts. I'd like a chance to ride him.
It has been so long since I've been on horseback."
His bewilderment was noticeable now. Ever since that
first night, when she had told him so frankly of her past life,
he had watched her with growing curiosity; her enthusiasms
were so real, her pleasure in people 'so apparent, and yet
there were times when she seemed a mere spectator, viewing
tolerantly a phase of life in which she had no concern. The
years spent with Mrs. Delarue in Paris had given her poise,
and her natural cleverness and charm of manner proclaimed
her a finished social product; but to-day, he told himself, she
had reverted to her primitive type.
''The horse is very dangerous," he said, feeling that he
must make some sort of a response.
She smiled faintly. '* I like risks — I've always taken them.
Please go look after your company. I'd like to see Bob alone."
He was too polite to protest when he felt that he had been
formally dismissed. He watched her go up the box- bordered
path that led to the stable yard. He saw Bob hurrying to
meet her, and their greeting was that of two old friends; then
he turned wonderingly away and went into the house.
As he entered his own comfortable library, rich in rare
books and staring family portraits, his guest, with old*fasb-
ioned punctiliousness, rose from the low chair before the fire.
He was an old man, dressed in black clerical clothes. A
vest of purple beneath his Roman collar showed him to be a
Church dignitary of some sort ; his finely chiseled features had
all the calm and gentleness that asceticism brings.
''A sick call, Hugh?" he said.
Hugh took up his position between his friend and the fire-
light. The puzzled frown had deepened between his eyes.
'' Only my aunt," he said. '' She wants to hear the par-
ticulars of the fall of the house of Farrell. Sit down, Father
Joe, I can't go yet; the young lady who has offered to take
me to my aunt wants to see my stable man."
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 597
The old priest sank back in his cushioned chair and picked
ap a magazine that had fallen to the floor.
"Don't let me keep you."
** Oh, she didn't want to see me," said Hugh. '' I was re-
quested to come in here. She wanted to see my man Bob,
who is, I suspect, a cutthroat"
The priest shut the magazine, and leaning over to the little
smoking table beside him he lit a fresh cigar.
''And why shouldn't Bob have his friends?" he said.
^'You were saying, Hugh, when you left me — "
Hugh turned and kicked a blazing log further back on the
tarnished brass andirons. ''To tell you the truth. Father Joe,
I don't know what I was saying. My present guest, out in
the stable, is the queerest girl I ever saw."
Father Joe took the cigar from between his thin lips and
laughed softly.
"You're a conservative, Hugh, though I don't expect you
to acknowledge it. You talk equality and fraternity, and you
are willing to hobnob with slugs and cutthroats yourself.
Why be annoyed if the lady has like propensities ? "
"She hasn't," he said. "She objects strenuously. She is
the most inconsistent person I ever met."
The old priest's eyes twinkled. "Then no doubt you will
marry her," he said.
" Marry her I • She hates me. She announced that fact the
first evening I met her."
" God bless me I what precipitancy. Did you propose the
first evening?"
"Propose? My dear Father Joe — here, give me one of
those cigars — don't know when I can afford to buy another
box of them. Certain flavor about being poor — "
" Especially about poor cigars," said the priest drily. "But
you are wandering away from the point, Hugh. You ought
to marry— marriage is the normal state for most men."
" I suppose so," agreed Hugh doubtfully, taking the chair
opposite his guest and stretching out his long legs to the fire.
"I always congratulate my friends when they get into it. If
you will find me a lady I will consider the matter. I need
help — I'm no sentimentalist, you know."
Father Joe beamed amid his circles of smoke. "Well, I
am," he said. "I think I'll select— the lady in the stable."
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598 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aag.,
''The lady in the sUble/' exclaimed Hugh, ''is aboat as
far removed from me, except chronologically, as the Queen of
Sheba. I don't understand her, that's all/'
"I like her."
"And you've never seen her,"
"That makes my judgment all the clearer."
"How?"
" I can judge of her attributes apart from her personality*
She may be ugly and that would prejudice me in her favor."
Hugh leaned back in his chair and laughed. " Go on," he
said, "your point of view is always interesting. How many
men would share your prejudice?"
"It's more than a prejudice, it's a conviction," the priest
went on smiling. "Ugly women have no vanity, therefore
they are unspoiled; they are more useful, because they are
not ornamental; they have more resource within themselves,
because they are often left alone; they are frequently brilliant
conversationalists, because they have to be — now, our friend in
the stable—"
" Is beautiful."
"Ah, that's a misfortune; but perhaps she may answer our
purpose better; no doubt you would prefer it"
"My dear Father Joe," protested Hugh, "for a sensible
man, a doctor of divinity, you certainly talk nonsense."
"And I insist that I am talking most sensibly. You are
old enough to marry— you say you need help— I select the
lady — and you call it foolish gabbling."
" But the lady — you do not know her."
"I know many things about her."
"But, how? You do not even know her name."
"Name," repeated the old man, "my dear boy, who is
talking nonsense now? What is a name? Wouldn't you feel
just as well acquainted with me if my name was John instead
of Joseph? When I began to consider marriage for you, I
was thinking solely of you ; but now I think I'll begin to have
some consideration for — the lady in the stable."
"I wish you would talk in Greek or some other dead
language, and then I wouldn't try to follow you. It would be
so much more restful to let you know once for all that you
are incomprehensible."
Father Joe chuckled, his pointed chin almost disappeared
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I9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 599
into the white wall of his high collar. '' Now, listen/' he said,
''and 1*11 prove conclu^yely that my talk is not as foolish as
it may seem. To begin, I sit dozing before the fire. I hear
an automobile coming over the graveled road. I do not mean
to play eavesdropper, bat yon leave the door wide open. I
hear a child thanking a lady for a ride, that proves the lady's
love for children and thonghtfulness for others. She desires an
interview with year stable man, which shows a lack of snob-
bishness and interest in the poor. She comes a long distance
to get you. Why does she not send ? Because she is decisive
and energetic. She says she likes horses, therefore she is fear-
less; if she is fearless, no donbt she is healthy in both mind
and body. Are not all these recommendations? What kind
of a paragon are you looking for ? "
''Oh, I'm not looking," laughed Hugh, "but I would like
to prove to you that you are all wrong. In my opinion, the
lady In question has no soul."
"Tut, tut," said Father Joe. "How are you going to prove
that? Souls Hre elusive things, my boy. You can't button-
hole them in the light of day and ask them to explain all
their motives; and half the time we don't know our own."
"Well, I wish you knew her," said Hugh." I wish you
would talk to her; she seems lacking in any sort of idealisms-
she lives only for pleasure. If you could hear her play on
the harp you would say she was a pagan."
" Well, I'm no advocate of mixed marriages, but I like
pagans," said the old priest musingly. " So many possibilities
to a pagan. We have so much to show .them, to give to
them. You're a born reformer, Hugh, and some of your no-
tions delight me; but there's only a subtle difference between
a reformer and a crank. You don't want to take narrow views^
my boy; you want to get up on the hilltop; but you don't
want to get so high that your vision gets blurred. That's
almost as bad as staying down in the valley and getting no
view at all. Now that you are poor, there's more hope for
you. Rich reformers rarely carry force."
" Don't lecture," said Hugh beseechingly. " I've got to go
and face my aunt She will tell me my woes unabridged, and
she will cry over my defective judgment, until I see myself a
decrepit old man dependent upon a dog and a beggar's tin
cup for sustenance."
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600 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Attg.^
'' What do you expect ? You can't go through bankruptcy
without suffering the sympathy of your friends. It's a great
thing to be old, Hugh, and to possess a sense of humor.
There are so many melodramas in the world. Providence is
blamed for all our mistakes, all our tantrums. Just look back
on your own boyhood, Hugh. Remember the day you fell in
the creek and cried because you thought you were drowned?
Remember the many nights you were sent to bed without your
supper because you stole green apples from the orchard?
Remember the day you lost your bag of marbles, how you
threatened to thrash every boy in the school ? Facts look foolish
now, eh, Hugh ? Get a little older and you take the same
view of your youthful manhood. Reach eternity, and I think
we will smile at ourselves in earnest."
''That may be all very true,'' said Hugh, ''but it doesn't
alter the unpleasant present. Do you suppose," he added help-
lessly, glancing at the clock on the mantel, "that I'm to wait
until I'm called for?"
There was the sound of a door banging and voices were
heard in the doorway arguing good-naturedly.
" Don't talk to me, Bob," Miss Cuthbert was saying. " I've
made up my mind and I will — you know I will."
"You won't," said Bob, "that horse fs a devil. If the
Doc's gone broke that ain't any reason why you should tame
his colt."
She had reached the library door, and she stood there for
a moment framed in the black woodwork, her blue veil shadow-
ing the brightness of her hair, her cheeks red from the cold
outside, and her gray eyes full of wilfulness.
"I think we shall have to start," she said; and then she
glanced inquiringly at the old priest. " Father Chatard,'* she
cried with a^glad look of recognition, and she swept towards
him and took his white, wrinkled hand in hers. " You do not
know me? Don't you remember Pat Cuthbert, the wild girl
that you called 'the witch of the woods' ?"
The old priest looked at Hugh, his deep-set eyes sparkling
with boyish mischief. "I told Hugh I knew you," he said.
"A woman has her intuitions, a man makes his deductions;
but a name sometines does make a difference— God bless me 1
how you've grown."
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19 lO,] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 6oi
Chapter VII.
''And you have not changed at all/' she said. ''While I
— ^^well, nothing is as it used to be/'
'* Not even you ? " said the old priest kindly. '* I wouldn't
like to think that you had lost yourself altogether."
She smiled half-sadly up at him. ** I've been trying to/'
she said. ''Every one has been teaching me to be something
different/'
" That's hardly fair/' said the old priest humorously. " I
think our individuality is immortal. We don't want to wrap
it up so we won't be able to recognize it on judgment day.
You must come and see me, or let me come and see you, and
we'll talk about it. You see, Hugh, Patricia and I knew each
other in the West. She guided me over one of the worst
roads I ever traveled to bring me to a dying man's bedside—
a poor consumptive who was on his way to Silver City."
"Henri Dclarue?" questioned Hugh quickly. "My aunt's
husband."
'*Yes"; said Patricia. "We had a wild scramble to get
back at all. There had been so much rain and the streams
were swollen and two little bridges washed away."
" And I'm not much of a horseman. I don't suppose I had
been on a horse's back in twenty years. You see I just hap-
pened to be stopping at the mission, the other priests were
away, when Patricia came with her message. What a small
place the world is, after all. I never knew that your aunt had
married a Delarue ; but, then, I never knew your aunt until I
met her that day at the Golden Eagle. You see, Patricia, I was
Hugh's old tutor when I was pastor in this little country about
a quarter of a century ago; and now, when the world seems
to move too fast for an old fellow like me, I run down here
to get my bearings. I won't detain you now, we must see
each other in town. Take Hugh to his aunt, the poor lady
may need some reassurances. We are not going to blow our
brains out just because a few stocks and bonds have tumbled
into nothingness." He followed them out into the sunlight to
examine the weight of their robes, so solicitous for their com-
fort that he seemed oblivious to the cold wind that took play-
ful liberties with his snowy hair and wrapped his seam- worn
cassock about his lean form.
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6oa PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aag^
'' Good-bye, children, God bless yea I '' he said. '' Bob and
I will find something in the larder for lunch ; and 1*11 leave
on the three o'clock train and see yon both in town some
day."
Patricia started the small machine, and for several miles they
traveled in silence, then she said:
'' I have half a mind to drop yon in town and take to the
woods forever."
•'Why drop me?" he smiled.
** Yon are so civilized, while I am only a half •tamed savage.
When I am out in the woods like this, I forget— I feel the
call of the wild — I forget all of Mrs. Delame's teachings.
Breathe the bite of frost in the air. Look at those tall trees
etched against the sky. See that fretfnl little brook trying to
break through its thin shield of ice. I hate an automobile on
a day like this. I*d like to be on the back of your untamed
colt. You say you have lost money— why not enter him for
the sweepstakes this spring?"
'^ And break my neck by way of adding to my general bro«
kenness ? "
''Bob could break him," she .'said with conviction, "Bob
and I."
"You?"
"Of course. Why not?"
There was an unconscious look of disapprobation in his ^yt:^
which she detected at once. She believed that it was caused
by her suggestion to help him, and she added with quick vex-
ation : " It would only be for the joy of the sport, the joy of
conquest; but I forgot, I suppose you do not approve of
horse- racing."
The question was so direct, that he could think of no light
way to parry it, though he had no desire to moralize.
" I don't believe I would care to make money that way*
The game is usually so crooked."
His words struck her as a reproof, and her eyes blazed an-
grily. " Of course you wouldn't," she said. " Naturally you
wouldn't care for the normal thing, you are so different from
most men."
" Not at all," he interrupted her. " Men are hop^essly alike.
I have my own particular notions and a jockey has his. I
like blooded stock because it is beautiful and convenient to
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I9ia] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 603
own, a }ockey cares for it for its monetary yaine. I have never
cared for money—*'
'' I don't believe yon/' she interrupted. '' Money is an ab-
solute necessity with me/'
'' I think that is only a fancy/' he said. '' I have found
that all the best things in life can flourish without it."
''You have always had it, while I— think where I came
from — it has seemed to open the way for everything."
"What for instance?"
''For life— the whole of life."
"You had life on your western mountains/' he said slowly.
"You show it every way."
"What, after all Mrs. Delarue's warnings?" She smiled.
"Poor lady, have all her efforts been in vain?"
"You know what I mean/' he went on slowly. "Life in
the open gave yon your beauty, your freshness, and half your
standards. You will come back to them after a while. So
many things do not matter. The mountains are eternal. They
show us our own petty proportions."
" Don't preach," she interrupted him. " Yon Catholics have
a spiritual viewpoint that you think other people share. You
forget that I'm a pagan with a pagan's distrust of creeds."
He made no reply, and she regretted her words. She would
have liked him to go on. She enjoyed being analyzed. She
had grown a little tired of men who made love to her.
Another long silence fell between them. Then the small
automobile came to a sudden stop in the most deserted part
of the wooded roadway.
" We will have to be towed back to town," she said com-
posedly. " How far are we from the nearest farmhouse ? "
"Dicky Green's," said Dr. Hugh, getting out to exam-
ine the little car. " But the horses there are nothing but bags
of bones. I think it would be wiser to go back to my housct
if a five*mile walk is not too much for you."
" Five miles," she laughed. " You don't know what a tramp
I am." She threw back the fur robes and, purposely ignoring
his profferred assistance, she started to jump out, but her foot
twisted in some unaccountable way and she fell, a limp heap,
on the hard, frozen ground. As he bent over her she gave a
low moan, and he saw that her face was white and drawn with
pain.
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604 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Ausr.,
** I've sprained my ankle/' she said calmly. ''You will have
to go alone/'
'' And leave you here ? Let me lift you into the car. I'll
bandage your ankle. And he began tearing his linen handker-
chief into strips with practised fingers.
*' I don't want you to do anything for me/' she said, '' ex-
cept to find a team of horses. I can't walk, that's plain. You
might help me to that little clump of trees and give me the
robes. There's a little lunch in the basket beneath the seat*
I can lie down among the pine-needles until you return."
" It's so cold."
"Then build a fire."
In spite of her apparent dislike of him, her placidity in the
emergency would have won the admiration of any man. The
rough life she had led in the West made all inconveniences
seem trivial. She did not expect any special consideration on
the plea of her femininity. If their positions had been reversed,
she would have been quite as capable of dealing with the sit-
uation as her companion.
When the fire was made and a pile of dry wood had been
placed close to the rugs, so that she could feed the flame until
his return. Dr. Hugh still hesitated.
''I don't know what is best to do," he said, ''there is so
little passing on this road that we may be here for several
hours before we can get assistance, and yet I don't like to
leave you here alone and in pain."
'' My ankle is easier now ; you can bandage it when we get
home. We can't stay here like shipwrecked mariners. Please
go—
<' But I don't know how safe these woods are," he said re-
luctantly, fearing to frighten her, and he glanced at the dia-
mond brooch she wore. "There may be tramps—"
"Don't worry," she interrupted him, and from the pocket
of her coat she brought a small revolver. " I have this through
a lucky accident. The last time I had on this coat we went
down the river to see some target practice, and I put this in
my pocket, because — well, you see, I'm a dead shot, and I
wanted to show those army officers we went with that a woman
could shoot as well as a man; so if a tramp should happen
to come by," she laughed, "he may need all your professional
skill to revive him."
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19 lO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 605
Half-satisfied he left her, telling himself that he was not
living in the days of highwaymen; but in spite of his assur-
ances a presentiment of evil followed him. Before the road
turned he stopped and looked back to wave his hat, but Pa-
tricia did not see him, she was busily engaged feeding some
snowbirds with the crumbs from her lunch basket; they hov-
ered fearlessly around her, recognizing* a sympathetic spirit
spreading a feast for them in this frozen world of famine.
Dr. Hugh had not been gone more than an hour when
Patricia heard footsteps coming along the hard-packed road.
She sat up, alert for any danger, her large hand resting confi-
dently on the shining pistol by her side.
A strange looking man rounded the angle of the pines.
He was dressed in shabby clothes of a gaudy pattern, and he
wore no overcoat; his soft felt hat was pushed back on his
head, showing a line of straight black hair; his high cheek
bones and deep-set eyes gave him the appearance of an Indian.
Patricia saw nothing alarming in his advent. His resem-
blance to a Choctaw chief appealed to her sense of humor.
'' If he only had on feathers,'* she sighed. Then, animated
by a spirit of mischief, she decided to ask for immediate as-
sistance; she thought that if the stranger had a horse in the
background she might end her long vigil in the woods and
vanish before Dr. Hugh returned for her.
''Got a team?'* she asked, falling back into her Western
brief directness.
The man looked startled. Her voice carried clear in the
still cold air, and he looked from side to side in his effort to
place her, for her little camp was concealed from the point
from which he stood; then, seeing the car, he came hurrying
forward.
" Had an accident ? " he said, " or has the juice ju** ^^v*
out ? '*
"Both," said Patricia. "Have you a team?"
''Lord, no; Tm down and out« piking to find a fr
mine who will help me on to the next station. A
hurt?"
Patricia's hand tightened on her glistening revolve
little," she confessed, " I'm waiting lor a friend of i
bring a horse or two to tow me back to town ; and meai
she added, seeing his eyes rest on her diamonds for a n
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6o6 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aug.,
''I was practicing with this/' she brought the revolver into
fall view.
''You want to tell me you can shoot/' he said with quick
astuteness. '' I didn't mean to frighten you, but I might add
—being on the subject^that you don't frighten me either.
Women never shoot straight."
''Don't they? "she said, her lips tightening as she realized
there might be some reason for alarm. "You see that small
dead leaf hanging on that tree — now where is it ? "
"That's some shooting/' said the man admiringly, as the
remnants of the leaf fluttered to the ground. " You shoot like
Prairie Nell in the Wild West show. Don't happen to be
Prairie Nell, are you ? Reckon she's riding around in an auto-
mobile by now."
"No"; said Patricia shortly.
"I didn't mean no harm," he said. "I'm out here looking
for a friend of mine. Don't happen te know Bob Bingham,
do you?"
"Why, yes"; she said eagerly, her sense of safety fulljr
restored. " He is one of my oldest friends."
The man looked surprised. The whole situation was as-
tonishing from his point of view. This handsome young woman,
with the costly clothes, sitting so contentedly by the roadside,
seemed anxious to claim Bob's friendship, when there were
few who would wish to acknowledge his acquaintanceship.
" How far am I from his place ? " .
" About five miles."
"Are you waiting for him?"
"No; I wish I were," she said earnestly.
The man spat some tobacco juice against a distant tree-
trunk, and then asked: "Is Bob up or down?"
"Sober now," said the girl, quick to catch the drift of his
words, "but he's not burdened with a bank account; he's
taking care of a man's place and horses."
The man chuckled unpleasantly. His teeth were broken
and his gums showed wide and yellow. "Biggest horse thief
that ever went unhung/' he said.
"Well, he isn't stealing now," said Patricia, "and if you
have any such notion I wish you would leave him alone."
"Oh, I haven't a notion," said the man innocently. "No-
tion ain't the word, I'm only seeking information. You see.
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I9ia] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 607
Miss, I*ve been in Australia for the last seven years, and I've
been knocking aronnd the world so generally that I ain*t had
a chance to keep up with my friends. I want to locate some
of them. Ain't that natural? Only landed yesterday. Got
into a little game last night and they skinned me — d—
them. Begging your pardon, Miss, ain't heard no polite lan-
guage for two months. Some one was telling me that Tom
Cuthbert has made his pile and that he has come East.
Don't happen to know Tom Cuthbert, do you?"
Patricia experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling. Her
old life seemed to be closing in upon her.
''Yes"; she said after a moment's hesitation.
"They say he's out of town."
" He is."
'' You don't happen to know when be'U be back ? "
"Not exactly."
" I reckon it will pay me to wait and see Tom Cuthbert,"
he said. Then reflectively: "He used to keep a bar out my
way— called it the Golden Eagle — and I reckon it swallowed
up more yellow birds and turned out more bad whisky than
any place east of the Rockys."
"Don't," she said. "Don't I"
"Well, of course, if he's a special friend of yours — "
"He happens to be my father," she said.
" Great Scott I " exclaimed the man, looking down at the
beautiful woman at his feet. " Now, I wouldn't have thought
Tom Cuthbert was good enough to black your boots."
Chapter VIII.
Hugh drove up in the comfortable old carriage that had
belonged to his mother. He quickened the horses' pace when
he saw that Patricia was not alone.
"Thought I might be of some assistance," said the man
easily, by way of explaining his presence.
"No"; said Dr. Hugh with scant courtesy. "My stable
man is behind me bringing a horse to haul the car to the
nearest garage. Miss Cuthbert, let me lift you in. You have
had a long wait in the cold. I believe you are shivering."
"Not at all"; she forced a mirthless little laugh. "But I
have come to the conclusion that a steam radiator is prefer-
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0O8 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Aug.»
able to woodland scenery. Let us get home as quickly as
we can."
She made no protest as he lifted her in his arms and placed
her among the cushions of the carriage. The tramp's state-
ments had strangely shaken her. He seemed to embody some
impending disaster. For the first time in her life she felt help-
less and afraid; but fear was so foreign to her that even now
she attributed her mental state to the pain in her ankle»
which was almost unbearable when she moved.
When Dr. Hugh questioned her about her companion of
the roadside, solicitous to know whether he had been rude to
her, she said: "He proved to be a friend of your man Bob,
and Bob is one of my oldest friends; he used to be kind to
me when I was a child, and nobody else cared."
There was a certain appeal in her frankness which was an-
other phase of her inconsistency. For the rest of their slow
homeward journey she answered him in monosyllables. She
was trying to force her memory back into her father's past.
Her chance acquaintance had made her old life loom so large
that she had to acknowledge reluctantly that she might never
be able to escape from its consequences.
When they reached home Mrs. Delarue met them in the
hallway, genuinely alarmed when she saw Patricia carried into
the house. Her hysterics, lacking a sympathetic audience, had
abated, and a disconcerting telegram from Tom Cuthbert had
roused her from her bed and bromide to preparations for his
arrival.
As soon as Patricia had been made comfortable, and her
swollen ankle dressed, the telegram was brought to her. It read :
*' Knocked out — Coming home — Meet five-forty-five.
"T. Cuthbert."
" What does it mean ? " asked Mrs. Delarue vaguely. " Do
you suppose he has met with — violence?"
''He is ill," said Patricia, her eyes filling with tears. ''Dr.
Farrell, I must go to him. Can you get me a pair of crutches ? "
"You cannot stand," he said, wondering a little at this
first exhibition of tenderness he had ever seen in her.
"I must," she said with her old wilfulness. "My father
is evidently very ill, I must go to him at once." She started
up impetuously, but fell back on her pillow, faint with the pain.
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19 lO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 609
'^ You cannot go/' he said. " You see that you cannot go«
I will meet him and do all that I can.'*
''Thank you/' she said simply, dimly realizing the com-
mand in hi^ tone, and again she felt unaccountably helpless
and afraid.
Tom Cuthbert's train arrived that afternoon half-an*hour
late. He was not alone. A pompous old physician, justly
celebrated for his skill, had traveled East with him. Taking
up his position in the carriage he announced his intention of
going home with the Hon. Tom to remain some days.
'' To see the last of me," said the Hon. Tom with a glimpse
of his old cheerfulness.
Dr. Hugh forced a responsive smile at this grim joke,
though his professional experience told him that he was facing
a dying man. In explaining Patricia's absence he belittled
her accident, and dwelt upon her desire to meet the train and
her demand for crutches.
"She's like her dad/' said the Hon. Tom. ''Ain't accus-
tomed to acknowledging obstructions."
His face looked like yellow wax in the light of the fading
day. Once or twice during the drive the doctor leaned over
and anxiously felt his patient's pulse.
"He ought never to have attempted the journey," he told
Dr. Hugh afterwards, when the Hon. Tom had been put to
bed and a trained nurse installed. "He's led a hard life, and
been more or less dissipated. I think you will agree with me
that there is only the slimmest chance for him. He had his first
attack the early part of the winter. He was willing to go to
a hospital then, but this time he determined to come home.
I did not know he had a family physician. I must have labored
under a misapprehension — "
" I am not Mr. Cuthbert's physician," Dr. Hugh hastily
assured him. " I am here merely as a friend — I have never
been consulted in any way."
"Then I shall remain," said the great doctor. "I think it
is only a question of days/'
When Mrs. Delarue and Marie were told of their bene-
factor's dangerous condition, their Catholic instincts were
alarmed at the thought of his dying without any religious
ministrations, and when they hesitatingly consulted Patricia
her eyes opened wide with horror.
VOL. xci.^39
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6lO PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Aug.,
'' Do yott mean that my father is dying ? " she asked.
'' He is very ill."
''And what can a priest do?"
Mrs. Delarue was unequal to the emergency. She stroked
Patricia's hand in the same absent-minded way with which she
would have caressed a kitten. She had always found the di-
rect questions of her charge most difficult.
"Oi» Patricia dear/' said Marie, her soft voice full of sym-
pathy. ''A priest could help your father's soul. He could
pray for him— prepare him — "
''For what?" said Patricia. "Do you think my father
would want to be worried with bis sins ? His point of view is
so different from yours, Marie. Nobody was good where I
came from. Everybody went in for high grading. Every one
cursed and gambled and drank. Oh, I wouldn't want to be-
lieve as you do — eternal punishment for a soul — "
"But, Patricia darling," said Marie, "there is always re-
pentance. God is good and merciful. He isn't going to judge
us all by the same standards, without regard for our environ-
ment, our spiritual enlightenment. Let the priest talk to your
father; it will do no harm. There is old Father Chatard."
Patricia sat up among her pillows. " I don't mind him,"
she said. " He knows us — he will make allowances. Oh, it is
terrible to think of going into the unknown alone. Oh, why
wasn't I given some faith — some belief in the personality of a
God."
Father Chatard came next morning. He stayed a short time
with the sick man, and on his way out of the house he stopped
to see Patricia, who was in the library on a couch before the
fire, a pair of white crutches on the floor beside her.
" It was good of you to come," she said, holding out her
hand to him. "Will you sit down for a moqient? I want to
ask you — I know you will tell me the truth — I want to ask
you if my father is going to die ? "
His dim eyes were full of tenderness. " I am afraid so,"
he said.
"And his soul?" said Patricia. "I want you to tell me
something about his soul — the part that will go on living —
living forever — "
"And Mrs. Delarue has been telling me that you had no
faith," said the old priest. " Who taught you that ? "
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 6ll
''No one; but I have always felt it. At first it was the
savages' idea of a great Spirit — the spirit of the winds, the
stars, the mountains — then came the feeling that I was a part
of an understandable force. It has all been vague, indefinite,
but now that I seem shut away from the cli£fs and the gorges*
it seems to seek some expression in my music; but the idea
is so elusive I cannot grasp it"
''Few of us can," said the old priest "We make weak
attempts in prayer."
Patricia looked dully at the fire. " I don't know how to
pray," she said.
"Would you like to learn?" The suggestion was made
with hesitating gentleness.
•'No; I don't believe in it," she said. "I don't believe I
ever could."
" But you wouldn't mind my praying for you ? "
" No."
" And you wouldn't mind what my prayers specify 7 "
She smiled faintly. " Well, now, I'm not so sure of that"
"But I thought you had no faith."
"But your confidence half frightens me."
" And convinces ? "
"No; I think I have a superstition about you."
"I hope it isn't an unpleasant one," he said with old-fash-
ioned courtliness.
" You seem all spirit," she went on. " The material things
of life seem to make no di£ference to you. I feel that I can
talk to you with the same freedom with which I should con-
verse with a ghost Every time I shake hands with you, I am
surprised that I touch a living hand instead of thin air — "
The priest's eyes showed a gleam of humor. "What a
nebulous nobody I must seem. What an unsympathetic
vacuity I "
"Now, you know it isn't that," she interrupted hastily*
" You are smiling at me, and so I won't attempt to explain.
I confess I was a little interested in the — specifications. I have
a general idea that we shouldn't agree on a plan."
"But I hope we should in the end," he said. "I want to
ask you if you could tell me where I can find Hugh? Your
father wants to see him."
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6 12 Patricia^ the Problem [Aug.
^'My father wants him? Why, is he dissatisfied with the
doctor that he brought from the West ? "
"I believe he does not want to see him professionally. I
think it is a business matter/'
"That is very strange/' she said, contracting her brows.
"Why should my father ask for him, when he has his law-
yer?*'
"I do not know/' said the priest. "He told me nothing."
" And they do not like each other/' she continued.
" He did not tell me that."
" And I do not like to ask him to come."
"Why?"
" Because/' she said slowly, " I do not think I like him
cither."
"And I have a great admiration for him," said the old
priest. " I love him as a son. He has a noble soul — a bit
impulsive, a little over-confident — "
"And proud, overbearing, and snobbish," she added.
" Please forgive me for abusing your friend, but we do not get
on together."
"Tut, tut, I wouldn't be so violent. First impressions are
often mistaken ones. I won't ask you to send for him. The
duty is mine, since your father asked me. 1*11 go to the
settlement first. Good-bye. God bless you t I am coming
again to-morrow to see your father."
" Oh, yes ; come again " ; she said eagerly. " You must
help my poor father. The spirit world will seem so dark to
him. You must talk to him — teach him — show him the way."
(to be continued.)
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H, G, WELLS.
BY W. E. CAMPBELL.
IV.
^E have considered Mr. Wells' Socialism in relation
to the family and to private ownership. We
must now approach it more positively. What
is to be its institutional form — that through
which it will impress itself upon our daily life
in its most executive and powerful way ? What, in a word, of
the Socialist State ?
It is important that we should have a concrete notion of
the Socialist State as Mr. Wells pictures it, for in it, and through
it, and by means of it, and by means of it alone, he seeks to
achieve the regeneration of human life. With him the State
is the first and final institution — it is the seat and source of
all authority, that to which all other institutions are subordi-
nate, that from which there is no appeal. True he speaks both
of the Church and the family, but he speaks of them as insti-
tutions altogether subordinate to the State; and such opinions
as he is pleased to express about either of them, when not di-
rectly antagonistic, are so thin and speculative as to proclaim
most unmistakably that he has no active faith in them what-
ever.* With him, as far as institutions go, it is the State or
nothing; and, therefore, to his State we must direct our care-
ful attention, in order to learn what it is and how it will work.
In A Modern Utopia we have a most brilliant presentation
of the Socialist State ; and in First and Last Things we have
Mr. Wells' latest conviction with regard to it; taking the two
books together, we should get to the heart, and I hope to the
truth, of his great faith in Socialism. In attempting a sort of
thumb-nail sketch of this I shall follow him in setting down
not only what is more obviously and immediately practical,
but also what may seem to some quite remotely idealistic and
* With regard to riews on family, see article in the July Catholic World ; with re-
Ifard to those on religion and the Church, see (A,) 284, 293, 303 ; {F,) 83-9Z, Z5Z-Z65.
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6/4 H. G. WELLS [Aog.,
visionary. His own fearless loyalty to the truth as he sees it
is so fine that I should make a poor return for his generosity
if I held back any sincere conviction or failed to trace an idea
of his to what I deemed its final or even fatal consequence.
We Catholics are familiar enough with the idea of a world-
wide institution; the Church is such an institution, but it is
mainly concerned with the spiritual needs of man, and with
his physical needs only in so far as they are subservient to
his spiritual ones. Mr. Wells, too, has a fine conception of a
world-wide institution, of a World State which is to be the
owner of all the earth and the provider and disposer of those
material goods which are at once so necessary and at the same
time so insufficient of themselves to satisfy what is really high-
est in human desire. The World State in his ideal '' presents
itself as the sole land* owner of the earth, with the great local
governments . . . (and) municipalities, holding, as it were
feudally, under it as landlords. The State, or these subordinates,
holds all the sources of energy, and either directly or through
its tenants, farmers, and agents, develops these sources, and
renders the energy available for the work of life. It, or its
tenants, will produce food, and so human energy, and the ex-
ploitation of coal and electric power, and the powers of wind
and wave and water, will be within its right It will pour out
this energy by assignment and lease and acquiescence and what
not upon its individual citizens. It will maintain order, main-
tain roads, maintain a cheap and efficient administration of jus-
tice, maintain cheap and rapid locomotion, and be the common
carrier of the planet, convey and distribute labor, control, let,
or administer all natural productions, pay for and secure healthy
births and a healthy and vigorous new generation, maintain
the public health, coin money, and sustain standards of meas-
urement, subsidize research, and reward such commercially un-
profitable undertakings as benefit the community as a whole;
subsidize, when needful, chairs of criticism and authors and
publications, and collect and distribute information. The energy
developed and the employment a£forded by the State will de-
scend like water that the sun has sucked out of the sea to fall
upon a mountain range, and back to the sea again it will come
at last. . . . Between the clouds and the sea it will run,
as a river system runs, down through a great region of indi-
vMual enterprise and interplay, whose freedom it will sustain.
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 615
• • . From our haman point of view the mountains and the
sea are for the habitable lands that lie between. So, likewise,
the State is for Individualities. The State is for individuals,
the law is for freedoms, the world is for experiment, experi-
ence, and change ; these are the fundamental beliefs upon which
a modern Utopia must go" (27., pp. 89-91).
In this paragraph, which I have just quoted, we have the
State presented as the summum banum of all earthly institu-
tions. In the latter part of it we have a metaphor intended
to enlighten us. We are told of the sun, of the mountains, and
the sea, and of the habitable lands that lie between. We are
also told that just as the mountains and the sea are for the
habitable lands that lie between, so is the State for individu-
alities. From this we may conclude that the State is repre-
sented by the mountains and the sea. It is only fair, then, for
us to ask what the sun represents. The sun is the light and
life of the metaphor, but it shines without explanation. What
in Modem Utopia corresponds to this glorious symbol ? What-
ever it is, it must be something intrinsically finer and more
predominant than even the State itself; but, unfortunately, we
are given no clue to its identity. To me, however, it has taken
on a great significance, for may it not be meant to represent
that great problem which Mr. Wells so often approaches, but
never at all adequately grapples with, I mean, the problem of
the Spiritual Power in the Socialist State?
He comes, however, to close quarters with it when treating
of the Utopian Samaurai — a voluntary nobility, who are to be
the salt of the Socialist State, the pattern and stimulus of all
that is at once most stable and progressive.
In Utopia, ''a world identical in every respect with the
real planet earth, except for the profoundest differences in the
mental content of life/' there are four main classes of mind
quite clearly distinguishable and called respective ly» the Poietic^
the Kinetic^ the Dull^ and the Base. The two former classes
are the living tissue of the State, the two latter, its fulcra and
resistances. With the Dull and the Base we need not deal
here, but the distinction between the Poietic and Kinetic is a
very useful and suggestive one.
The poietic class, at its best, includes all those who are
most creative, initiative, progressive, and even revolutionary in
the best sense of that word. The kinetic class, on the other
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5I6 H. G. WELLS [Aug.,
hand, ts less creative and more generally efficient, it makes
more for stability in the State than for novelty, is more self-
disciplined and more inclined to take its stand upon historic
values than the poietic. ''A fairly energetic kinetic is probably
the nearest thing to that ideal which our earthly anthropolo-
gists have in mind when they speak of the 'Normal* human
being. The very definition of the poietic class involves a cer-
tain abnormality/'
A State run entirely by kinetics would cease to grow, first
in this department of activity and then in that ; it would lose
its power of initiation, of adaptation, of integrating change.
But, on the other hand, a State run entirely by poietics would
quickly fall from its sheer instability — from that lack of order
and discipline which only an unyielding and peremptory law
can give it.
The problem, therefore, arises as to whether there is to be
an inevitable alternation of now poietic and now kinetic as-
cendency, or whether it be possible to maintain a sort of
complementary equilibrium between these two equally neces-
sary but wholly differentiated classes in the State. ''Is it
possible to maintain a secure, happy, and progressive State
beside an unbroken flow of poietic activity?''
Mr. Wells' Utopians thought so and, according to him, at-
tained to a practical solution of this difficult problem.
What characterizes a member of the poietic class is obvi-
ously a specialized and momentous individuality. But such a
person is so often by his very nature impatient and incapable
of submission to the authority of an external institution, unless
indeed an organization can be found which will give him an
atmosphere and an environment both free and stimulating, an
organization, in fact, which will educate this momentous indi-
viduality of his to its highest point of social utility. I am
speaking, of course, entirely from Mr. Wells' standpoint as to
the all importance of what he would call community values.
The Utopians believed it possible for the State to frame
limiting conditions within which every person of poietic tem-
perament should be encouraged to the full and practical ex-
pression of his peculiar excellence. Education, at first general
and afterwards specialized, with appropriate incentives, honors,
and rewards, was open to all without class or distinction. But
the flower of Utopian manhood was to be found in the Sam-^
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I9IO.] H. G. Wells 617
aurai. ^'Any iatelligent adult, in a reasonably healthy and
efficient State, may» at any age after five-and-twenty» become
one of the Samaurai/' an Order into whose hands falls practi-
cally the whole administrative work of Utopia.
This Order of the Samaurai was entirely voluntary ; it was
open to any one who could submit to the discipline of its
Rule. It included, at the time of Mr. Wells' visit, all the
head teachers and disciplinary heads of colleges, judges, bar-
risters, employers of labor beyond a certain limit, practising
medical men, and legislators; in fact, everybody who was any-
body in Utopia.
The Rule was designed ''to exclude the Dull, to be unat-
tractive to the Base, and to direct and co-ordinate all sound
citizens of good intent." It was also designed ''to discipline
the impulses and emotions, to develop a moral habit, and sus-
tain a man in periods of stress, fatigue, and temptation; and,
in fact, to keep all the Samaurai in a state of moral and
b9dily health and efficiency.'' It consisted of three parts, the
things that qualified, the things that must not be done, and
the things that must be done.
A youth or man is qualified for admission by a sort of
leaving- certificate from his college, obtained by an examination
which excludes about ten per cent of the healthy Utopian
youth. Among those who are necessarily excluded are people
of nervous instability, however great though irregular their
poietic gifts may be; such people are not wanted among the
Samaurai.*
Now as to the things that are forbidden. Meat having for
some time been abandoned throughout Utopia, the Samaurai
hardly notice this privation, but neither are they allowed in-
dulgence in any alcoholic drink or narcotic drug. Usury, too,
at first forbidden to the Samaurai alone, has by this time al-
most died out of Utopia. The Samaurai may not buy or sell
for profit, except on behalf of the State; from this it followii
* It may be mentioned, that the Samaurai have a Canonical Book, but
of a very elastic nature, the last addition being a poem by the late Mr. W.
includes that memorable Terse :
*• Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be.
For my unconquerable soul."
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6i8 H. G. WELLS [Aug.,
that the great employers, who are necessarily Samaarai, never
trade for selfish gain — a great innovation on our earthly cus-
tom — and so there are no private fortunes in Utopia that can
compare at all with the huge wealth of the State. The Sam-
aurai are forbidden to act, sing, or recite, though they are
permitted to lecture authoritatively or join in debates; they
must not play games in public, nor be seen watching them,
much less indulge in betting of any kind ; they may not per-
form menial tasks for hire, but they are enjoined to shave,
dress, and wait upon themselves ; they may not keep servants,
but must make their own beds and look after their own pri-
vate rooms.
With regard to more intimate matters of moral discipline
there are very strict injunctions. There is a Rule of chastity,
but not of celibacy. The young, indeed, it would appear, are
allowed to sow their wild oats before they reach the age of
twenty* five, and are then fully eligible for the sterner life of
the Samaurai, no special training in emotional or moral disci-
pline is made compulsory before that time. '' Let them have
a chance of wine, love, and song; let them feel the bite of
full-bodied desire, and know what devils they have to reckon
with '' (p. 285). But after twenty-five, failings of this kind,
which before were merely venial, now take rank as mortal
offences, for which there is no room for repentance, at least
within the Order itself. ^'A man who breaks the Rule after
his adult adhesion at five-and-twenty is no more in the Sam-
aurai forever.''
In this place, at any rate, the Utopians seem quite frankly
to recognize the weakness of human nature. Civilization, we
are told, has developed far more rapidly than man has modi-
fied for the better; his natural powers of self-restraint are too
weak to curb his physical and emotional passions; great ma-
terial prosperity has always been followed by moral collapse.
In times of security, liberty, and abundance, '^ the normal un-
traiiied human being is disposed to excess in almost every
direction; he tends to eat too much and too elaborately, to
drink too much, to become lazy faster than his work can be
reduced, to waste his interest upon displays, and to make love
too much and too elaborately. He gets out of training, and
concentrates upon egoistic or erotic broodings. The past his-
tory of our race is very largely a history of social collapse due
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 619
to demoralization by indulgences following secarity and abun-
dance" (293).«
How» then, do the Utopians in general^ and the Samaurai
in particular, propose to deal with these original and actual
failings of human nature? ''Our founders organized motives
from all sorts of sources, but I think the chief source to give
men self-control is pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing
in the soul, but is the best king there, for all that. They (the
Utopians) looked to it to keep a man clean and sound and
sane" {lb).
Then as to the things that must be done. There are very
precise regulations as to the times and places when the Sam-
aurai may meet each other for purposes of companionship and
recreation. As the order is open to members of either sex,
and to people both married and single, the permissions are
very detailed, personal, and specific, especially with regard to
married people themselves; but these need not be enlarged
upon here, except in so far as to say that within the marriage
sphere there seems less freedom and power of mutual decision
than without it
We now come ''to the heart of all Utopian explanations,
to the will and the motives at the centre that made men and
women ready to undergo discipline, to renounce the richness
and elaboration of the sensuous life, to master emotions and
control impulses, to keep in the key of e£fort while they had
abundance about them to rouse and satisfy all desires" — in
fact, to the Utopian religion. Religion they contend is as
natural to man as lust and anger, ^1^/ less intense; they accept
it as they accept thirst, "as something inseparably in the
mysterious rhythms of life " ; they seem to regard any external
manifestation of it as a pleasant weakness to be indulged in
rarely, and by the best of the Samaurai not at all ; " the
Samaurai will have emerged above these things," above "the
religion of dramatically lit altars, organ music, and incense,"
above " the delusive simplification of God that vitiates all ter-
* We are told, however, in another place (p. 299), that " the leading principle of Utopian
religion is the repudiation of Original Sin." Original Sin is a dogma which proclaims the
weakness of himian nature, and vrithout the great complementary dogma of the Incarnation
would, indeed, give little courage to struggling humanity ; the Church never repudiates the
weakness of human nature in order to overcome it, she teaches us to face it squarely and with
patient humility, and then directs us with hope and encouragement to the eternal hills from
whence cometh our help.
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620 H. G. WELLS [Aug.,
restrial theology. . • • The intimate thing of religion must
exist in human solitude, between man and Grod alone • • .
a man may no more reach God through a priest than love his
wife through a priest" The Rule of the Samaurai will, there-
fore, have no official concern with the religion of its members.
''So far as the Samaurai have a purpose in common in main-
taining the State, and the order and progress of the world, so
far, by their discipline and denial, by their public work and
effort, they worship God together,'' but in what we may cer-
tainly presume to be a rather implicit manner.
In this religion of the Samaurai there appears to be noth-
ing that appeals to the whole man — his heart and senses as
well as his critical intellect — nothing that is universally known
and passionately and personally believed in ; nothing that the
best men live by and would willingly die for; nothing that is
objectively, absolutely, and transcendently true. The Samaurai,
in fact, do not believe in an Objective or Explicit Super-
natural Revelation, and consequently they do not believe in
an institutional and divinely authoritative Church — an institu-
tion superior to and independent of the State — whose function
it is to guard, interpret, expound, and unfold this supernatural
revelation, and furthermore to administer its sacraments and
perform its beautiful and symbolic ritual.
The Samaurai are bound by their Rule to a yearly retreat
of seven consecutive days. Each one of them has to go apart
into some wild and solitary place, without companions, books,
pens, paper, or money, in order to exercise himself in his
privately conceived, privately sustained, and privately inter-
preted religion; and we may, without unfairness, presume the
substance of his meditations from certain passages written by
Mr. Wells himself:
''Many people would be glad, for rather trivial and unim-
portant reasons, that I should confess a faith in God, and few
would take offence. But the run of people even nowadays
mean something more and something different when they say
' God.' They intend a personality exterior to them and lim*
ited, and they will instantly conclude I mean the same thing.
To permit that misconception is, I feel, the first step on the
slippery slope of meretricious complaisance. . . . Occa-
sionally we may best serve the God of Truth by denying him."
'' Yet at times I admit that the sense of personality in the
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 621
universe is very strong. If I am confessing, I do not see why
I should not confess up to the hilt. At times in the silence
of the night and in rare lonely moments, I come upon a sort
of communion of myself and something great that is not my-
self. It is perhaps poverty of mind and language obliges me
to say that then this universal scheme takes on the e£fect of a
sympathetic person — and my communion a quality of fearless
worship. These moments happen, and they are the supreme
fact of my religious life, they are the crown of my religious
experiences** (F., p. 50.).
On Free-Will. ''Is the whole of this scheme of things
settled and done 7 The whole trend of science is to that be-
lief. On the scientific plane one is a fatalist, the universe a
a system of inevitable consequences. But ... it is quite
possible to accept in their several planes both predestination
and free-will. If you ask me, I think I should say I incline
to believe in predestination and do quite completely believe in
free-will. The important belief is /ree-will. ... I am free
and freely and responsibly making the future— so far as I am
concerned. On that theory I find my life will work, and on
a theory of mechanical predestination nothing works'* {lb., p. 51).
On the Idea of a Church. ** The practical fact is that it (a
Church) draws together great multitudes of diverse individual-
ized people in a common solemnity and self-subordination,
however vague, and, in so far, is like the State, and in a man-^
ner far more intimate and emotional and fundamental than the
State, a synthetic power. And, in particular, the idea of the
Catholic Church is charged with synthetic suggestion; it is in
many ways an idea broader and finer than the constructive idea
of any existing State . . .'* (pp. 15 1-7).
On Humility f the Basis of Democracy. "The real justifica-
tion of democracy lies in the fact that none of us are alto-
gether weak; for every one there is an aspect in which he is
seen to be weak; for every one there is a strength, though it
may be only a peculiar strength or an undeveloped potentiality.
The unconverted man uses his strength egotistically, empha-
sizes himself harshly against the man who is weak where be is
strong, and hates and conceals his own weakness. The be-
liever, in the measure of his belief, respects and seeks to
understand the different strength of others, and to use his own
distinctive power with and not against his fellow-men, in the
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622 H. G. WELLS [Aug.,
cotntnoQ service of that synthesis to which each one of them
is ultimately as necessary as he" (lb., p. 198).*
There is one last confession which gives the specific note
of all these pathetically hopefnl, but actually faithless, medi-
tations. ''AH my life has been at bottom, seeking, disbeliev-
ing always, dissatisfied always with the thing seen and the
thing believed, seeking something in toil, in force, in danger,
something whose name and nature I do not clearly under-
stand, something beautiful, worshipful, enduring, mine pro-
foundly and fundamentally, and yet the utter redemption of
myself; I don^t know — all I can tell is that it is something I
have ever failed to find."f
Hoir negative, inadequate, and paralyzed with doubt is the
** religion " I have here attempted to summarize, though I
hope not unfairly or with disproportion I There is not to be
found in the paragraphs quoted above, nor anywhere through-
out our author's writings, one single positive expression of
faith in the existence of God. The nearest approach to it is
a reverent obeisance before some great Perhaps, whose only
symbol, we may add, should be a sublime note oi interro-
gation. Of what poor and tepid avail is an agnosticism such
as this when called upon to energize ordinary human nature
in its unceasing and momentous conflict with undisciplined
passion t
Undisciplined passion is always a trespasser, whether re-
garded from the individual or from the social standpoint;
moreover, undisciplined intellectual passion is a much more harm"
ful trespasser than undisciplined physical passion. This last fact
I must dogmatically assert in the teeth of all modernist and
'' New Theological '' opposition, and I beg to call Mr. Wells'
serious attention to it, for the neglect of it is the main reason
of his failure to apprehend what religion is in itself and what
it is meant to do.
There are times when it is a right and proper thing for a
man ** to smite down,'' as Newman says, the pride of his criti-
cal intellect; and most of all is it right to do this when the
critical intellect turns trespasser and thief within the very
sanctuary of God-given Truth — presuming, of course, that there
be a God and that He has revealed Himself; if there be no
Gad there can be no religion except in an equivocal sense.
^Cf, Aquinas, Summm^ 8 8. Q. z6z, art. 3. t TptM-Bu^gay, p. 852.
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 623
To make the critical intellect, on the other hand, the supreme
and final criterion of divine revelation is to put it to an en-
tirely undisciplined and improper use. But not only is the
intellect of man, in its critical capacity, thus put to undis-
ciplined and improper uses; in its constructive capacity it is
put to a task still more out of all proportion to its natural
powers, namely, that of creating a new revelation of its own
in the place of that divine one it has so wantonly presumed
to criticise and condemn.
According to the now fashionable doctrine of many reli-
gious bodies and of Mr. Wells himself — who deny that there
is any decisive and final religious authority external to the
private individual judgment — according to this doctrine, private
individuals are endowed with the capability (and, therefore, with
the right that not even the State may dispute) of creating
brand new religions, each according to his own image, super-
scription, and idiosyncrasy.
Now this is a pretty big order even for the massive intel-
lect of the ordinary man, with his not over-thorough education
and training in the theory and practice of the spiritual life,
and we are not surprised to find that, although Mr. Wells al-
lows the human intellect such large and powerful jurisdiction
in spiritual matters, he will not allow it the same absolute
privileges in more mundane affairs. Despite his formal repudia-
tion of original sin in one place, he categorically lays it down
in another, that the intellect of man is not to be trusted, be-
cause of its inherent weakness and imperfection. ''The for-
ceps of our minds are clumsy forceps and crush the truth a
little in taking hold of it " ; we need, he tells us, certain safe-
guards and correctives '' in order to save us from the original
sin of our own intellectual instrument.^* •
If this is true of our intellectual dealings with the more
quantitative things of life« it is truer still of our dealings with
the more qualitative ones, and most of all true with regard to
the things pre-eminently qualitative — the things of God Him-
self. A man may, indeed, reach out to the things of God, but
only by the exercise of a lover's faith and a lover's humility.
The critical faculty of a man of faith is turned in upon his
own failings and has there a sufficient and proper occupation
(I am speaking, of course, only of its religious use). Distrust
* ScipHcism ofthi InsitMwtint, now printed as an appendix to A Modetn Utopia^ p. 39a.
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624 H. G. WELLS [Aug.,
of selff that is where the critical faculty comes in and quite
rightly so ; trust in God, that is where it does not come in,
and if it did, would come in wrongly and without reason. If,
at any time, however, say in some period of waning devotion,
it should be tempted to turn itself to the criticism of the
divinely perfect or such revelation of truth as He has vouch-
safed for our temporal and eternal benefit, then it is the busi-
ness of humility to step in and silence its questionings by
pointing out their unreasonable folly, lest, forsooth, the critical
intellect, once more pretending to a supremacy above God
Himself, should become in very truth the abomination of deso-
lation trespassing where it ought not.j
Intellectual passion, then, is a good thing when devoted to
its proper objects in proportion to its proper powers and under
the auspices of its proper authorities, but it is a bad thing
when exercised in an inordinate and undisciplined manner, at
wrong times and in wrong places and upon wrong objects,
without subjection to authorities more universal and more ex-
cellent than itself. Mr. Wells supports this contention and
uses it most powerfully When speaking of his State; but when
he comes to his ** religion " he denies it in theory and in fact
and chases it out of the field as a dangerous enemy to free-
dom of the individual.
After all, Mr. Wells' religion is a poor thing and won't
work — as he himself is candid enough to confess in First and
Last Things (p. 143) — it is merely a side dish put on at his
social board for those of his guests who, after partaking rather
generously of his earlier Socialistic courses, need something
tasty to make them feel nice and sentimentally good. Mr.
Wells, unfortunately, does not believe that religion is to pro-
vide the main food of man here on earth, but seems rather to
believe that it is thrown in to tickle a jaded palate when sur-
feited with the abundance of this world. Mr. Wells has made
a mistake. Religion is not given to tickle a jaded palate of
man; it is given that man may have life and have it more
abundantly.
The problem of the spiritual power in the Socialist State
has not been solved after all, the *'sun'' of Mr. Wells' earlier
netaphor is still a mere metaphor, signifiying nothing; and
his whole scheme is left in the darkness of great spiritual fail-
ure. Mr. Wells, I know, repeatedly asserts that there is no
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I9IO.] H. G. WELLS 625
real distinction between things (][uantitive and things qualita-
tive, but I presume that, at any rate, he will allow us to make
a real distinction between people who are f otitic and people
who are base. It is true that he emphasizes that difference on
the intellectual rather than on the emotional side, and that is
why his whole political cosmos is such a rigid and static af-
fair. It is love that makes the world go round and it is lust
that makes it go round the wrong way. His cosmos, too, is
rigid and static because it is densely and materially fashioned,
and this is true of every Socialist cosmos. Socialism of itself
and by itself can do nothing to diminish or discipline the im-
mediate and materialistic lusts of men^ because Socialism is itself
the most exaggerated and universalized expression of those lusts
yet known to history ^ Last of all, it is insufficiently energized
and accelerated in the right direction by spiritual as distin-
guished from material forces, and by an authoritative spiritual
as distinguished from an authoritative material power. To
sum up, the problem of Social Reform has two aspects, the
quantitative aspect and the qualitative aspect, the latter being
the more important. Mr. Wells has dealt with the quantita-
tive aspect very fully, but not I think satisfactorily, on a
Socialistic basis. As to the qualitative aspect of the problem,
he has not yet got within sight of it, much less within sight
of its solution. Such, at any rate, is the contention advanced
in these articles.
* See two most powerful articles on Socialism in the English QuatUrly Rtviiw for April
and July of the present year. Socialism is searchingly examined as to its origin, philosophy,
and practice ; and is declared on all these heads to be essentially materialistic and anti«
spirituaL
VOL. XCI.— 40
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HOLY COMMUNION.
BY KATHARINE TYNAN.
My soul that's house-mate with my body.
And finds the tenement too small.
Frets at her vesture, white and ruddy,
Would break the windows, scale the wall.
Would spread her useless wings and flying
I/eave all her dull estate behind.
To-day, with angels touching, vieing,
She finds her prison to her mind.
See now the prisoner's manumission ! —
And yet she hugs her prison still —
Where shining heads and wings elysian
Are crowding by her window-sill
She sweeps her room and makes it festal,
Flings a white cloth upon the board.
And with a bridal heart and vestal
Awaits the coming of her I^ord.
This is her hour. Bnrapt, with Mary,
She breaks her box of ointment rare,
Kneels in her heaven, I/Ove's sanctuary,
And feels His hand upon her hair.
Meanwhile her house-mate, who shall perish.
One hour is glorified likewise ;
Envied of angels, she doth cherish
The Darling of the earth and skies.
One hour, poor wench, her honor's over,
She, destined only for the earth.
Fashioned for no immortal lover.
Gives praise for crowns beyond her worth.
No longer now the soul's in prison.
Nor tethered by her useless wings.
Slips bonds : follows her I^ord arisen
And, ere she falls, by heaven's gate sings.
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ST. TERESA.
BY WALTER ELLIOTT. C.S.P.
March I2« i622| five saints were canonized in
Rome amid the most splendid ceremonies and
most heartfelt rejoicings. One was St. Isadora
Agricola, whom Gregory XV. then placed on the
altars of Christendom to call men's souls to wor-
ship God and thank Him for the marvels of grace adorning
the lowliest state of life, for St. Isadore, as his surname indi*
cates, was a peasant.
The other four were among the greatest saints of their era,
which was that of the Protestant revolt in the heart of the six-
teenth century; and each was typical of some special, divine
gift to the Church during her time of sorest trial. They were
St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip Neri, and
our St. Teresa of Jesus. The first named was chosen by God
as the chief organizer of the forces of truth and holiness which
He set in array to stop the ravages of Protestantism, and to
re-establish Catholic peoples on the solid foundation of obedi-
ence to lawful authority, guiding them, meanwhile, to the in-
terior life of God by his marvelous system of mental prayer.
St. Francis Xavier was the foremost disciple of Ignatius, and
had in the Far East renewed the missionary glories of the
apostolic era. Then comes the name of Philip Neri, the saint
whom God appointed to a sixty years' apostolate in the eter-
nal city, so fruitful as to merit for him the official title of the
Apostle of Rome. And finally St. Teresa of Jesus was canon-
ized, the reformer of the Carmelite Rule, and the foremost ex-
emplar and teacher of contemplative prayer granted the Church
for many centuries. Men saw in the canonization of these four
saints, just a hundred years after Luther's rebellion, an account-
taking of what heaven had bestowed on the Church of Christ
as a compensation for the losses of the Protestant revolt. And
they noticed, also, that the year 1622 was the one which ended
the glorious life of St. Francis de Sales, the most successful
of the Church's missionaries to Protestants. He was also a
very powerful exponent of God*s ways in every form of devout
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628 St. Teresa [Aug.,
life, including contemplative prayer, which was the special theme
of St. Teresa.
We are now writing of her on occasion of a new English
version of one of her most notable works, The Interior Castle
of the Soul. The translation is made by an English Benedictine
nun, one who is evidently kindred to her spirit; and it is edited
by a Carmelite friar who is just as plainly competent to aid
her in an editorial capacity.*
The saint wrote this luminous exposition of infused prayer
in all its gradations and qualities, while she was suffering from
a furious persecution. And yet it breathes that heavenly calm-
ness peculiar to spirits dwelling in the loftier regions of hea-
venly peace. Like all of her writings she composed this one
under a very stringent obedience from her confessor, at that
time Canon Velasquez, afterwards Archbishop of Compostella.
It is curiously allegorical in its framework; and yet the high
topics are very plainly treated of, and they are made as intel-
ligible to ordinary readers as is possible ; all the more so, in
fact, on account of the comparison she adopts between the
stages of the soul's advancement in prayer, and the progress
of a guest in a magnificent castle passing from its outer to its
interior splendors. The style is familiar, yet the tone is state-
ly, often even majestic. The author sheds a clear light, clear
though dazzling, on the vague and distant and ravishingly beau-
tiful states of contemplative prayer.
Some time previous to writing The Interior Castle^ St. Teresa,
under similar and even more painful stress of obedience, had
written her most famous work, her autobiography. It narrates
the principal events of her life up to and including the found-
ing of the first monastery of her reform at Avila. But its chief
purpose was to specify dates, places, persons, and all other ac-
companiments of her earlier supernatural experiences, such as
locutions, visions, and ecstacies. It is the chronicle oi the saint's
novitiate under the Holy Spirit as novice master. It tells in
narrative form of the same kind of divine extraordinary visita-
tions more systematically treated of in The Interior Castle.
The personal element is very powerful in the Life^ for during
several years of these divine visitations she was suspected of
being bewitched by Satan ; in fact, this was deliberately decided
* Tkt Interior CastU; #r, the Mansions. Exclamatioos of the Soul to God. Translated
from the Autograph of St. Teresa by the [English] Benedictines [Nuns] of Stanbrook. Re-
vised, with an Introduction, Notes, and Index, by Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D. London :
Thomas Baker; New York: Benziger Brothers.
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ipio.] St. Teresa 629
on by sereral learned and devout priests, and St. Teresa was
treated accordingly. After a dreadful interval of suffering she
came across better informed confessors, and her vindication was
really dramatic in its suddenness and completeness. The Life
is a book of most vivid interest and withal of most valuable
instructiveness.
It was followed almost immediately by the little treatise on
prayer called The Way of Perfection. This is a manual of what
may be called meditative contemplation, or meditation of the
less active, more intuitive kind. But yet The Way of Perfect
tion also deals extensively with the virtues of a good Christian
life, which are at once the means and the results of absorbed
mental states of devotion of whatsoever degree or kind. Though
written expressly for Carmelite nuns, it is a book richly replete
with elementary instruction for devout Christians of all condi-
tions, though it inclines the soul to those quieter tendencies
of the spiritual life which are peculiar to the cloister.
This in turn was followed by her Book of Foundations^
which may be called a continuation of her autobiography. It,
again, was written under obedience. It holds a unique place
in literature, being a minute disclosure of the interior guid-
ance of God as related to His external ordering of affairs. It
is a faithful, elaborate history of the providential happenings
connected with the beginnings of nearly all of her convents of
men or of women. It is thus the sequel of the Life^ a narra-
tive of the events of her career from the start of the reform
at Avila till not long before her death. This makes it a book
as precious as it is charming. But its peculiar value is in the
golden thread which runs through it of the daily supernatural
history of the author. Hardly anything important was ever done
except from the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit. These
are all described in the same artless but entrancing simplicity,
as are the curious and often startling adventures accompanying
the outward work of the establishment of the different houses.
One passes continually from the promptings of her divine in-
terior guide, to her counsellings with her external guides, and
her conflicts with her many opposers. We read now of her
shrewd dealings with lawyers and property owners, and then
of her ecstacies and visions. From long conferences with
magistrates and prelates we pass to her interviews with the
holy angels. And we see how marvelously both orders of life,
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630 ST. TERESA [Aug.,
the earthly and heavenly, were ordered and mingled together
by God for the founding of communities of austere, prayerful
friars and nuns, intermediaries for the uniting and carrying
out of God*s temporal and external purposes among men.
The Book of Foundations was composed by the saint from
her own imperishable memories of her supernatural experiences
in the establishment of those houses of solitude and penance,
each of which was to her as dear as her heart's blood — almost
every one a victory earned by a hard-fought battle against
the allied forces of petty jealousy, human greed, and official
timidity. Besides her own vivid recollections, the saint had at
her command those of her associates early and late and their
diaries and other memoranda, as well as the community records
of each house.
Taken together with the Life and the Leitets^ the whole
forms a singularly powerful and impressive history of one of
God's greatest saints, and certainly of the greatest woman of
the sixteenth century. These books impart perhaps the most
intimate, certainly the most extensive, acquaintance ever
granted of the hidden ways of God with His more favored
children. The Life^ as we have said, is her most famous book,
and in several ways deservedly so. Yet the Book of Founda^
tions is needed for an integral, a finished study of her career
and character, since it is a minute history of those long and
painful, some of them racking, years between 1562 and 1582
covered by her work as a founder.
We are indebted to Mr. David Lewis, a distinguished
Tractarian convert, for an admirable English translation of the
Book of Foundations. His work is preceded by a succinct his-
tory of the reform, which embodies a summary life of the
saint. The translator also elaborately edits the book, offering
many valuable observations, historical and critical, together
with a surprisingly full contribution of references to parallel
records of events and teachings found in her other writings.
He possessed the perfection of Teresian learning as well as
the most ardent enthusiasm of Teresian discipleship. He also
translated and placed at the end of the volume the saint's
manual of the Visitation of the nunneries, the Carmelite Rule,
the Constitutions of the Reform, and the Maxims of St. Teresa.
Mr. Lewis also wrote the Life of St. John of the Cross and
translated his works.
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ipia] St. Teresa 631
The Library of the Paulist Fathers, in New York, possesses
a unique work in French hj an anonymous artist, entitled
LEspagne ThiresUnne, au Pelerinage d^un Flatnand a touUs les
Ftmdations de Ste. Thirhe. It was published in folio, second
edition, 1893, at Ghent, at the Carmelite monastery there. It
is an illustrated itinerary of the saint's life as a founder, con-
taining twenty-nine large pictures aud innumerable smaller
ones, all excellent engravings from line drawings made on the
spot, of buildings and localities, together with likenesses made
from authentic portraits of all persons in anywise closely con-^
nected with the rarious foundations. The work is artistic and
thoroughly well done. It is accompanied with narrative and
descriptive comments of the most reliable kind, made by the
Carmelites of Ghent. It is a work of deepest interest to all
disciples of our saint, though only best appreciated by artists.
It is a worthy companion volume to the Book of Foundations.
We fear that it is too good to obtain wide circulation and
that it will pass out ot print. For the copy now in possession
of the Paulist Library we are indebted to the kindness of the
Rev. Mother Prioress Beatrix of the Holy Spirit, of the Bos-
ton Carmel.
Newman has said that the only real biography is that
which a man himself writes in his letters. The truth of this
is shown by the Letters of St. Teresa. However, in her case,
the candor of letter-writing characterizes all of her books,
especially her autobiography and her Book of Foundations^ re-
sulting in a self-revelation of ever- increasing credit to herself
and instruction to her disciples.
There is an indescribable charm about St. Teresa's letters.
In reading them one exclaims instinctively: ^'Oh, how out-
spoken a soul is this, and how affectionate; how fearless and
positive and resolute a character; and yet how gentle; how
great a gift of speech and how vast a wealth of holy thought
to draw upon for spreading the love of God and zeal for souls.''
The immovable calm of this master mind is as well dis-
played in her Letters as in the Book of Foundations^ a feminine
spirit enthralled by the knowledge of God closely viewed, and
yet devoid of feminine fussiness. The entire gentleness of the
sex is also there, every sweet virtue of sympathy, kindness,
and patience. But withal a queenly purpose to stand her
ground for right and for God against all comers. One notes
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632 St. Teresa [Aug.,
that she rules the male sex as simply as she does the female,
not seldom becoming spiritual adviser to the many saints and
sages who from first to last were her directors. " My son/'
was a term of address she oiten used to men well advanced
along the road of perfection, and of high name and office in
the Church and the schools. In this trait she was kindred to
St. Catherine of Siena, who had grouped about her during the
iater years of her life, and living almost continually in her
company, a little college of men of distinguished ability, great
sanctity, and widespread influence in Church and State, proud
to be called her disciples.
The foremost disciple of our saint was St. John of the
Cross. His works on mystical topics are quoted everywhere.
She formed, under God, his mind and life to the highest stand-
ard of perfection. What St. Francis Xavier was to St. Igna-
tius, we might almost say St. John of the Cross was to St
Teresa. We are fortunate in having Mr. David Lewis as his
English biographer and translator, giving us his exact, almost
scholastic, and yet highly poetical development of St. Teresa's
more artless teaching of the higher kinds of prayer. In
founding her reform — as is shown by her letters as well as by
her other writings — she dealt no less masterfully with able and
holy men than she did with the great-souled women who were
her close associates. Her coadjutors, or rather her auxiliaries
were, indeed, oftener men than women, noblemen and men of
wealth or of learning, or of sanctity, and of states of life
varying from petty shopkeepers to Archbishops and high
grandees. She exercised over them all the same kindly au-
thority as over the young girls whom God sent her for the
equipping of her new monasteries. But if she mastered these
men with great power, it was not at the expense of her wo-
manly kindliness, nor with the least semblance of mannishness.
Given a reader with any degree of devout receptivity, and
St. Teresa's writings are quickly established among his master-
books, to be used occasionally all through life, in many cases
to be used unceasingly. The Way of Perfection and The Interior
Castle are systematic treatises; they exhibit the saint's spir-
itual doctrine in ever fresh attractiveness, but with close regard
to form and division of parts. The Book of Foundations and
the Letters joined to the Life as a vine to a trellis, impart the
same precious teaching but more discursively. They are par-
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I9IO.] St. Teresa 633
ticularly valuable as elaborate and really fascinating accounts
of her whole career, and afford every possible means of know-
ing exactly what by nature and grace God did when He made
and perfected St. Teresa,
From generation to generation this literature continues to
win for our saint a tribute of reverence as affectionate as it
is powerful. Her books establish and continually re-establish
and perpetually inspire the Teresian discipleship of silence^
self-denial, recollectedness, and hidden union with God. Not
in all holy reading, outside of Scripture, are any books pos-
sessed of exactly their peculiar sweetness and force, making
for love of the hard life and glorious recompense of the soul's
retirement into God.
TAe Way of Perfection^ the Life^ the Book of Foundations^
The Interior Castle^ and the Letters are the chief literature of
our saint, though her rules for governing and visiting the re-
formed houses are of great and, indeed, essential value to her
own religious. But we must not forget to say that there are
a few little poems of hers which are of fascinating beauty, the
outpourings of the saint's soul in the language of a most re-
fined imagination. In reading, for example, her ^' Canticle on
Death,'' we cannot help regretting that God did not guide her
to write a whole book of poems.
Her literary abilities were of the highest order, and place
her words, written as they were in the golden age of her
native tongue, among the best Castilian classics. The style is
at once flowing and terse. There is not the faintest suspicion
of verbiage, and yet she possesses that diffusiveness of descrip-
tion so necessary in discoursing of topics where the least
shade of meaning ministers to the essential needs of integral
information.
How miny mysterious details of transcendent mental states
are found in all her writings. They lift the reader out of his
element into the serene, if baffling, glories of the higher kinds
of prayer, yet not without frequent glimpses sharp and clear
of perfectly intelligible truth and beauty. Nor is this privi-
lege the monopoly only of the more perfect Christians. A
soul but newly converted from the most degrading vice, if he
be only intensely converted, can get some profit, indeed some
very practical profit, from every page of these messages of a
fellow-mortal raised to the highest sanctity.
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634 •Sr. TERESA [Aug.,
Her style has enabled our saint to be a crystal medium of
communication between herself and any human soul, a medium
as sympathetic as it is unconventional. She is, therefore, con-
stantly read by persons of all states and conditions of life in
Holy Church, who are in the least degree desirous of Christian
perfection. The test of three and a half centuries of trial has
been applied to these books, and has proved them to be worthy
of the life-long reading of all spiritually- minded Christians.
Until the Stanbrook nuns gave us this perfect translation
of TAe Interior Castle^ English readers must have used per-
force Canon Dalton's version; and the same is to be said of
The Way of Perfection. All praise to him. Truest of disciples,
his services were very great. Among all the saint's clients
none was more devoted than he. He was eager and jubilant
in his work of translating her books, and he reveled in it. It
is a pity that he lacked literary quality, even such needful gifts
as clearness of expression and verbal orderliness. The present
translators will, no doubt, wholly supersede him; and they
promise an English version of The Way of Perfection. Of all
the letters of St. Teresa of any value we have Father H. J.
Coleridge's translation, attached to his valuable biography of
the saint.
As to our saint's natural character/ one might think that
so typical a contemplative would necessarily be a fetiring and
timorous soul. Teresa was retiring indeed, and craved pas-
sionately to be alone with God. But in reading her Life and
Letters^ and especially her Book of Foundations^ we become ac-
quainted with an independent, even an aggressive tempera-
ment, full of initiative, venturesome, resourceful, often bold to
the verge of audacity — all this exhibited not simply as the
result of the supernatural gift of fortitude, but, in a certain
degree, of her native and instinctive qualities.
Her age was the last glorious era of Spanish knighthood,
whose exploits in the old and new world filled men's souls with
* The folloMriog is the chronology of the principal events in the life of St. Teresa. Bora
March 28, 1515, at Avila, in Old Castile, her father being Alphonsus Sanches de Cepeda, her
mother Beatrice Ahumada. In 1522, being then seven years old, she induced her little
brother to steal away with her to Africa to be martjrred for Christ by the Moors, and was in-
tercepted and returned to her home by her uncle. In 1533 she entered the Carmelite convent
of the mitigated observance in Avila. In 1537 she is granted her first vision. In 1560, imder
supernatural divine guidance, she resolves to found a monastery of nuns of the strict observ-
ance of the primitive Carmelite Rule. In 1563 foundation of the first monastery of the reform.
From that time till her death, October 4, 1582, the saint is almost wholly occupied with plan*
ning and founding new monasteries of men and women. St. Teresa's life thus extended
over the greater part of the eventful sixteenth century.
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I9IO.] ST. Teresa 635
wonder, and established the mightiest empire of modern times.
But no cabellero or conquistador among her dauntless countty-
men could excel her in daring. She battled valorously in the
peaceful field of the Gospel, where victories are won by love
of enemies and by holy patience. She thirsted for those con-
flicts; and she exhibited a spirit of adventure in the cause of
God during the twenty years of her career as a founder, which
makes her achievements read like a romance.
Furthermore, this nun, rated by non> Catholic writers as a
dreamy mystic, was a good business manager. Though so often
rapt into the celestial regions of holiest thought and love, St.
Teresa was the reverse of a dreamer, knew how to drive a good
bargain, borrowed money advantageously, quickly fathomed
weakness of character in the men and women with whom she
dealt. Cardinal Wiseman, in his preface to the English version
of St. John of the Cross, calls attention to the matter-of-fact
expression of St. Teresa's face in her authentic portrait, the
solid sense, the keen observation, the well- recognized traits of
countenance of a capable woman of affairs. Read her letters
to her brother about family concerns, and the many other let-
ters about business matters, if you would see how good a head
she had for plain, everyday work — that head so filled with di-
vine thoughts, and yet so shrewd for the earthly duties inci-
dent to her vocation as a foundress.
She was the advance agent and the first and final manager
in all such things as title deeds and purchases, debts and lega-
cies, as well as the current support of each of her many mon-
asteries; a sane woman of immense positiveness and great busi-
ness foresight, yet often lifted up into the heavens in raptures
and again restored to earth — a wondrous duplex life of inspi-
ration wholly miraculous and of good sense entirely reliable.
Her practical decisions were very rarely at fault. She had a
marvelous mingling together oi the truest earthly with the sub-
limest heavenly guidance.
Take a specimen from her letters ; we may call this message
to her brother a sort of interlude of family business thrust into
the midst of high contemplation. Writing to him about some
connection of the family who had been tormenting them with
lawsuits, and with whom they were now arranging a settle-
ment, she says : ** He has a good heart, but in this case he is
not to be trusted ; and therefore, when you send him the thou-
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636 St. TERESA [Aug.,
sand realSy you must make him sign a deed» by which he will
obligate himself to give five hundred ducats to my sister Mary
if he should again trouble us with recommencing the lawsuit/'
Notice in the Book of Foundations with what unconscious ease
she passes from the relation of visions and the revealing of
heavenly secrets to the discussion of such a mundane thing as
the shortcomings of a stone mason in her employ.
As a child of seven years she ran away from home that
she might go to the country of the Moors to suffer martyrdom,
dragging with her her little brother Rodrigo.
*^ Scarce has she learned to lisp the name
Of martyr; yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which, spent, can buy so brave a death.
''Scarce has she blood enough to make
A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has she a heart dares hope to prove
How much less strong is death than love.*'
^Crashaw^ " Hymn to St. Teresa!*
Some little girls forecast their future vocation by playing
nun; she did so by actually striving to become a martyr for
Christ. Hers was naturally the reverse of a yielding, pliant
nature. During her early years, both at home add at boarding
school, though a sweet-tempered and guileless child, she yet
was self-willed. When her father refused his consent to her
entering the convent, she left her home and joined the sisters
against his will. From the beginning to the end of her life
she exhibited much self-poise of character. Even after God
had terribly chastened her by interior anguish and bodily ill-
ness extending over many years, and began to illuminate her
soul with miraculous guidance, He yet did not hinder her think-
ing for herself, though, as we shall see. He granted her an
heroic grace of obedience to superiors. After He had elevated
her motives and had bestowed on her the rarest gifts of infused
prayer, she still retained her original native force; and she re-
sponded to His inspirations for introducing the Carmelite reform
by a strikingly fearless plan of action. After she had fortified
herself with the counsel of the wisest confessors she could find,
she undertook the task of reforming on old and decadent re-
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IpIO.] ST. TERESA 637
ligious order; a harder task by far than that of founding a new
one in original fervor; ''a purpose/' to quote the language
of Holy Church in the saint's office, '^ in which blossomed forth
the omnipotent blessing of the merciful Lord. For this poor
virgin, though destitute of all human help, nay very often op-
posed by the great ones of this world, was yet able to estab-
lish thirty*two monasteries/'
In making these foundations, she was in almost every case
forced to defend herself against powerful and numerous ene-
mies. Her holy purposes were maligned, her friends were per-
secuted, she herself was sometimes in danger of even bodily
harm. We constantly behold her struggling in what was,human.
ly speaking, a hopeless effort to introduce into a town a body
of holy women who, for God's love, would voluntarily live on
alms, keep holy silence, fast, and pray. But she struggled on un-
dauntedly ; now with the wild passions of the townspeople, now
with the jealousy of other communities or the dark suspicions
of prelates, again hindered by the coldness of associates or
half-heartedness of friends, sometimes held back even by the
timidity of her confessors — brave men enough, but appalled at
the obstacles which she so fearlessly faced. Again, every effort
is for a time paralized by excommunications and interdicts or
other such restrictions of bishops, the generals of the order,
and even papal nuncios, resulting practically in her occasional
imprisonment in monasteries.)
Yet this woman, though so valiant, was never disobedient.
In reading her own calm narrative of all the important occur-
rences of her life, one says instinctively, never was any saint
called on by God to obey so many unlawful superiors ; so many
lawful superiors quite misinformed, often enough totally stam-
peded by the basest calumnies; or again far transgressing their
canonical limits of authority. Yet she responded with entire
compliance in every case, submitting sadly but fully to usurpa-
tion, just as she did joyfully to legitimate guidance. Fools in
high places received her allegiance as well as the wise
in Spain; she obeyed scoundrels as promptly as saints,
ing many years she was led by an interior guidance so
divine that she solemnly and repeatedly affirms that she
have cheerfully died to witness its validity. Yet when a
holding authority over her in the external order, cross
divine will thus made known to her, she never faltered
dience to the representatives of God's outward rule,
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638 St. Teresa [Aug.,
sometimes she felt a pain in doing so that threatened to be
her death.
As in her practice so in her precepts, she advances the es-
sential need of this virtue of obedience, so renowned in the
little commonwealths of absorbed prayer and sacrificial suffer-
ing she was engaged .in founding. The following words, taken
from the fifth chapter of the Book of Foundations^ and addressed
to all of her nuns, may be a description of her own struggles,
while emphasizing in practise the supreme dogma of obedience :
*' Our Lord makes much of this submission, and with perfect
justice; for it is by means of it that we make Him master of
the free-will He has given us. We practise it sometimes quick-
ly and completely, thereby winning an immediate self-conquest;
at other times it is only after a thousand struggles that we
succeed, constantly thinking that the decisions made by supe-
riors in our case are nothing but folly. But finally, being drilled
and practised by this painful exercise, we conform to what is
commanded — painfully or not, we do it Upon this our Lord,
having helped us all the time, now seeing that we submit our
will and our reason for His sake, gives us the grace to become
masters of both.'' The uses and the philosophy of obedience
could hardly be better stated. *
The most cursory acquaintance with our saint reveals, as
we have shown, a nature impulsive indeed but not headlong,
a steadfast soul, full of initiative, yet by obedience made pru-
dent to the verge of caution. But once set agoing by the
instincts of zeal, it bore down opposition by the force of
holiness of motive and an extraordinary power of persuasion.
All through her Book of Foundations^ as well as in her Lift
and Letters^ she shows that her resistless will to do right was
wholly adjusted to the strictest obedience. Men and women
conscious of a great mission (or of a little one they think to
be great) will find in her a perfect illustration of how obe-
dience does not hinder individuality, but, on the contrary, only
tames the soul's wildness, chastens its pride, purges it of lower
motives, enriches it with the counsel of good, wise, and peace-
able advisers, and hinders both precipitancy and tardiness.
While constantly checking self-conceit, obedience blesses and
adorns a strong nature's activity with the supreme merit of
humility. '' Experience has shown me " — mark these words,
the very first in her prologue to the Book of Foundations —
''not to mention what I have read in many places, what a
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I9IO.] St. Teresa 639
great blessing it is for a soul never to withdraw from under
obedience. Herein lie, in my opinion, growth in goodness and .
the gaining of humility. Herein lies our security amidst the
doubts that arise whether or not we are straying from the
heavenly road. . . . The divine majesty in His goodness
has given me light to see the great treasure hidden in this
priceless virtue.'' After the death of her countryman, St.
Ignatius, our saint was the most aggressive spirit of her age —
and also the most obedient. Notice that the end of her life
was almost coincident with the beginning of that of St. Vin-
cent de Paul, whose personal initiative was so great that
princes and peasants, courts and armies and senates yielded to
him as to an imperial master; and yet who seemed to be — and
indeed in a sense really was — the gentlest and most yielding
of human beings. To read but one side of the lives of these
three great workers for God, Ignatius, Teresa, Vincent, one
would behold what seemed the very petrifaction of submissive-
ness; and yet the other side shows the successful planning and
successful executing of vast undertakings under incredible diffi-
culties, without the faintest lesion to the integrity of obedience.
Nor can the closest investigation detect where obedience ends
and personal decision begins in many of their greatest works.
So St Teresa always thinks for herself and yet is never
free from the sense of another's approval. One- half of her
outward history tells of the great works of God she both
originated and achieved; the other half is the narrative of her
dealings, most submissive, with every grade of superior. The
lesson is plain; it is that in religious affairs the perfection of
individual force is found in an activity springing from interior
guidance subject to external regulation, both equally divine.
No zeal is God's gift, except it shows itself faithful to the inner
light of His grace, and equally faithful to the outer rule of
His discipline in Holy Church.
One is at a loss to decide whether such virtues as courage
and constancy are more plainly St. Teresa's characteristics than
conformity to lawful authority. If her obedience is magnifi-
cent, yet her fearlessness is often yet more magnificent. If a
model of obedience, yet is she a living lesson that a life of
perfection is not for the chicken-hearted. A saint is one who
has been taught by God how to mingle energy with patience,
initiative with obedience.
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A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA.
BY F. H. P.
T visitors to Rome know something of the Cam-
>agna, for they have presumably been out to
Ubano or to Frascati, and have thus caught a
[limpse of the great rolling waste which sur-
ounds Rome on three sides. But few really
know the Campagna, for although some chosen ones may have
gone out a good distance on the Appian way, not many venture
to take a real Campagna walk. And yet we dare to say that
until they have done so they miss one of the greatest charms
of Rome '' without the walls."
We had felt fascinated by the Campagna from the few
glimpses we caught from the train as we came down from
Civitk Vecchia; the wild wastes spreading away towards the
sea, the long lines of low hills, the arid expanses of sand, all
seemed to tell of a land unlike any we had seen before, and
we made up our minds that we would not leave Rome without
taking at least one good walk away from metalled roads — we
did not realize when we made this resolution that we should,
in a sense, keep it without any difficulty, for there are no
metalled roads in the true sense of the term in Rome or its
neighborhood.
We ventured to broach the subject of this walk one day,
but were met with a whole string of objections. No one ever
dreamed of doing such a mad thing I What on earth was the
good of it? We should certainly be eaten up by the fearful
Campagna dogs, of whom terrible tales were told us. One in-
formant had even beard — though he was not inclined to believe
it — that there were wild buffaloes to be met with in some por-
tions of the Campagna I And, lastly, we were told that if we
escaped all these terrors we should certainly fall into the hands
of the Campagna shepherds, who were notorious bandits. To
tell the truth these ** travelers' tales '' only had the effect of
whetting our curiosity, and we were now determined to go on
a voyage of discovery. The first proceeding was to buy a re-
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I9IO,] A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 64I
liable map. And here, as so often in Rome, we drew a blank
at the outset. We were shown by one of the biggest book-
sellers in the city a poor map which took in hardly anything
of the parts we most wanted to see, and when we demurred,
and asked if there was nothing better, we were solemnly told
that nothing else existed, that no one ever wanted to go into
the Campagna, etc., etc. We were beginning to know some-
thing of Roman ways, however, and proceeded to another
shop. Herfe we found exactly what we wanted, a full and de-
tailed map with brooks and watercourses, etc., marked, and to
our huge joy we discovered written across a compartment of
the Southern Campagna the words : ^* Procojo dei BufalV* So
there actually were buffaloes there after all.
A few days afterwards saw us on our way to the Trastevere
Station. An attempt at Charing Cross in a wilderness is the
only description we can give of this would-be magnificent en-
terprise. It is a relic of the desire to make of Rome a mighty
commercial city, and it lies there now as a solemn warning to
posterity. We found that a train left in a short time for Fiumi-
cino, a spot on the coast a little to the north of the mouth
of the Tiber. We got into a third-class carriage and found
ourselves in the company of sundry strangely-attired figures
armed with long fowling pieces which looked for all the world
as though they dated from the flood ; dogs and hair-knapsacks
completed their kit, and we learnt that they were going down
to the marshes to shoot wild- fowl. We ventured to make in-
quiries about one of the fowling-pieces, and were not aston-
ished to find that it had formerly belonged to one of Fio Nono's
soldiers, and that it had seen service in Abyssinia ; and, added
its possessor with an air of pride, it does shoot straight I
The train, wonderful to relate, started punctually, and in
an hour we were at our destination. Most of the sportsmen
had got out at earlier stations on the way, but a few passengers
still remained, they had come down from Rome to get a whiff
of the sea. We walked along the quay, peeping into the
church on our way. It looked for all the world as though it
had been transplanted from Belgium, a thorough village church,
with its gaudy shrines, its St. Antony, and its Madonna, be-
decked with flowers, and its tinsel ornaments on the altars.
Still it was ''the house of God," and perhaps the inhabitants
thought it a work of art, though more probably they never
VOL. XCI.-*4X
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642 A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA [Aug.,
gave that point a thought, but looked upon their church as a
place of prayer where they had been baptized, where they heard
Mass, where they received the Sacraments, and whither they
would one day be brought on their way to the cemetery.
We wanted to make our way up the coast a little, so we
went to the very edge where the tiny waves were breaking.
This was the only place where the sand was solid enough to
make walking possible; but when we were out of sight of the
people on the shore near the village we took off our shoes and
stockings and walked in the sea itself. It was a most delight-
ful mode of progression, as the sea-beaten sand was firm and
the water both cooled and hardened our feet. As we had a
long walk before us this latter point was of importance. It
was glorious, that view of the Mediterranean. The sea of the
deepest blue, the sky to match; while a barque standing out
to sea with all sail set, and a few small fishing smacks closer
in, completed the picture. Meanwhile the sun grew hotter and
we bethought ourselves of a swim. Truth to tell, the idea of
a swim in March had never struck us, but when we noticed
how warm the water was we felt it would be wrong to miss so
golden an opportunity, and in we went.
We emerged like giants refreshed and, after a short time
spent in consuming part of our provisions, we turned inland.
Here swamp succeeded swamp and our progress was propro*
tionately slow. Huge locusts sprang from the bushes as we
fought our way through the undergrowth ; butterflies were
everywhere — they were presumably all hibernated specimens
which were enjoying the sun. In the pools were countless
frogs which plopped into the water with extraordinary agility,
80 that for a long time we almost persuaded ourselves that
they were lizards, though how these latter could survive the
water we could not understand. At last, however, we caught
a distinct view of a frog as it leapt from the bank into the
water; it sank like a stone and there was no sign of its pres-
ence save a few bubbles. These frogs seemed to be of a differ-
ent species from any we had hitherto observed, they were striped
all down the back and were extraordinarily agile, so that one
had little or no chance of getting a clear view of them before
they were in the water and hidden in the weeds at the bottom.
It was hard work struggling across this sandy waste, as at
every turn we were forced to retrace our steps in order to
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I9IO.] A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 643
avoid a swamp. Cattle tracks — the buffaloes' we hoped — were
everywhere, but these beasts could go through swamps which
were impassable to us. More than ooce we had to remove our
shoes and stockings, and one member of the party, who wore
boots, found this a serious inconvenience. At length we came
to a road bordering one of the irrigation canals and we went
along this for some way, as the swamps had thrown us out of
our course considerably. On starting from the shore we had
singled out a scar in the distant hills as a mark to be aimed at,
and this was very necessary in a place where there was little
hope of meeting a friendly native to tell us the way. We had
no compass, but used our watches instead. There is a very
useful trick which, as it may not be known to some, we men-
tion here : if in default of a compass you take your watch and
point the hour-hand to the sun, then half-way between the
hour-hand and twelve marks the south — if it be before midday
you must work forwards, if it be afternoon you must work back-
wards. Thus, if it be 10 o'clock in the morning 1 1 on the dial
will indicate the south; if, however, it be 4 o'clock 2 on the
dial will point to the south. This simple device stood us in
good stead during the long walk of that day.
We had been much struck by the absence of bird life so
far, but shortly after 12 o'clock we came to some ploughed
land and here the birds were much in evidence. Kites sailed ma-
jestically through the air, and the sunlight played marvelously on
their wings, bringing out into clear relief the peculiar burnished
brown which is so striking a feature of these birds. As they
turned in the air the white wing-coverts shone and gleamed,
while their forked tails served them as steering gear. It is
always a treat to the bird-lover to watch a hawk on the wing,
but the sight of a kite has in it something far more satisfying.
He is so large, so graceful, his wings have such a spread, his
tail is so large and so graceful, his huge circles in the air are
so fascinating, and his varying colors as he wheels round are so
wonderfully displayed, that one would far sooner watch one of
these glorious birds than any hawk. On the ploughed land a
bird of the wheat- ear species was very conspicuous. The
patches of white made him easily visible and his habit of
mounting on the rails of the neighboring fences, or on any
hillock which suited him, made it easy to observe him even
without the aid of the binocular.
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644 A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA [Aug.,
We walked across the ploughed land to gain a good look
at the huge Campagna oxen which were yoked to the plough
and which moved in dignified ease as the share broke up the
soil. What majestic creatures these oxen arel Nothing seems
to disturb them; their mild eyes gaze at the stranger, their
huge ears twitch with curiosity, but they move on unperturbed.
The Campagna soil is heavy, and the roots of a bulbous plant
spread everywhere and cause much difficulty to the plough.
There were three ploughs at work in this part ; the furrow was
fairly deep and the oxen had to pull hard, but they never
looked as though they were really working, for their strength
is enormous. They pull of course from the neck like all cat-
tle, and not from the chest as do horses.
There is hardly a more picturesque sight than that of these
Campagna oxen pulling steadily at the plough. They are
yoked in pairs, and here there were four pairs to each plough.
When you stand behind the plough the four pairs of huge
horns waving to-and*fro form a very curious picture. The
marvel is that the cattle do not prod one another as they
struggle with the plough ; but they never seem to do so. The
cultivation of the Campagna is progressing rapidly, and it was
good to see large portions of it being turned up by the plough.
Its irrigation, too, is admirably carried out, and if only the
inhabitants chose they could undoubtedly raise many fine
crops here.
We now struck further inland and the soil got firmer as
we went. A glance at the map showed us that we had no
hope of seeing the buffalo, for the spots marked ** Procojo dei
BufalV* were much too far to the north and we had our work
cut out for us to get back to Rome by 8 o'clock in the even-
ing. Presently we came to a broad irrigation canal. Two gulls
were busy feeding in it and we stalked them for some time in
the hope of being able to determine to what species they be-
longed, but they were too wily for us and fiew away before we
could get near them. Meanwhile we had not lost sight of our
landmark — the scar on the hillside; indeed, if we had not
singled it out when starting we should certainly have got into
difficulties long before. It stood out plain now, and we turned
eastwards towards it We had noticed a long line of fences
at a distance, and as our road lay in that direction we made
for them in the hope that they marked a bridge which would
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19 lO.] A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 645
carry us over one of the innucnerable irrigation canals which
intersect the country; we had had enough of taking off our
shoes and stockings.
As we approached the railing we saw dull, chocolate-
brown figures moving about ; they were certainly cattle and at
first we paid no attention to them. But suddenly one of them
lifted its head and we ejaculated '' Buffaloes f Though far
away from the district marked on the map, they were indeed
a herd of buffaloes. As far as we could see the huge beasts
were scattered over the plain ; they were feeding quietly enough
and we went up to the double fence which at this point separ-
ated them from the wild part of the Campagna whence we
had come. As we leant against the fence the nearest beast
got wind of us and lifted his ugly head and sniffed ! We felt
safe where we were, but we realized that unless we wanted to
go a very long way round we must make our way through
the midst of the herd 1
Right across the ground on which the buffalo were feed*
ing there ran a narrow ditch full of water with a weak fence
on either side sloping almost over the water. We noted that
inside this fence there ran a narrow path near the water's
edge. If we could gain that path we should not be so con-
spicuous to the beasts feeding above us, and if one of them
did take it into his head to charge we could at a pinch get
into the water, though that was no inviting prospect, as it was
very filthy and we had a long walk before us. We started
down the fence-line and passed the first buffalo on our left
without difficulty. The frogs kept plashing into the water as
we went, and in the interest of trying to determine their
species we almost forgot the beasts above us. After a while
we came into close proximity with a buffalo to our windward.
As we got within his range he lifted his hideous head and
sniffed ominously. If he had charged we were done for, as
there was nothing in the shape of shelter save the ditch in
which we were, and this would probably have proved no ob-
stacle to an angry buffalo. We held our breath, but steadily
pursued our way, pretending not to notice his uneasiness. But
our hearts leapt to our mouths when he seemed to make up
his mind that we really were ''undesirables,'' and then made
one rapid step forward. He stopped, however, as suddenly as
he had moved forward, and, to our inexpressible relief, re-
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646 A WALK Across the Campagna [Aug.,
sumed his grazing. We stole alongi edging away to our left
so as not to annoy him by the smell of '' humans '' more than
we could help.
After a time we came in sight of a man with a dog. This
reassured us, and we made towards them. The man seemed as-
tonished to see us, and when we asked him in our poor Ital-
ian whether the buffalo were dangerous he said: ''Yes; if I
I were not with you.'' We thought at the time that this was
an exaggeration, especially as we had now got beyond all the
herd. But we felt rather uncomfortable when our new friend
informed us that we could not go to the righti as we had in-
tended, but must turn to the left and pass through another
herd, for the land on the right was all swamp. We followed
in his wake and he kept up a runnings fire of remarks, most
oi which were unintelligible to us. We made out, however,
that all the buffaloes within sight were cows — we had counted
ninety of them — that the bulls were higher up, and that the
calves were in a separate enclosure. Just at that moment we
had to pass very close to four or five cows; they tossed up
their heads and came menacingly towards us. It was an un-
comfortable moment, as the ground on which we stood — though
well enough for a mud-larking buffalo-^was too much of a
quagmire for us to do more than pick our way with delibera-
tion. However the guide poured out a rapid volley of exple-
tives at them, and they did not come any nearer.
For the next quarter of an hour we were occupied in sav-
ing ourselves from a marshy death, but at the end of that
time we found ourselves on solid ground. We thanked our
guide and then asked him whether there was an osteria any-
where within easy reach, as we were thirsty. To our delight
he pointed to a little cottage near-by, and told us he would
take us there and we would be well provided for. We went
in and were shown upstairs into a little room where three
young girls were seated with an old man— presumably their
father. They brought out the wine at once, but were not at
all satisfied when we refused a second glass. We tried to ex-
plain that we had a long walk before us and dared not take
too much. Neither would they accept any payment— indeed,
they made us feel that we ought not to have offered it.
While we were drinking our wine the men amused themselves
by guessing our ages and we returned the compliment; we
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I9IO.] A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA 647
found to our astonishment that our recent guide, who was
agility itself, was over sixty- two years of age. We left them
bowing and making expressions of gratitude for our visit.
How spontaneous and natural is the hospitality of these rough
and untutored natives of the Campagna! And yet some of
them do not bear too good a character for honesty, and per-
haps if one met them at a late hour of the night one might
find oneself relieved of one's purse !
We now scrambled up on to the low- lying hills which
separate the flat from the higher portion of the Campagna.
It is remarkable how these two parts differ; the one is fiat,
sandy, divided up by marshes, monotonous, and untenanted
save by our friends, the buffaloes. The other is hilly, undu-
lating, broken up into fertile valleys, and tenanted by herds
of Campagna cattle, such as those we had seen engaged in
ploughing, and by immense fiocks of sheep. Our way took us
across a series of valleys which necessitated a constant mount-
ing and descending of the alternate fianks. It was hard work,
but interesting from its novelty. Later on in the day, at the
top of one rise, we saw the dome of St. Peter's. It stood out
in all its majesty even at that distance — it was twelve miles
away. Indeed, so near did it seem that we almost began to
doubt the map which indicated its true distance. We felt sure
it could not be more than four miles awayl We were des-
tined, however, to learn in the most practical way that it was
fully twelve miles distant, for our weary feet, in spite of the
sea*bath of the morning, were going to be very sore ere we
got home that night.
After some considerable walking we had come to a stream
called the Galera. It was a fine mountain-stream which went
brawling along, cutting a deep channel as it went and showing
by its deeply indented banks that in flood-time it carried a
large volume of water. We had to remove our shoes and
stockings once more, but it was worth while, if only for the
delightful coolness of the water which went gurgling round
our legs and refreshed us much. It was shortly after this that
we had our first view of the dome of St. Peter's and until
nightfall it was always within sight.
On the map a road is marked leading from a bridge across
the Galera, but we had struck this river too high up to make
it worth while to go down to the bridge and we had in con-
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648 A WALK ACROSS THE CAMPAGNA [Aug.
sequence missed the road. We were glad of this, however, as
we immeasurably preferred the free walking over the rolling
Campagna. All about were huge flocks of sheep and at one
spot we had rather an unpleasant time. We had come across
a ewe with a new born lamb. She courageously came towards
«is, bleating as she did so, when suddenly there came a hoarse
bark, and one of the dreaded Campagna dogs came bounding
down the hillside at us. We had one stick — a formidable one
it is true — and one of us had shortly before picked up a use-
ful stone. The dog rushed up and we felt sure he would at-
tack us. But, though he kept growling and showing a most
unpleasant set of teeth, he made no more hostile demonstra-
tion. Presently he trotted off and we began to breathe more
freely and congratulate ourselves on the nerve we had shown.
All of a sudden, however, he was back again and seemed
in a more determinedly hostile mood than before. We walked
stolidly on, pretending we were hardly conscious of his pres-
ence, but all the same heartily desirous of his absence; at last
his attentions became too wearisome and I stooped down to
pick up an imaginary stone. It seemed rather a rash thing to
do as he might have flown at us, but what was our astonish-
ment when he at once took to his heels with his tail between
his legs. We had been told that this would be the case, but
had hardly credited it, as these dogs seem so fierce and are
so very large that a mere stone would seem the most ineffec-
tual weapon against them. However it was a relief to see his
rapidly retreating form and we pursued our interrupted way
in peace.
After a time we came to a really beautiful stream which
formed quite deep pools one above the other. The map in-
formed us that it was the Maglianella. It offered the most
tempting chance for another bath, but we could ill afford the
time as it was getting dusk and we wanted to be well off the
Camoagna by nightfall. We struck up towards the north,
fore, and soon found ourselves on the Via Aurelia. From
point we had a weary trudge of five miles into Rome,
glad we were to sit down and remove our shoes our
rs may well guess when we say that we had covered
' miles.
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AN EPISODE IN COSTA RICA.
BY JOHN ARMSTRONG HERMAN.
|HEY told me he was the oldest man on Irasu and
that from his eyrie he looked down upon Car-
tagOy the ancient capital of Costa Rica — a town
founded in 1543 — and on the great valley which
Nature has made an earthly paradise.
My legal work was done. Certain dusty Spanish records
had been read and translated. Certain colonial and post-
colonial statutes had been considered as bearing upon an an-
cient title. Now it was time to play. The fates decreed that
the beginning of my sweet-do- nothing- time in the little repub-
lic, northwest of Panama, would be a visit to the Old Man of
the Mountain.
Irasu I It is one of the beautiful mountains of the world.
It has been terrible in its time, but it is slumbering now,
slumbering ever since it destroyed a former Cartago in 1841.
It was the morning of a September day when I turned my
horse's head from the Hotel Cartago, where I had spent the
night, towards Angulo's eyrie. If you are on pleasure or
recreation bent in Costa Rica you go on horseback — Paseos a
Caballo they call it. The carteras — cart roads — are not used
for light vehicles, and men, women, and children walk or ride.
It would be unnecessary in Cartago to say that the morn-
ing was perfect. All mornings in Cartago are perfect in Sep-
tember. It is the rainy season, which means the rain begins
to fall at three o'clock in the afternoon — sometimes the rain-
fall is torrential — and it stops about seven o'clock in the
evening. At five thousand feet above the sea level the equa-
torial sun is not oppressive, the trade winds play on Irasu's
shoulders, the flora, in which Costa Rica is singularly rich, has
been refreshed and reinvigorated by the downpour of the pre-
vious afternoon, and the intense glare of the sun discovers to
the eyes of the early equestrian thousands of raindrops on the
tropical foliage, raindrops that glitter prismatically as they die.
It is difficult to be moderate in a description of the scenery
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6SO AN EPISODE IN COSTA RiCA [Aug.,
and tropical beauty of Costa Rica if the witcheries of Nature
find echo in the blood. Long ago I had read Anthony
TroUope's song of praise of this tropic Switzerland and its
courteous denizens. Thomas F. Meagher, in 1859, closed a
series of brilliant articles on Costa Rica with this invocation :
''Oh, may that Providence, typified by the vast mountain
Irasu which overshadows it, and which has long since quenched
its fires and become a glory instead of a terror to the scene,
protect Costa Rica to the end of time/' Elisee Reclus grows
eloquent over the fertility of the soil and the salubrity of the
climate, and Wilhelm Marr, in Riise Nach^ Central America^
published in Hamburg, generalizes somewhat extravagantly
about Costa Rica in this vein: ''No one can imagine a coun-
try more beautiful than this. This perfect climate does not
permit the development of impassioned thoughts or turbulent
passions. This air, this nature, are as balsam to the life over-
whelmed with activity and pleasure.'* So that in his deep
appreciation of this land of the sun the German author may
not have been judicial.
The summit of Irasu is about twelve thousand feet above
the level of the sea, and therefore about seven thousand feet
above Cartago, where I had spent the night. The crater of
the mountain is almost directly north of Cartago, but for a
mile or two the ascent is most gradual. My way first led
past the station of the railroad and by a pretty little plaza
where stands the statue of Don J&sus Jemenez, father of the
President elect of Costa Rica. The statue was erected by
public subscription and the inscription on the stone base of
the statue informs the passerby that this honor was due Don
J&sus Jem&nez, because he had been a good and faithful Pres-
ident of the Republic. Beyond the plaza the road leads
through the straggling suburbs of the town. Flowing water
courses through open aqueducts in the streets of Cartago, and
my way for a mile or so followed up one of the streams that
hurries from Irasu to the ancient capital. In the suburbs the
small adobe houses were frequently embowered in luxuriant,
semi-tropical verdure, and in gardens, the ginger plant, the
wormwood, the camomile, and other medicinal plants grew,
and the mango, the aguacate, the lime, the orange, and other
fruit trees were as grateful to the eye as their fruit is grate-
ful to the palate. Costa Rica has few indigenous roses, but
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I9IO.] An Episode in Costa Rica 6s i
from the ends of the earth they have been brought here to
bloom and flourish. But it is a land of almost perennial
blossoms, and there are sixty varieties of humming birds that
live on the nectar of Costa Rica's flowers. As I journeyed
further into the country great shrubberies lined the road, and
humming birds often flashed before me like a ray of green or
blue or ruddy light, for they are of many hues.
Let no man who has not some knowledge of the Spanish
language try to travel the serpentine mountain roads of Costa
Rica without a guide. Time and again it was necessary for
me to appeal at cross-roads for information, and time and
again it was most courteously given. A peon went to the
trouble to trace with his fingers on the sand on the road a
route map for me, and every one had a ** Buenos Diaz^ Cabals
lero!* for the traveler from the Northland. Women were wash-
ing clothes in the streams. Men and women were hurrying
towards Cartago with fruits and vegetables, some on foot and
some on horseback. Many of the people I passed were mestizos.
Some were of pure Spanish blood and some of native race,
but all alike seemed to know Angulo, and one informant told
me of his altar to the Virgin, and of his vista of the rich,
rain-drenched, and sunkissed valley of Guaco, and of Orosi
farther southward. Orosi where streams are born and where
the banana of the lowlands and the coffee and orange of the
uplands flourish together.
As I traveled farther away from Cartago the road became
steeper, the last vestige of the suburbs disappeared, and I
was in the country, a land of large estates. As we climbed
higher and higher the sun shone more brilliantly and my
patient little horse would stop now and then, ostensibly to
take a long breath, but in reality to clip the grass or herbage
by the wayside. The semi-tropical flora began to disappear
and I was entering the zone of the Indian maize that was
now in tassel. Then came pasture lands, where the great red
cattle of Costa Rica were grazing on the hills — hills rising one
ab3ve the other towards Irasu's crater — and then on a com-
manding point I stopped.
Cartago was below me now, its light and straw-colored
houses flooded with tropical sunlight vividly outlined in its
deep green setting. Further south were the Cerros de las
Cruces (the Mountains of the Crosses), and at the south of the
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6s 2 AN EPISODE IN COSTA RICA [Aug.,
Crosses, Orosi, and in the midst of Orosi, a white band. The
white band was the turbulent beginning of the Reventazon, a
river that is ever in head-long haste to reach the sea of the
Antilles. Above me was the village of Tierra Blanca, eight
thousand feet above the sea, for I was taking a round-about
way to Angulo's — the longer the better, for the way was beau-
tiful. The primitive forest in the great valley and on Irasu's
shoulders had long ago disappeared and my view was un-
obstructed, while white, lace-like clouds above me, now touch-
ing the pasture lands here and now the corn tassels, were
noiselessly flying along the mountain side, driven by the trade
winds. There was elixer in the air and sunlight. Indescribable
color — hues opalescent, green, olive — bathed the distant Moun-
tains of the Crosses. So Santiago, my pony, and I, crossed
another hurrying stream and won ever steeper hills outlined
by ever deeper glens, until we came to the straggling village
of Tierra Blanca.
It is a hamlet of a simple life, a very Arcadia where spring
is almost perennial and, for all that Santiago and I might know,
eternal. The houses were lost in foliage. The peach tree and
the quince tree blossom and bear fruit at this altitude and I
recognized in the gardens the tuber that has helped to solve
the starch problem, and other vegetables of the temperate zone.
The natives call the climate ftio (cold) and saledoso (healthful),
so after all there was a good scientific reason why there should
be an Old Man of the Mountain. The children scurried away
from the man of the Northland. With the exception of the
tourist who once in a while visits the crater of Irasu, people
of the North are seldom seen in the village, and the unknown
is sometimes viewed with suspicion. I had lingered long at
outlooks from coigns of vantage on my way and it was ap-
proaching noon. From men and women came the same
'' Buenos Bias, Senor^** with a glance at the sun, for after mid-
day the expression changes as it does in English- speaking
lands. It was difficult to believe that the village had five hun-
dred inhabitants, as is claimed. The houses were scattered and
lost amidst the orchards and dense shrubberies and the site of
the town is a jumble of great hills and deep glens. As I
traversed the village I was ever discovering houses where I
had least expected to see them — now hid in a glen, now lost
in an orchard.
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I9IO.] An Episode in Costa Rica 653
The home of the nonagenarian was a thousand feet below
Tierra Blanca, and was on the direct road between Tierra
Blanca and Cartago. It was a more traveled highway than the
route I had taken to Tierra Blanca. People were returning
from Cartago and people were going to Cartago. Patient^
poverfuly and obedient oxen were struggling up the hills with
heavy loads. Other oxen with as great travail were holding
back heavily laden carts on the down grade. The trade winds
were fresh and brisk at this altitude, the humming birds less
frequent, the racing brooks more garrulous, and the view ex-
tensive and magnificent. Dark clouds were beginning to gather
over the distant Mountains of the Crosses and over the crater
of Irasu. People on foot and people on horseback, good-
natured and smiling, added a human interest to the scene.
My horse was going down hill now and homewards, and it
seemed but a short time after I left Tierra Blanca when we
arrived at the broad open doorway of Pastor Angulo's home.
His was a modest home. A small abobe house sheltered
the patriarch. The estate was a small one and near the house
a brook — there are brooks and brooks during the rainy sea-
son on Irasu — rushed headlong away. The front of the house
faced the valley and the roof extended an unusual width be-
yond the front of the house. The residence stood near the
highway, and as I rode into the front yard my horse, knowing
the customs of the country better than I did, trotted towards
the broad open doorway and stopped only when his head was
within the doorway. Almost before I was aware of it, my lit-
tle horse was inspecting the interior. As I apologized Angulo
answered that the sheltering roof was for the protection of
horse and man from the mid-day tropical sun and I was in-
vited to enter.
So I alighted and walked into a good sized room, where I
saw a large man sitting in a massive chair by an altar to the
Virgin. He would hear of no apology from me for invading
the sanctity of his home.
" I am glad " {nu gusta mucho) " to see you," he said in
Spanish, and motioned to me to draw a chair beside him and
sit down. He told me it was his {fllmuerzo) breakfast time and
invited me to join him. All in the polite Spanish language.
Then it was that I saw that my host's lower limbs were help-
less, for he made no attempt to rise from the chair in which
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654 ^N EPISODE IN COSTA RiCA [Aug.,
he sat, nor did he rise or attempt to stand upright daring the
hour I was by his side. His widowed daughter, and his grand-
children, one of eight years, and the other of twelre years of
age, brought us tortillas, warm milk, coffee, and eggs. While
we ate I answered many questions about the great republic of
the North and its cities and its intense activity, so different
from the quiet life on the breast of slumbering Irasu. In the
midst of breakfast Angulo's middle-aged sons came in from the
field where they had been at work, and the [questions were
multiplied, the] little Spanish girls mustering courage to ask
about the boys and girls of the visitor's land so far away.
As I tried to satisfy my questioners, I was lost in wonder
because of the altar to the Virgin. It occupied the entire
side of the room opposite to the entrance and was to my left
as I sat at table. It was carefully if crudely constructed. In
the centre stood the image of the Virgin, the head of the
image almost touching the ceiling. Artificial flowers, Ave
Marias in golden letters, the creed in artistic letters, and elabo-
rately illustrated commandments of God, adorned and beauti-
fied the altar. Some ef the objects were attached to the
altar by nails and others were supported on elaborate brack-
ets. There were illustrations in color of the sacraments of the
Sacred Mother Church (Sacra Madre Iglesia). It was a richly
embellished altar — not rich in the usual sense, but rich in its
many adornments that told of the reverent work of Pastor
Angulo or of the reverent work of loving hands for him.
Nothing in that modest home was half so fine. In its wealth
of ornamentation the altar stood alone.
To my right I looked down through the broad doorway
upon Cartago where I could distinctly see the Church of La
Sefiora de las Angelos, Orosi the land of cascades, the Moun-
tains of the Crosses; all wondrously beautiful — a seeming
paradise. Angulo read my thoughts. He spoke in the Span-
ish language a thought which might be translated with these
words :
'^The view of the valley gives me a picture of an earthly
paradise, and when I turn to my. altar through it and beyond
it I have a view of the celestial Paradise. Should I not be a
happy man ? '*
As I was about to frame an answer the two middle-aged
bachelor sons arose to go out again to work on the mountain
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I9I0.] An Episode in Costa Rica 655
side, aod one of the little granddaughters rushed in with a
handful of blossoms for the man from the Northland. It was
very plain to me why her grandfather was so cheery and
happy. He had dutiful sons, a filial daughter, gracious and
sweet grandchildren, and profound faith in a happy future.
So that the deepening twilight of a long, long life was roseate
and joyous.
But the time had come to go and the visitor tried to ex-
press in proper phrase his gratitude and appreciation for the
kindness he had received. How could I thank the little Se-
fiorita for her blossoms? A happy thought came to me. I
had in my card-case a tiny starred and striped flag. Momen-
tarily I had forgotten that a hotly contested election had just
been held in this distant land and did not understand the child
when she stepped back without accepting my gift A slight
cloud passed over Angulo's face.
"Take it Rosililla. The gentleman means it in all kind-
ness," he said.
" And is it not true, Sefior, that your country will send an
army to take our cities?'' she asked.
I could have given many negative answers to a grown-up
person, but to a child it was different. So I told the little
girl that in my land there was room for untold millions of
people. That we only wished her peaceful land prosperity,
and that it had made me happy to see the little boys and
girls of Costa Rica love and worship the beautiful striped
Costa Rtcan flag as deeply as the boys and girls in the far-
away land loved and*worshiped the stars and stripes.
In that hospitable environment an hour had fled. Then
they brought Santiago, who had breakfasted too. As I left I
saw Angulo touch his forehead, lips, and breast with his fin-
ger tips, while he made the sign of the Cross each time— and
repeated words that were an appeal that he might think no
evil thoughts, speak no evil words, and do no evil deeds. I
distinctly heard the Spanish words: males pensamientos^ malas
palabras^ and malas obras.
I felt sure that he thought no evil thoughts, spoke no evil
words, and did no evil deeds.
As I rode away the little Sefiorita's words ** Hasta la vista^^
(come again) were ringing in my ears.
During that hour's rest in the abode of the Old Man of
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6S6 AN EPISODE IN COSTA BlCA [Aug.
the Mountain Nature had wrought a stupendous transformation
scene on the towering peak of Irasu. How Nature dwarfs the
mimic transformation scenes of the theatre's stage I Instead of
the white, lace-like shreds of clouds, that at great intervals
had been racing across the crater and breast of Irasu, dense,
black, impenetrable clouds thousands of feet in depth now
mantled the mighty crest, almost extending to Tierra Blanca,
a thousand feet above me. Southward, far across the valley»
I had seen from Angulo's doorway the marshaling clouds
growing in great throngs over the Mountains of the Crosses,
until the clouds were an ebon mass, illuminated now and then
by the far-away lightning's glow — but Irasu's summit to the
north had been invisible.
Already from the summit of the Cerros de las Cruces, and
from the summit of Irasu, Thor, fabled ruler of the world of
mists, was sending out clouds in companies, battalions, and
regiments towards the valley, and I knew that in an hour or
two the plain, now drenched in sunlight, would be drenched
in rain.
I had often wondered at the precision and clock-like cer-
tainty of the downpour every afternoon, and often watched
the gradual and sure effacement of the deep blue tropical sky
that canopied the valley of Guato by the approaching mists —
and now it would be repeated. But I knew there was ample
time to reach the inn at Cartago.
So Santiago had his way, as he nibbled grass here and a
young twig there, as we came down the mountain side, while
the shadows of a whole division of clouds began to blot out
the sunlight. It was almost three o'clock when we passed
again the plaza where stands the statue of Don Jisus Jem^nez
in Cartago.
The first great drops of rain dashed themselves into liquid
fragments on the hard stone floor of the patio of the hotel, as
I sought the shelter of my room. An hour before I reached
the inn, Tierra Blanca and the eyrie of Angulo had been en-
gulfed in a trade-wind driven flow of seething clouds.
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AMERICAN HISTORY IN ROMAN ARCHIVES.
BY CARL RUSSELL FISH.*
^HEN I informed people in Rome that I had come
there upon a mission to search for materials for
American history, I was met nearly always with
a smile of polite incredulity, from which they
recovered with the illuminating suggestion that I
might possibly find something on Columbus. As a matter of
fact, there is probably nothing on Columbus that was not made
public at the time of the four- hundredth anniversary celebra-
tion ; while the American material grows increasingly abundant
and important the more nearly we approach our own times.
The most interesting material for the sixteenth century is
found in the Nunciature, or collections of the diplomatic corre-
spondence of the Holy See. These collections were once widely
dispersed, as they were held to be the private property of the
successive Secretaries of State, and were by them incorporated
in their family archives. The more important, however, have
now been brought together in the Vatican; and while there
are still some collections unsecured, and gaps which no known
collection can fill, their bulk is so enormous that it will resist
publication and even calendaring for very many years to come.
From this correspondence, particularly that with Spain, one
gets an unequalled view of the great struggle of that century
for the control of the Atlantic ocean. The Roman court was
in the centre of the diplomatic situation, and tentacles of in*
terest ran out to every seafight and every colonizing plan
of English Protestants or French Huguenots. This interest was
not confined to a desire to keep au courant with the news.
The Spanish kings soon convinced the Holy See that extra-
ordinary efforts were necessary to defend their vast and scat-
tered empire, and received permission to levy special taxes on
ecclesiastics for that purpose. Any student of American history
* Research-Associate of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1908-1909, appointed to
examine Italian archives. ^
VOU XCI.^42
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6s8 American History in Roman Archives [Aug.,
might spend a few months profitably in reading these letters
and news sheets, even if he had no direct object in view, and
although the direct references to America form but a small pro-
portion of the whole.
This same material supplies, moreover, a great part of what
little we find at Rome on the history of the Church in Amer^
ica during this period. The original bull of Alexander VI.,
granting the Western Hemisphere to Ferdinand and Isabella,
gave them, also, most unusual ecclesiastical privileges. Not
only the ordinary patronage, but the whole direction of mis-
sionary enterprise, and the creation of an ecclesiastical system,
was left in their hands and those of their successors. These
privileges were strictly insisted upon by the Spanish govern-
ment, and therefore, instead of close and intimate accounts of
the Spanish explorations, the life of the Indians, and the strug*
gles of the early fathers, we have chiefly the negotiations be-
tween the Spanish government, and the nuncio at Madrid, who
was always striving and always failing to secure for the Church
a closer supervision over its new branches. Through these, in-
directly, one occasionally gets a glimpse of things in America.
After the first third of the seventeenth century the Nuncia^
iure decline in interest for the American student. The news
sheets contain even more about America, but their items are
not so unique. The general diplomatic correspondence becomes
less vital, as the centre of European conflict shifts from Spain to
France, which was much less closely bound to the Holy See.
The correspondence of the nuncios relating to missions, more-
over, ceased to be carried on with the department of state, but
was now done with the Propaganda.
The Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda was founded
in 1622 to secure a more effective control of missionary enter-
prise. Its powers extended to every part where there were
unconverted to be brought into the Church, but were more ex*
tensive in some regions than in others, and were particularly
wide in America. From the first it was active and business-
like; its archives were the best kept in Rome, and they con-
tain the bulk of the material for American history there, from
the date of its foundation to the present time.
The first use to be made of these records should be to study
the general organization and methods employed. The Propa-
ganda was not, of course, primarily a missionary agency, but
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I9I0.] AMERICAN HISTORY IN ROMAN ARCHIVES 659
was intended to supervise the various organizations engaged in
that work, to harmonize their efforts, and to keep them in touch
with the Holy See. Its policy of making its license necessary
to missionaries, and of granting to them and to bishops outside
of Europe, facolth or special powers, for limited periods with
the necessity of renewal, gave it control of all new missions and
gradually tightened its hold on the older ones. Its direction of
missionary education served the same end, and finally, by mak-
ing itself the medium of appeals to Rome, it came into contact
with the lay populations of America and many other parts of
the world.
Under these new conditions it was natural that still further
American material flowed into the papal archives. Even from
Spanish America came accounts of explorations, including one
particularly valuable narrative of the occupation of New Mexico
by Father Bonavides. The relations of the early English set-
tlements came mostly at second hand from the Blessed Father
Stock, and are more interesting than accurate. The news of
their success, reaching him in somewhat exaggerated form,
moved him to suggest, in 163 1, that the Church itself under-
take the foundation of a colony of Italians. The reports of
the French explorations came promptly, and were promptly
acted on, missionary undertakings being authorized in Louisi-
ana as early as 1684. These accounts are fairly full, and may
prove, on careful examination, to contain much material not
previously known to historians.
The social and even economic problems of America began
to find reflection in these archives even from the beginning.
One of the reasons for the desire to extend the influence of
the Holy See in America had been the hope of improving the
condition of the Indians, physically as well as spiritually, and
Propaganda was actively concerned in this matter. The ques-
tion of negro slavery began to attract its attention about 1660,
and problems arising out of it recur constantly, including
those produced by the abolitionist zeal of certain mission-
aries in Cuba. There are some interesting documents on the
slave trade, particularly concerning concessions made by the
Spanish government to the Dutch. The difficulties and methods
of ocean travel, the routes of transportation, and the whole
question of communication between Europe and America are
splendidly illustrated. Certain financial documents show direct-
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66o AMERICAN HISTORY IN ROMAN ARCHIVES [Aug.,
ly, aad the many requests from Canada for a diminution in the
number of feast days, indirectly, the poverty and the stress of
the frontier communities. Questions regarding matrimony were
largely left in the hands of the bishops, but those that did
come to Rome were the more complex and important From
the French West India islands, where there was only a vicar-
apostolic with facolta less extensive than those of a bishop,
came petitions for judgments or graces on a wider range of
subjects.
Many documents of the seventeenth century deal with the
attempts of Propaganda to reform the Spanish American
Church. During the long period of its growth, in the absence
of central control, there had developed many practices bad in
themselves and many deviations from the customs of the
Church. These included simony, the pursuit of trade by ec-
clesiastics, disorders, and misunderstandings of all kinds be-
tween bishops and regulars, and laxity in the enforcement of
the rules of monastic orders. The discussion and settlement
of these difficulties involved much diplomacy and the accumu-
lation of voluminous reports, but this great bulk of material
touches only the portions of the United States once held by
Spain, and those only here and there, as they formed such a
small proportion of the Spanish empire. By the eighteenth
century a modus vivendi had been reached, and these subjects
received much less attention.
A subject of the most general interest is that of the rela-
tions of the Church with the various civil governments in
America. As has been already indicated, Propaganda was
able to deal more effectually with Spain than had the State
department before its foundation; in part because of the in-
creasing needs of Spain for the defence of America. The total
extent of its progress, however, fell far short of its desires.
The Spanish American Church remained practically a branch
of the Spanish government, and communication was chiefly
through the nuncio at Madrid. Complaints of the violation
of ecclesiastical immunity were frequent. When the time came
for the formation of a bishopric in Canada, profit was taken
of the experience of the past, and it was made directly sub-
ject to the Holy See, and not a part of the French ecclesias-
tical system; although the patronage was granted to the king.
On the discussions over this question, covering many years,
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I9IO.] American History in Roman Archives 66i
and on the controversies with the archbishop of Rouen, who
claimed jurisdiction, there is a great amount of inedited ma-
terial; while its settlement, being favorable to the Holy See,
meant that from the beginning the communication between the
Church in Canada and Rome was constant and intimate.
The greater portion of the documents illustrating the rela-
tions between Rome and the missions in English North America
have been printed by Father Thomas Hughes, in his History
of the Society oj Jesus in North America. Intercourse was slight
and indirect; a local superior reporting very infrequently
through the vicar-apostolic of London, who himself corre-
sponded through the mediation of the nuncio at Brussels. The
more important records, through the first half of the eigh-
teenth century, are those in the archives of the Society of
Jesus itself.
The numerous changes of territorial jurisdiction were
promptly adjusted by the Holy See, which acted on the prin-
ciple of recognizing governmental boundaries. Even the sug-
gestion that certain nearby West India islands, belonging to
separate powers, be united for missionary purposes, was dis-
carded. The conquest of Canada, transferring so large an area
to the rule of a government with which the Holy See was not
in relations, called for the formation of a special congregation
to consider it, but the case was really a simple one, as the
territory constituted an independent bishopric, which continued
its close connection by means of an agent at Paris. While
much is known of this episode, the documents at the Propa-
ganda must be examined before its history can be said to be
complete.
The war of the American Revolution brought more novel
problems. There were few precedents for the adjustment of
the Church organization in independent non- European coun-
tries, and none at all in a country where government refused
in any way to interest itself in ecclesiastical concerns. The
matter was most carefully considered during 1784; the cor-
respondence included letters of Propaganda, several written
under the direction of Pius VI., the nuncio at Paris, Dn
Franklin, Count Vergennes, Count Luzerne, and M. Marbois,
the French representatives in America, several American ec-
clesiastics, and many others. The plan of transferring the
American Catholics from the direction of the vicar- general of
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662 American History in Roman Archives [Aug.,
London, to that of some French prelate, was abandoned for
that of leaving out all intervening links and bringing them,
like the Catholics of Canada, directly into contact with the
administration at Rome. There are but few documents on the
foundation of the bishopric of Baltimore, because that was only
the expected outcome of the decision of 1784. This material
has been used by J. G. Shea in his Life and Times of the
Most Rev. John Carroll^ and the greater part of it will prob-
ably be printed in the American Historical Review during the
year.
The effect of this settlement was, as in the case of Canada,
the immediate strengthening of the bonds between the new
diocese and Rome, and the material from this date forward is
sufficient to give a most intimate history of the development
and expansion of the Church in America. One series of prob-
lems was occasioned by the gradual acquisition of Spanish
territory by the United States. None of these became serious,
owing to the continued policy of the Holy See of recognizing
all official changes of jurisdiction and the immediate inclusion
of the newly added territories in the ecclesiastical system of
the United States. More important were the difficulties that
arose from the fact that Catholic organizations in the English
colonies had been so little accustomed to interference, and,
while no such bad conditions had developed as in Spanish
America, there was some divergence of custom and an un-
willingness to submit to control. The readjustment was de-
ferred owing to the confusion of the Napoleonic rigime^ and
took place chiefly in the period from 18 15 to 1830. The
material on this subject is voluminous and interesting. One
question was that of the proper vesting of church property.
Difficulties arising out of this and allied questions brought
about the occasional necessity of diplomatic activity, and, in
the absence of a papal representative in the United States,
the Sardinian officials acted for the Papacy. During the ad-
ministration of John Quincy Adams, the interference of the
United States government was sought, and some letters ex-
changed and interviews held with American representatives
abroad. While this intercourse is interesting, what is more
significant is its slight character as compared with that be-
tween the Church and Government in Canada. As the archives
are closed to investigation for the period after about 1830, it
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I9IO.] American History in Roman Archives 663
is impossible as yet to make a thorough study of the later
beginnings of actual diplomatic negotiations between the Papal
and the United States, and the agitation for the establishment
of a nunciatura in the latter country.
One of the methods by which it was sought to bring about
closer relations was by education. More than half the ma-
terial relating to the negotiations of 1784 was concerned with
that subject. The willingness of Louis XVI. to provide the
funds for the support of American students at Bordeaux was
doubtless due in part to the hope the French government held
that France might take the place of England as the metropo-
lis of the United States ; but their education there was more
effective toward the unity of the Church than in furthering
the plans of the French Government. At the same time pro-
vision was made for two American youths at the Collegia
Ufhano at Rome, and a small subsidy was granted Mgr. Car-
roll for educational work in America. The gradual increase in
the number of seminaries, schools, and colleges in the United
States is recorded, and the view of educational expansion,
while not always detailed, is comprehensive. The archives of
the American College at Rome, founded in 1859 by Pius
IX., are extensive; but they, and those of Propaganda re-
lating to it, fall after the period to which general access is.
allowed.
A subject lying but just outside United States history, is
that of the relations of the new Spanish American republics
with the Church. The material for these negotiations is very
full, and offers a most tempting field for any student of Spanish
American history, or of the policy of the Holy See.
Supplementary material is to be found in many other
Roman collections. The offices of the various congregations
other than Propaganda do not contain much, since the latter
exercised most of their functions for America ; but occasionally
difficult questions were referred to those of the Holy Office or
of Bishops and Regulars. The archives of the Spanish em-
bassy, which are quite complete from the middle of the seven-
teenth century, contain much on routine matters, and on such
subjects as the formation of new dioceses. Particularly inter-
esting are the negotiations, about 1795, for the formation of a
separate bishopric for Florida and New Orleans, which must
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664 American History in Roman Archives [Aug.,
be taken in connection with the Spanish policy of strength-
ening its hold on these territories neighboring to the United
States. The Archivio Nagionali includes many Papal records,
seized at the time ot the Italian occupation. These belonged
mostly to the Canura^ and are consequently of a financial
character, but such material often supplies, under skillful hand-
ling, important facts, and the series Libri ohligationum pro
serviUis and Libri resignationum contain, regularly, American
items. Nearly all the national libraries, occupying as they do
the rooms, and retaining the library collections, manuscript as
well as printed, of the various monastic orders, have some few
unique items of Americana, but these are scattered, and, ex-
cept those of the Fundo Gesuitico of the Biblioteca Vittorio^
Emanuele^ are mostly unimportant. The various collections
gathered from time to time into the Biblioteca Vaticana, con-
tain similar material, and its bulk and importance probably
somewhat exceed that in all the national libraries taken to-
gether.
The government seizures after 1870 did not include the
archives of the monastic orders with their libraries; but these
archives have suffered much more than the central archives of
the Papacy from the alarms and excursions of the last hun-
dred years. The central Roman monastic archives never con-
tained as much relating to America as those of certain prov-
inces of Spain and France; except, perhaps, in the case of
the Society of Jesus. The most important class of material is
that of reports of the procurators of provinces. Probably the
collection containing the most of interest to the American
student is that of the Franciscans, which is at the present
time being carefully ordered. The Dominican archives also
contain a great deal of American material, as do those of the
Recollets. The material in the English College at Rome has
been used by Father Hughes in his History of the Society of
Jesus.
One class of material remains to be mentioned, and that
the most fundamental; the regular series recording the official
action of the Pope and the College of Cardinals. These are
in, or in connection with, the Archivio Vaticano. The consis-
torial records are for the most part merely formal, noting the
creation of dioceses, and the conferring of ecclesiastical digoi-
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I9IO.] AMERICAN HISTORY IN ROMAN ARCHIVES 665
ties. They should Include also the brief summaries of condi-
tionsy which were prepared and furnished the cardinals before
the meeting of the consistory as a basis for their action, but
many of these have been lost. These records are fundamental
in determining the chronology of the various dioceses, and
have been used for their American material by St. Ehses in
his Grundung von Bisthumem in Amerika in the Romische
Quartalschrift for 1892, and by the American Catholic His-
torical Society, for its volumes IX and X. Neither of these
researches extended as late as the foundation of the bishopric
of Quebec, and consequently they relate only to Spanish
America.
The bulls relating to America for the fifteenth and the
greater part of the sixteenth century are registered in the
Regesta Vaticana. As these are not arranged geographically,
nor even with perfect chronological accuracy, it will require
great patience and the labor of many scholars for many years,
to discover all those relating to America. Nor are all bulls
registered, particularly for the second half of the sixteenth
century. A complete [examination would, however, doubtless,
taring to light many — the qriginals of which have been lost — and
probably the first requisite for a complete history of the Church
in America is a comprehensive bullarium. The Regesta Lattr^
anensis^ so called because it was formally kept at the Lateran,
extends into the nineteenth century, and is continued by other
series to the present day. This is a register of bulls, most-
ly of a formal character, as, for example, those granting bish*
oprics. It is a question whether this might not serve as a
better basis for a chronology of the American hierarchy, than
the consistorial archives, but its contents would scarcely repay
publication complete;- calendaring would be sufficient, and
should be comparatively simple, as the series is more easily
handled than the Regesta Vaticana. Beginning towards the
end of the sixteenth century, and up to the present time, bulls
on subjects of a less routine character have been registered
with the secretary of briefs, and are to be found in the
imnense collection recently removed from his office to the
Afchivio Vaticano. These thousands of volumes are practically
without arrangement, except that their contents are ordered
with fair chronological accuracy, and the labor of examination
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666 AMERICAN HISTORY IN ROMAN ARCHIVES [Aag.»
is enormous. Their contents, however, continuing the material
in the Regesta Vdticana, is so important, and the amount per-
tinent to America increasing with the growth of the Church
here, so large as a whole, that they cannot be permanently
neglected.
Throughout the modern period a very great proportion of
the most important decisions of the Holy See have found ex-
pression not in bulls but in briefs. The registers of these
were at first less carefully preserved than those of the bulls,
bat they are, if any difference of value exists, the more neces-
sary for the historian, at least from the beginning of the seven-
teenth century. These volumes consist of minutes rather than
registers. The earliest are preserved in the Arckivio Segreto^
the original collection around which the Atchivio Vaticano has
grown up. They have suffered much from the hand of time,
many have completely disappeared, and no one seems to know
just what exist and what do not. They contain a sprinkling
of American material, and their condition should perhaps be
taken as an incentive to use them while one may. There is,
in addition, a series of Lateran briefs, containing answers to
petitions on many different subjects. Included in this series
are the fee books, with the record of payments made for the
briefs registered. The American items are few because the
facoltk of the bishops included the power to grant most of the
requests here included; they are, however, numerous in the
case, already noted, of the French West India islands, where
there was no bishop. The most important collection of briefs
is that transferred, with the bulls, from the office of the secre-
tary of briefs. This again is rather a file than a register, al-
though the material is arranged in volumes. It contains nearly
always the original petition, sometimes in the handwriting of
the suppliant and sometimes as put in shape by a procurator.
This is endorsed in such a way as to show its history, note
being made of reference to some official or congregation, and
finally with the sanction : " /// mus annuit^*^ often accompanied
by some restriction, as **Juxta decretal* or "^0 solitis restric-
tidn.^* Finally there is the minute of the brief which was
drawn up to execute the decision.
Americans have not yet done their share in making useful
to the world these vast collections thrown open so wisely and
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so graciottslx bjr Leo XIII. While nearly all the governments
of Europe are represented officially or semi-officially, and all
the great orders of the Church, the serious workers from the
United States, from the opening in 1880, might be counted
on the fingers of one hand. The occasional ecclesiastic, pointed
out as American, is usually from Mexico or Peru. It was
perhaps proper that the first and hardest work, that of break-
ing into the material, should have been done by those who
had more to find, but it certainly seems that there should be
no further delay. It is to be hoped that we may profit from
the experience of the pioneers, and particularly that our
scholars may waste less time through lack of a plan of cam-
paign and of co-operation than have those of Europe. Cer*
tain large and comprehensive operations should be carried out
first, in order that local or particular studies may afterward
be made without overlapping, and without incompleteness due
to failure to exhaust the material. The greatest contributions
will, of course, be to the history of the Church, but if the
treatment of this be only broad enough, it will shed needed
light on all the other branches of our history.
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SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT
{1524.^1583).
BY W. H. GRATTAN FLOOD, Mus.D.
NOTWITHSTANDING the great and deserved fame
of the music school of St. Paul's Cathedral^ Lon-
don« in the sixteenth century, there is very lit*
tie of detail handed down regarding it by any
of the historians of English music. Even in the
interesting monograph on the ''Cathedral Organists of Great
Britain/' by Mr. John E. West, there is a lacuna in the list of
organists of St Paul's from 1547 to 1583. Mr. West merely
gives the date of John Redford's resignation as 1547 and he
then gives the name of William Mulliner with a query, followed
by that of Thomas Gyles in 1583.
The really remarkable feature of what may well be termed
a conspiracy of silence on the part of our English musical his-
torians in regard to the organist of St. Paul's Cathedral from
1553 to 1583 is that the position was held during these thirty
eventful years by a Catholic — not a nominal adherent of the
ancient faith, but a staunch recusant who suffered imprisonment
on two occasions for his resistance to the Protestant innova-
tions, and yet who was permitted by Queen Elizabeth to retain
his appointment. This man was Sebastian Westcott, who has
up to the present received but scant notice even from Catholic
writers. His name is not to be found in Grove's monumental
Dictionary of Music and Musicians^ edited by Fuller Maitland ;
nor in Dr. Ernest Walker's recently published History of Music
in England; nor yet in the Dictionary of National Biography ;
and therefore no apology is needed for rescuing his name from
undeserved oblivion.
Of Westcott's birth and early training we have scant par-
ticulars, save that he was born in 1524, but it is more than
probable that he was a chorister of St. Paul's under John Red*
ford, who was organist, almoner, and master of the boys from
149 1 to 1547— a supposition which would sufficiently account
for his great gifts as a choir^trainer and playwright. Indeed,
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>s 1910.] Sebastian Westcott 669
it is in the latter capacity that we meet with the first mention
of ''Master Sebastian"— for by this name was Westcott gen-
erally known, even in official records. This was on the eve of
Queen Mary's coronation, in .1553, on which auspicious occa-
sion, as Stowe, the chronicler, tells us, the choristers of St
Paul's took part in a pageant, and also ''played on viols and
sang/'
Here it is apropos to mention that the choristers of St.
Paul's Cathedral, as far back as the year 1378, presented a pe-
tition to King Richard II. to protect their plays and pageants,
which had cost much money and which were being interfered
with "by ignorant and unexperienced persons " performing the
same. Under Henry VII., as Warton writes, moralities, inter*
ludes» and pageants had reached a very high level, and one of
these with music is still preserved, namely, A New Interlude and
a Mery^ of the Nature of the IIIj. Elements, by John Rastall,
the friend and relative of Blessed Thomas More— remarkable as
being the earliest known specimen of English dramatic music.
It would not be assuming too much to identify Westcott
with one of the boys who had been "impressed" at the same
time as Thomas Tusser as a chorister of St. Paul's. From Tus-
ser's Hundredth Pointes of Husbandry, the first edition of which
was published in 1557, we learn of the then prevalent custom
of impressing boys and men for the choir of St. Paul's. Tus-
ser thus praises his master, John Redford :
"Thence for my voice I must (no choice)
Away of force, like posting horse,
For sundrie men had placards then
Such child to take.
By friendship's lot to Paul's I got.
So found I grace a certain space
Still to remaine
With Redford there, the like nowhere
For cunning such and vertue much
By whom some part of music's art
So did I gaine."
Certainly Tusser— who was born in 1525 — was impressed by
John Redford about the year 1538, whence he proceeded to
Eton College under Nicholas Udall. And it is well to observe
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670 SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT [Attg.»
that these impressed boys were very well treated, and to them,
after the breaking of their voices, every opportunity was given
for advancement Redford was, for the long period of fifty- six
years, organist and choirmaster of St. Paurs, and to his lot fell
the production of numerous pageants and masks, in addition
to the performances by his boys at Christmas, Shrovetide, etc.
Dean Colet, in his statutes for the government of St. Paul's
School, made a provision that the scholars ''shall every Chil-
dermas day come to Paul's Church and hear the child-bishop
sermon, and after to be at the High Mass, and each of them
offer a penny to the child> bishop, and with them the masters
and surveyors of the school." This provision refers to the cus*
tom of the Boy- Bishop, which celebration was forbidden by a
statute of Henry VIII. in 1542, but restored by Queen Mary.
A favorite pageant at this period was that of the *' Nine Wor-
thies,'' of which mention is made in the Coventry pageant of
the year 1455, on the occasion of the visit of the Queen of
Henry VI. The last pageant in which Redlord was engaged
was for the procession of King Edward VI., on February 19,
I547f previous to his coronation. Redford's successor, William
Mulliner, had a short term of office, as owing to the Puritan
spirit in 1551, under William May, Dean of St. Paul's, the
organ was silenced in the Cathedral of London.
With the advent of Queen Mary came the natural reaction
from Puritanism. John Hey wood devised a beautiful pageant
for the coronation, and he himself made the Queen an oration
in Latin. On this occasion, too, when Sebastian Westcott ap-
peared for the first time with his choristers, Richard Beard,
vicar of St. Mary •hill, wrote a ''godly psalm," the opening
chaplet of which ran:
** A godly psalm of Mary queen, which brought us comfort all
Thro' God Whom we of duty praise, that gave her foes a
fall."
When Queen Mary made her triumphal entry into London,
** the Lords, surrounded by the shouting multitude," as Froude
writes, ** walked in state to St. Paul's, when the choir again
sang a 7> Deum^ and the unused organ rolled out once more
its mighty volume of sound."* On St. Catherine's Day (No-
* A TV Deum was also sung in St. Paul's on February 9, 1554, the day after the suppres.
slon of Wyatt*s rebellion.
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19 lO.] SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT 67 1
▼ember 25, 1553)1 Bishop Bonner formally restored the old form
of worship at St Paurs* and Rev. John Howman de Fecken-
ham, O.S B.; was appointed Dean. A few weeks later the
banned custom of the Boy- Bishop on the Feast of Holy Inno-
cents was again observed, and one of Wcstcott's boys distin-
guished himself as the " childe-bishop.''
On the first Sunday of Advent, 1554, Cardinal Pole was
present at St. Paul's, Dr. Feckenham presiding as Dean, Bishop
Gardiner being the preacher. Sebastian Westcott provided a
grand Latin service for the occasion, and it is likely that the
beautiful motet : Te spectant Reginalds Poli^ was sung in honor
of the Papal Legate. Certain it is that Orlando di Lasso,
who composed this motet for Cardinal Pole, was in England
at this time and was doubtless presents to hear it sung. This
visit to England of the great Netherland composer is various-
ly given by his biographers as ''before 1554" and as ''about
1554"; but inasmuch as Cardinal Pole did not land at Dover
until November 20, accompanied by di Lasso, the date is nar-
rowed very considerably. The verses to which di Lasso set
music are as follows:
"Te spectant Reginalde Poll, tibi sidera rident,
Exultant montes, personat Oceanus,
Anglia dum plaudit quod faustos excutis ignes
Eliciis et lachrimas ex adamante suo.''
No doubt di Lasso, during the Advent season of 1554,
must have met Tallis, Bowyer, Hey wood, Shepherd, Edwards,
Farrant, Byrd, White, Forrest, Wayte, Westcott, and other
well-known English Catholic musicians, but his stay in Eng*
land lasted only a few weeks, as we find him back in Ant-
werp in February, 1555. It is only pertinent to add that this
motet was published at Antwerp in 1556, being included in
his First Book of Motets, containing twelve numbers for five
voices and five numbers for six voices. Perhaps it is also as
well to mention that one of di Lasso's songs " Monsieur Mingo,''
concluding " God Bacchus do me right," etc., is quoted by
Shakespeare in his Henry IV. (Pt. IL v. 3).
For the Feasts of St. Nicholas and of Holy Innocents,
I555f the Boy*Bishop ceremony was carried out with un-
wonted splendor, and Strype tells us that "the child-bishop.
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672 Sebastian Westcott [Aug.,
of Pauleys Church, with his company/' were admitted into the
Queen*8 privy chamber, where he sang before her on St. Nicholas*
Day and upon Holy Innocent^s Day. The lyric which was
sung by one of Sebastian Westcott*s boys was written by Hugh
Rhodes, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and set to music
by the organist of St. Paul's.
On November 21, 1556, John Feckenham, D.D., O.S.B.,
Dean of St. Paul's,^ was formally installed as Abbot of West-
minster, and was succeeded by Dr. Henry Cole. The usual
Christmas festivities were carried on by the children of St.
Paul's, and Strype tells us that the child-bishop ''on St.
Nicholas even went abroad in most parts of London, singing
after the old fashion, and had as much good cheer as ever
was wont to be had before." Strype is also our authority for
the great May Day revels of the year 1557, when the ''Nine
Worthies " was revived, with Morris dancing and other amuse-
ments.
During the Christmas holidays of 1556-7, Queen Mary
paid a visit to the Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield, when a play
was performed by the children of St. Paul's, under the direc-
tion of Sebastian Westcott. We read that the Princess — then
in custody oi Sir Thomas Pope — was particularly pleased with
the choristers, and "on the next day she sent for one Maxi-
milian Poynes, who had taken a part, and made him sing to
her while she played at the virginals." Incidentally we may
observe that the Princess Elizabeth's detention was not unduly
severe, and we may also observe that both Queen Mary and
Elizabeth were most accomplished musicians, especially excell-
ing on the virginals. It is also well to remove a popular de*
lusion to the effect that the virginals was so called from the
"Virgin" Qaeea, whereas, as a matter of fact, the instrument
was in use in England in 1499, under Henry VII.
Queen Mary in the last year of her life kept up her prac-
tice on the virginal, and under date of April 10, 1558, we find
a warrant in the Lord Chamberlain's accounts, directing John
Green " coffer- maker " to be given "as much green velvet as
will suffice for the covering of one pair of virginals, and as
much green satin as shall serve to line the same, with pas-
samayne lace of silver for the garnishing and edging of the
same."
•Feckenham was made D.D. at Oxford University in May, 1556.
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19 la] Sebastian Westcott 671
At the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in Novemberi 155^1
no changes in religion were made for the greater part of fi
year, and, of course, Sebastian Westcott was continued at St
Paurs, as also was Richard Bowyer as master of the song pf
the Chapel Royal.
However, no sooner was the Act of Uniformity passed than
a general visitation was instituted. Accordingly, on August
ii» I559» as Machyn writes in his diary, ''the visitors sat at
Paurs,'' in regard to the Harpsfields and others. Strype tells
us that though all the members of the Chapter of St. Paul's
Cathedral were cited, ''very few appeared,*' and so the absent
ones were regarded as contumacious. John and Nicholas
Harpsfield and John Willefton refused to subscribe to the
Articles of Enquiry and the Injunctions. So also did the
organist, Sebastian Westcott. The new subscribers were then
bound over till the 12th of October following. The adjourned
visitation took place on November 3, and Westcott, remain*
ing firm, was, with the majority of the Chapter, deprived.^
The Dean, Dr. Henry Cole, was sent to the Tower on May
29, 1560.
It is well known that the musical services of the Chapel
Royal were of the very highest artistic order, and it is also a
matter of common notoriety that the gentlemen of the Chapel
were left undisturbed in their religious views during the reigns
of Edward VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth. But it is
not so well known that an avowed Roman Catholic was per-
mitted by Elizabeth to continue as organist, almoner, and
master of the choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral, even though
presented and deprived on two different occasions. The real
truth is that Queen Elizabeth was undoubtedly food of music,
and she even sacrificed her religious views in regard to any of
her musicians for the sake of musical art, an instance of which
may be cited in the case of John Bolt, who afterwards became
a secular priest.
Mr. R. R. Terry, organist of Westminster Cathedral, thus
writes: "Elizabeth was not the woman to suffer any diminu-
tion of splendor in any musicians appertaining to the Court.
She was quite determined that the magnificence of the Chapel
Royal services, so long the wonder and admiration of Europe,
* Bishop Bonner, of London, was deprived in May, 1560.
VOL. XCI.— 43
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t>74 Sebastian westcott [Aug.,
sliould not be denuded of their ancient splendor at the bidding
of reforming prelates. On the contrary, she maintained as
ornate ceremonies as were consistent with the new form of
worship, and not merely did she retain the services of all her
musicians (knowing them to be Catholics), but also created
new posts for others, such as Tallis and Byrd, although she
could have been under no illusion as to their religious opin-
ions. This protection extended to Catholic musicians by
Elizabeth is a curious historical fact, but it is eminently
characteristic of the woman.'*
Yet, though sentence of deprivation was given, Westcott
was permitted by Elizabeth to continue in office. Dom Birt,
O.S.B., in his scholarly book. The Elizabethan Religious Set'
tlement, gives by far the best account yet published of the
actual state of religion in England in the years 1559-60, and,
in his notice of the visitation of St. Paul's mentions Westcott's
deprivation. He does not, however, allude to the fact that
this worthy musician was allowed to retain his post, and
therefore it is well to insist on what may otherwise seem in-
explicable, especially as the Bishop of London (Bonner) and
the Dean of St. Paul's (Cole) had been, as we have seen, sent
to the Tower. The proof lies in the contemporary description
of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Nonsuch, at the close of the
year 1559, when Lord Arundel entertained her right royally.
In this contemporary document we read that one of the fea-
tures of the pageants was ''a play by the children of Paul's,
and their master Sebastyan, after which a costly banquet, ac-
companied with drums and flutes."
But some reader may object that, though Westcott was in
office in 1559, where is the proof that he continued so in the
years 1 560-1 ? Fortunately we are enabled to answer this
objection, and to place here on record the proofs from con-
temporary sources, not alone as to Westcott's retention in
office for these years, but as to his continuance in same to
the year 1583 — and this in spite of the fact of his well-known
obstinacy in his religious views.
Under date of Christmas, 1560, there is an entry in the
Accounts of the Revels^ which relates to the payment of the
sum of £6 lis 4d to Sebastyan Westcott, ''master of the chil-
dren of Paul's," for plays presented before the Queen's Maj-
esty, or, to quote the exact wording, ''for playing before her
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. I9IO.] SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT 675
Grace.'' Be it added, too, that music largely entered into
these performances by the choristers of St. Paul's and we know
that in "Gorbuduc," or ''Ferriaand Porrex" (1561), there was
music in each of the five acts* namely violins, cornets, flutes,
hautboys, and drums. Again, in the tragic comedy of ''King
Cambyses" music is introduced at the banquet:
"• • • they be at hand, sir, with stick and fiddle,
They can play a new dance called Hey- diddle- diddle, ^^
For the proof of the statement that the subject of this
memoir was still organist and choirmaster of St. Paul's in 1561,
and this without abating his religious convictions one jot, or
compromising his orthodoxy, we may appositely quote an in-
teresting paragraph contained in the Report* presented to
Cardinal Morone by the Rev. Dr. Nicholas Sander, in May,
1561 : "Sebastian, organist of St. Paul's, London, was willing
to be deprived, but, being a favorite with Queen Elizabeth, he
was allowed to retain his appointment in that church without
doing anything schistnaticaV^
From the Acts of the Ptivy Council we learn that Westcott
received annual sums of £6 13^ ^d for the years 1561, 1562,
and 1563, for plays performed by his choristers for the delecta-^
tion of Queen Bess. Apparently his enemies became active in
1563, for in August of that year, as appears from a letter to
Lord Robert Dudley, quoted in Grindal, Master Sebastian was
again deprived ''for refusing the Communion and upon sus-
picion of adherring to Popish principles." Dom Birt, O.S.B.,
seems to imagine that the sentence of deprivation really took
effect, and that Westcott lost his position at this time. He
thus writes : " Every effort was made to induce him to conform,
but in vain; and finally he suffered deprivation in 1562* He
was master of the choir at St. Paul's; hence his influence
amongst the choristers had to be counteracted or removed ^ This
inference by Dom Birt is opposed to facts, for the Revels
Accounts for the year 1564 shows a payment to Sebastian
Westcott, "master of the children of Paul's," of the usual
sum of £6 lis ^d "for a play presented by him before the
Queen's Majesty" at Christmas, 1564, which sum was paid on
January 18, 1564-5. Less than two months later, on March 9,
♦ Vat. Archivi. Arm., Ixiv. a8, flf. 252-274.
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6j6t SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT [Aug.,
9 similar sum was paid him for the performance of a play on
Candlemas Day.
It is, therefore, absolutely certj^in that Master Sebastian
continued in favor with Queen Elizabeth even after the second
sentence of deprivation, and notwithstanding his known re*
fusal to conform. In the Revels Account^ foi* 1568-9 we
meet with the customary payment of £t i^s ^d to Wcstcott
for a play presented by hiip ** before her Highness '* on New
Year's Da^, 1568-9. Three years later, on the Fea$t of Holy
Innocents (December 28), 1571, he produced the play of
'' Iphigen." Again^ on the feast of St. John the Evangelist
(Pccember 27), 1574, the children of St. Paul's, under Westcott,
produced a play entitled '' Alkmeon." Not long afterwards be
presented a Mask for which a payipent is entered of twenty-
^ix shillings, being amount given to the featbermakcr for ''a
coat, hat, and buskins all cpvered with feathers of colors for
Vanity in Sibastian*s play.** Another entry, on February i,
1574-5, accounts fof two shillings for *' skins to fur the hoods
iff Sebastian's play "; and a further sum of two shillings for
** making of two sarcenet hoods for citizens in the san^e pUy/'
Incidentally it may here be mentioned tb^t Archdeacon Nich-
plas Harpsfield died on Decefnbe|r 18, 1575, outliving Bishop
Bonner by six years. Abbot Feckenham was committed to
(he care of Bishop Cox, of Ely, on July 28, 1577, and Arch-
deacon John Harpsfield to that of Bishop Cowper, of Lincoln.
On New Year's Day, at night, 1576-7, Westcott presented
a play called the '' History of Error " at Hampton Court. On
the following Shrove Tuesday night he presented the '' History
of Titus and Gisippus" at Whitehall.
In the early summer of 1577 religious persecution broke
(^ut afresh, and Blessed Cuthbert Mayne (arrested on June 8)
vras n^ar^yr^d on Noyeinber 29, 1577. Two months later Blessed
John Nelson and Blessed Thomas Sherwood gained the mar-
tyr's crown, and a rjgprous treatinent of Catholics was orflered
all over the country. Of course. Bishop Aylmer, of London,
was only too glad of the opportunity to exercise greater se-
verity against Catholics, and so, in November, 1577, he re-
turned Sebastian Westcott, ''master of the children of Paul's
Church," as a recusant. Dom Birt tells us that at this period
Master Sebastian" lived in London, doubtless under the pro*
tection of Lord Dudley," and that he resided '' under the shadow
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I9IO.] Sebastian Westcott 677
of his old home in St. Gregory s^ by PauVs^* and strangely enough
assumes that he was then finally deprived. In this return,
now in the Public Record Office/ Juliana, the wife of William
Byrd» the famous English composer, is also included.
It may be as well to state that Westcott Was not living, as
Dom Birt puts it, ''under the shadow of his old home, in St.
Gregory's," but he was actually livitig in his old bom<^, whete
he had been in continual residence as almoner and master of
the choristers since the year 1553. Nor yet did he suffer de-
privation finally in November, 1577, for, according to another
document in the Public Record Office, he was at liberty in
March, 1578, and still retaining his post at St. Paulas. How-
ever, there is a very important fact to be chronicled, namely,
the imprisonment of Master Sebastian, as a confessor of the
Faith. Aylmer, no doiibt with a view of currying favor, had
Westcott arrested and sent a prisori6r to the Marsbalsea on
December 21, 1577. In th6 ''List of Prisoners for Ecclesias-
tical Causes '' we read as follows : " Sebsistiati Westcott sent ita
by commandment from the honorable Lords of the Council
for Papistry, 21 December, 1577, and was discharged by my
said Lords of the Council the 19th day of March, 15^7 tiS?^].*'
No doubt Qaeen Elizabeth herself interfered for the en-
largement of such an old and valued musician and choir train^t,
and it is beyond question that Master Sebastian retained bis
post. In the Revels Accounts for 15 78-1 5 79 there is aii
entry under date of January i, i 5 78-9, in which three and
sixpence is charged *' for carriage of a frame ioi Master Se*
bastian to the court." A further entry gives us the informa-
tion that Westcott and the children of St. Paul's performed a
Morality entitled "The Marriage of Mind and Measure," at
Richmond, on the Sunday after New Year's Day.
From the Records of Christ^s Hospital, London, we obtain
a valuable reference to the sturdy Catholic organist of St.
Paul's at this period. Under date of March 5, 1579-80, we
read that "Mr. Sebastian of Paul's'* was giveh Halloway, the
younger, from Christ's Hospital, "to be one of the choristers
of St. Paul's Cathedral." This entry refers to thfe privilege
accorded to the masters of the children of St. Paul's (slnd ex-
ercised for over a century) of impressing choir boys and men
front other establishments — a privilege also atllk:hed to the
♦p. R. O. Dom. Elix., cxviii., November, 1577.
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678 SEBASTIAN WESTCOTT [Aag.
mastership of the song in the Chapel Royal. It is worthy of
note that William Byrd was organist of the Chapel Royal at
this time, although he was well* known to be a Catholic. I
have previously alluded to the fact that Byrd's wife, Juliana
Birley, had been presented as a Catholic recusant in November,
1577, but she was again presented on June 28, 1581, on Jan-
uary 19 and April 2, 15821 and in several succeeding years.
The last reference I can find regarding this staunch Cath-
olic musician is in 1582, a year memorable for fierce persecu-
tion against Catholics, resulting in the martyrdom of Blessed
John Payne (April 2), Blessed Thomas Ford, Blessed John
Short, and Blessed Robert Johnson (May 28), Blessed William
Filey, Blessed Luke Kirby, Blessed Lawrence Johnson, and
Blessed Thomas Cottane (May 30), Blessed William Lacey and
Blessed Richard Kirkman (August 22), and Blessed James
Thompson (November 28). Fearful of danger, two eminent
Catholic singers from the Chapel Royal, Nicholas Morgan and
.Richard Morris, fled to the Continent. This is confirmed in a
letter written by Cardinal Allen to Father Agazzari, in July,
1582: ''Two notable musicians, married men, have escaped
from the Queen*s Chapel, who are said to be going to Rome
to exercise their art and gain a living by it, and by this the
Queen is said to be incredibly displeased. One is named
Morris, who easily excels all the musicians of this church and
and place, and he says that another is at Rouen on his way
to us, a colleague in the Queen's Chapel, who is far superior
to him/' Yet Thomas Tallis, organist of the Chapel Royal,
though a Catholic, held his post, and we know that some others
of the gentlemen were certainly of the ancient faith.
In regard to Westcott, his name disappears from the Revels
Accounts for the year 1583, and we can fairly conclude that
he either resigned, or died, about that time. Unfortunately,
the Acts of the Privy Council for the years 1583 and 1584
are missing, but inasmuch as Thomas Gyles was organist of
St Paul's in 1583-4 our conjecture cannot be very far astray.
Moreover, the extraordinary severity of the laws against Cath-
olics in 1583 led to a reduction of the members in St. Paul's
Cathedral, and will also account for the resignation of West-
cott, for we find Queen Elizabeth issuing a warrant to Thomas
Gyles, in 1585, to impress boys and men for the service in
the choir.
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flew Kooks*
In what might be called ''essays
PSTCH0L06T. in applied psychology/' Professor
Munsterberg is continually en-
deavoring to correlate the conclusions of his own proper sci-
ence with the needs that different classes of people daily ex-
perience. So, having spoken to the lawyer, and the doctor, be
now addresses himself to the teacher, his aim being to sum
up in the present volume* all the enlightenment that modern
education may hope to receive from modern psychology.
Premising correctly that the first fundamental question
must be: What shall the teacher aim to achieve? the author
devotes himself to the larger inquiry: What are the supreme
purposes of human life? This question is then considered,
rather ponderously, in the course of the first, or ethical, part
of the volume, and answered by the affirmation that life must
be devoted to the upbuilding of the absolute values, truth and
beauty, love and peace, progress and justice, morality and re-
ligion.
Among the most interesting chapters of the second, or
psychological, part, is that which outlines the recent develop-
ment of psychological science, and describes, modestly enough,
the beginnings of educational psychology. The chapter o9
*' Mind and Brain " leaves one a little uncertain as to the pre
cise character of the freedom postulated for the will, ''which
cannot demand a break in the causal chain.'' The chapters on
" Memory," " Association," and " Attention," and, in fact, all
of the second part, will be especially instructive and sugges-
tive to the general reader.
The third part of the book considers in what way the school
may be best used to fit the child for the purposes of life, and
contains a number of well-grounded criticisms looking to the
improvement of the existing educational system in Apierica.
It is interesting to read that "there is no school and no
teacher who can afford to teach without implanting in the
young souls a religious and philosophical loaging."
The book might be compressed with advantage, but, as it
stands, will be useful to discriminating readers.
« Psyckoloiy and tki Ttackir, By Hugo Miinsteiberg. New York and London : D.
Appleton & Co.
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68o NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
Father Benson's latest book, A
A WINNOWING. Winnowing • is absolutely out of
By Robert H. Benson. the ordinary. As usual with the
author, it is ileith^r the characters
nor the plot, but rather the idea that makes the story. This
time the idea, as in The Conventionalists ^ is that of the re-
ligious life, the need of its existence, the true nature of its
purpose, and the insistence of its call. By a miracle of Divine
Providence Jack Weston, the young squire of a good English
estate, is brought back to life a few moments after his actual
death. The puzzled doctors later pronounce it a case of sus-
pended animation, but Jack knows that he actually died, and
those few moments showed him the reality of it all— of judg-
ment* heaven, and hell. On his recovery he decides to change
his life. His desire is to become a monk, on condition that
his young wife, Mary, will consent to enter a convent. This
arrangement Mary very naturally rejects, but promises not to
oppose any other plans her husband may form.
The latter, therefore, contents himself with giving up his
beloved sports, with practising pious exercises, and with build-
ing on his upper lawn a convent for some Carmelite nuns exiled
from France. By the example of these nuns, by the silent
force of their characters, Mary Weston comes by slow and
painful degrees to a realization of her own call to the religious
life in fulfillment of a vow which she made at Jack's deathbed,
and which she has since been trying to interpret more lenient-
ly. But when at last she tells her husband of her readiness
to become a nun, leaving him free to follow his plan of enter-
ing a monastery, it is only to learn that while her ardor has
increased. Jack's has gradually declined. He renounces his
'' pious folly " in disgust, and goes off to South Africa to play in a
cricket- match, and Mary's life seems to resume its former tenor.
In less than a month, however, a telegram from South
Africa announces her husband's death, and two years later
Mary takes her final vows in the Carmelite convent. The
almost uncanny mixture of the real with the exalted and super-
natural, the everyday occurrences seen by flashes of the
'Might invisible," make the story altogether unusual. It is
thought-compelling and has many meanings ; and is a book to
be remembered.
♦ A Winncwmg. By Robert Hugh Benson. St. Louis : B. Herder.
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igio,] New BOOKS 681
A good book of sermons is a book
SERMONS FOR THE for the millions^ even though it
CHRISTIAN YEAR. never is read by an unclerical
reader. It sweetens the springs of
holy teaching. It is a book of a universal kind, for from head
to members of the parish organism it informs all minds, the
one or two leaders being inspired by it and the rest instructed
by that inspiration.
The writer and preacher of these sermons,* Dom Wilfrid
Wallace, O.S.B., was a type of the best kind of preachers
He was a scholar, an author, a professor, and a pastor of souls]
The latter half of his life was spent under the vows of the
Benedictine Order, the first having been devoted to the pursuit
of sacred learning and parish duties.
The sermons are all comparatively short. There are two
for each Sunday in the year, devoted to the explanation of
the Gospel lessons. They are working seimons, pointedly ap-
plicable to the needs of dally life, sympathetic with human
sorrows, stimuUtive of hoi>^ and joy no lesd than of penance
for sin.
They are devout in spirit, useful, practical, abounding in
scenes and descriptions, with a wise choice of Scripture quota-
tions, and the solid substance of Catholic doctrinal instruction.
If there is little pretension to the flowery adorhments of
style, there are yet frequent appeals to the deeper religious
emotions. Every ennobling sentiment of religion, both natural
and supernatural, \t aroused. Though this be done in the
quiet-minded way of Englishmen, with the self- poise of a grave
character, the teaching force is all the better concentrated.
These three volumes, we trust, will be procured by zealous
pastors everywhere, serving, as they do, to enforce Pius X/s
urgent injunctions for good preaching.
Those who laughed over the esca*
THE BI06RAPHT OP A BOY. pades of Binks in The Memoirs of
By Josephine D. Bacon. a Baby, will be glad to welcome
this new volume f which recounts
his later adventures. Again Binks is at war with modern
• Sermons for the Christian Year. By the laic Dom Wilfrid Wallace, O.S.B. With a
preface by Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. 3 vols. St. Louis : B. Herder,
t The Biogrttphf of a Boy, By Josephine Daskam Bacon. New York : Harper & Brothers.
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682 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
scientific methods of education, and persists in growing up
after a delightfully irregular fashion of his own. He scorns
the paper birdcages of his kindergarten, and, bent on ''block-
ing Froebers game," he surreptitiously learns to read under
the tutelage of the hired man.
Poor Sinks is next encouraged to devote himself to the
domestic animals, which sounds well in theory, but has its
drawbacks, as when he imitates his canine friends too realisti-
cally in his mothor's drawing-room. Funniest of all is bis
violent interest in Christian Science, which leads him to rub
poison ivy in his cheeks as a ''test"; next day, under his
laudanum bandages, he reluctantly decides to abandon the
" Science " and to try common sense instead.
The succeeding phases of Bink's development are described
with an irresistible humor, and the story will probably be even
more popular than its predecessor.
This work of Rev. R. H. Maiden
FOREIGN MISSIONS. on Foreign Missions^ is, in the
By Maiden. main, a brief history of Christian
missionary endeavors from the be-
ginning. The concluding chapters estimate methods and re-
sults and suggest ways of arousing interest at home in the
foreign field, but the work is largely historical. The author
makes no claim to be a grefit authority on the subject. He
wishes to narrate main facts and stir up interest. What im-
presses one first of all is the fact that the bulk of this work,
although written by an Anglican clergyman, deals with Cath*
olic missions. After readiag it, one is still more impressed
by his evident sympathy with our missionary endeavors, and
his desire to be fair. At times he reflects prevalent Protestant
opinion, as in his estimate of the Jesuits — Macaulay's praise
and censure watered down. At times, also, the Author in-
terjects a little criticism of Roman methods and beliefs; but
one feels that in his adverse criticism there is no malice. He
pleads for the reunion of Christendom; and we may say that
the spirit of fair play and of sympathy which he shows always
goes a long way towards promoting an end so devoutly to be
wished.
* Foreign Missions: Biing a Study of Some Principles and Methods in the Expansion
of the Christian Church, By R, H. Maiden. M.A. New York : Longmans. Green & Co.
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i9ia] New BOOKS 683
This recent work of Mr. Brownell/
AMERICAN PROSE is an important contribution to
MASTERS. American literary criticism. The
By W. C. Brownell. authors whom he discusses are
Cooper, Hawthorne, Emerson, Pee,
Lowell, and Henry James. Each author is treated at length,
and under various aspects, the very titles of which reveal Mr.
Browneirs power of analysis. But he has more than the
power of analysis, though that is one of the chief requisites
for the critic. He has read widely in various literatures, and
has his standards for comparison. He keeps, too, in touch
with reality, and refuses to pay his worship to mere form, as
a characteristic judgment will show : '' The truth is, it is idle
to endeavor to make a great writer of Poe, because, whatever
his merits as a literary artist, his writings lack the elements
not only of great, but of real literature. They lack substance.
Literature is more than an art. . . . Shakespeare, for ex-
ample, is neither exclusively nor supremely an artist."
The thirty days of June are de-
MEDITATIOnS FOR JUNE, voted to the worship of divine
love, as exhibited in the Heart of
Jesus and its throbs o\ pity for sinners. To feed this devotion
there are many books of prayers and meditations, some of
singular merit, others a shade too sentimental, as may be af-
firmed of a large number of the hymns published with the same
purpose. But sifting out these faulty contributions, we yet have
a prayerful literature of the Sacred Heart of solid worth.
A recent publication f forms no inconsiderable addition to
the permanent books of praise and prayer for this widespread
devotion. The book is small enough, and therefore portable;
the print very plain, the style clear and concise. The spirit
which inspires the writer recalls that of Fenelon. One is every-
where forcibly arrested and taught. The tone without being
unpleasantly imperative is yet compelling.
One feature that is worthy of special commendation is the
choice of Scripture quotations and the arrangement of them
in reference to the meditations, each day's allotment being
*Amirican Prose Masters, By W. C. Brownell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
t Meditations jor Each Day oj the Month of June, Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Translated and adapted from the Italian byCharles Santley. New York : Benxiger Brothers.
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684 NEW BOOKS [Atig,,
headed by several passages, admirably adapted to inspire ap-
propriate thoughts. It occurs to us that this little Tolume
might well serve for the manual of the yearly retreat of de*
Tout clients of our Redeemer's loving Heart None of the
principal topics of a Christian's reflections upon life and death,
time and eternity, God and His Christ, are omitted.
This life* of the African Btila-
STANLET. Matari (Breaker of Rocks) i^ of
absorbing interest. It is edited by
Lady Stanley, inasmuch as Sir Henry died before completing
his task. Bat the whole work is from Stanley's pen, exce^it
some twenty pages written by his wife, or by others, in appre-
ciiltion of Stanley's work. Stanley had brought his autobiog-
raphy down to the year 1862. The account of that portion of
his life forms Part I. of the Autobiography. The second and
larger division, Part II., is the section edited by Lady Stanley,
and is made up of shorter and longer extracts from Stanley's
unpublished diaries, lectures, and letters. These are united by
paragraphs or, sometimes, by a few pages from Lady Stanley's
pen, so that the whole presents a connected lif^ of the Welsh-
man, John Rowlands, or Henry M. Stanley, as he afterwards
was called.
In Part L Stanley gives a reflex picture of his early life at
the Workhouse of St. Asaph; of his escape from it; of his
shipping to America ; of his '' finding a father " in Mr. Stanlejr
of New Orleans. He tells of his part in the Civil War, as
Confederate and as Unionist, giving a most vivid description
of the battle of Shiloh.
In Part II. Stanley, speaking from his journals and other
unpublished writings, tells how he became special correspond-
ent for the New York Herald; of his quest for Livingstone,
and of his great esteem for that noble character. Three chap-
ters are devoted to: <^ Through the Dark Continent " ; "Found-
ing of the Congo State"; and ''Rescue of Emin." In these
chapters we have Stanley's estimate of his work, and of those
who helped him to accomplish it. From Chapter XIX. on are
given the events of Stanley's later life — his lecture tours, elec-
tion to Parliament, appreciation of various public men, his last
♦ Thi Autobiography of Sir fitnry Morion Stanley, CC.B, Edited by his wife, DoroChj
Stanley. Bostoa : Houghton Mifflin Company.
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days. The final chapter (XXVII.) contains thoughts on various
sutgects, extracted from his note-book.
The characteristic that strikes one most on reading the life
is sterp earnestness. Stanley was deserted by his near relatives
while still a child, and this harsh treatment seems to have pro-
duced a certain amount of bitterness in his nature that never
sweetened. Public distrust and neglect did not help to dissolve
that bitterness, as we see from the following words:
For what was my reward 7 Resolute devotion to a certain
ideal of duty, framed Mter much self-exhortation to upright-
ness of conduct, and righteous dealing with my fellow-crea-
tures, had terminated in my being proclaimed to all the world
first as a forger, and then as a buccaneer, an adventurer, a
fraud, and an impostor I It seemed to reverse all order and
sequence, to reverse all I had been taught to expect. Was
this what awaited a man who had given up his life for his
country and for Africa ? • • . Spears in Africa were hurt-
ful things, and so was calumny of the press here ; but I went
on and did my work, the work I was sent into the world to do.
The life of Stanley shows that he was a deeply religious
man. He says, speaking of his gratefulness for having received
a ''Biblical education'' at the workhouse:
My belief that there was a God, overseeing every action,
observing and remembering, has often come between me and
evil. Often, when sorely tempted, came the sudden strength
to say : " No ; I will not, it will be wicked ; not criminal, but
sinful ; God sees me." It is precisely for this strength that I
am grateful. Reason would not have been sufficient to re-
strain me from yielding to temptation. It required a con-
science, and a religious conviction created it. • . • Re-
ligion grew deep roots in me in the solitude of Africa, so
that it became my mentor in civilization, my director, my
spiritual guide.
We wish to call special attention
BEST STORIES BY CATH- to ten small and neatly bound
OLIC AUTHORS. volumes issued by Benziger Broth-
ers, and entitled, The Best Stories
by the Foremost Catholic Authors.^ The volumes contain one
• Th€ Bat Stpriis bf the Foremost CathciU Authors, With an Introduction by Maurice
Francis Egan, LL.D. In Ten Volumes. New York: Benziger Brothers.
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686 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
hundred and fiftj stories by sixty-four Catholic writers of
note, and they successfully answer the criticism that there is
no good, reasonably priced Catholic literature. Maurice Fran-
cis Egan asks in his introduction who is responsible for the
small payment received for their work by Catholic authors?
He concludes as follows:
One can see, by reading the names in this set of volumes,
that the responsibility for this condition of things does not lie
with the author. There are celebrated names here. May I,
at random, point to Benson and Katharine Tynan, John Tal-
bot Smith and Christian Reid? There are stories here as
nearly perfect as any short story can be. The fault is not
with the publisher. Here are books, well made, in good
taste, and sold at a moderate price. What more can the
Catholic public ask ? To ask more would be to be over-criti-
cal. What, then, ought to be the duty of people who need
decent literature, which does not insinuate cynical unbelief,
palliate free love, plead for sexual lawlessness — or, in a word,
debase the moral currency? To support the efforts oi the
Catholic publisher — to enable the authors to be free of anxiety
— and to better literary conditions that are beginning, thank
God, to improve.
The frequent additions that of
CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST, late have been made to our meagre
library of English works treating
Catholic dogma from the positive and historical side are a
source both of regret and rejoicing; of regret that English-
speaking theologians are doing so little in this line ; of rejoic-
ing that by translations we are enabled to profit by the work
of foreign scholars. Thus within the last year our libraries
have been enriched by Riviere's scholarly work on The Atone-
mentf by Pourrat's volume on TAe Sacraments, and soon we
hope to welcome an English translation of Gixerout's classic
production on the Historj^ of Dogma and the German Raus-
chen's book on The Eucharist and Penance in the first six cen-
turies, which will be a companion to Dr. O'Donnell's volume
on Penance.
To these it is a real pleasure to add the present volume.*
* Tki Childhood of Jmsus Christ Auordin^ fa tht Camcnical Gospels, with an Historical
Essay on the Brethren of the Lord, By A. Durand, S.J. An authorked translation from the
French. Edited by Rev. Joseph Bnineau, S.S.. D.D. Philadelphia : John J. McVcy.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 687
It is a collectioa of the articles published by the eminent
Jesusty Father Durand, in the Revue Pratique d^Apologitique^
and the Revue Biblique; these are not merely reproduced, but
were done over and completed by the author and then put
in the more permanent book form in French, and are now
presented to us in their English dress. The work treats
mainly of the special question of the Virgin Birth of Christ,
round which are gathered the other questions relating to the
divine Infancy; namely, the Dreams, the Magi, the Massacre
of the Holy Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, and the Geneal-
ogies of Christ; to which is added an historical essay on the
Brethren of the Lord.
There has been a great need of just such a volume in
English. The general position of rationalistic and liberal
scholars and also Modernists has been to admit the sincerity
of the Evangelists, but to hold that the primitive tradition
underwent a process of transfiguration under the influence of
the faith of the early Church; such a principle led to the
rejection of all that is supernatural; hence the narratives of
the Childhood of Christ, and particularly the Virgin Birth,
have been looked upon as merely legendary. This position has
been current in Germany for years; it has spread of late to
England and America and the traditional views have been
gradually losing ground ; within the last ten years an enormous
literature has appeared on the question of the Virgin Birth
even in English, but not one English book has come from the
pen of a Catholic. True we have had some masterly articles
in reviews — the ones by Dr. Oussani deserve especial com-
mendation; but the fact remains that this translation is the
only scientific treatise in English on this all important ques-
tion.
We know these doctrines by revelation; we believe them
on the word of God and the infallible word of the Church;
but it is also well to give a reason for the faith that is in us,
to be able to give the historical and critical justification for
our position. This is precisely what Father Durand does. He
appeals to criticism, and a scientific criticism demonstrates that
there is not a single serious reason to reject the Gospel of the
Infancy as legendary, but rather every reason to accept it as a
first-rate historical authority. He appeals to history, and his-
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688 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
tory proves satisfactorily that from the days of the Apostles
to our 09ftk day the orthodox Church has looked upon the Virgin
Birth of Christy as well as the miraculous events connected
with it, as historical realities.
The work is well translated and printed, is loaded with
footnotes and references. These Ust should have been gathered
into a bibliography. It is a volume which ought to be in the
library of every priest and educated layman.
The life of Gabriel Possenti*— a
THE LIFE OF GABRIEL very modern saint — is, for many
FOSSENTI. reasons, of more than ordinary in-
terest. He is a child of our own
times. Born in 1838, he lived only to the age of twenty-four,
dying in 1862. He gave no evidence of his future holiness
until he crossed the threshold of his cloister home. The five
years of his religious life, during which he attained such per-
fection, were devoted to the performance of common duties.
Cardinal Gibbons was one of the three bishops who« in 1895,
first petitioned the Holy See for Gabriel's beatification. He
was beatified within fifty years of his death, and present at it
were his brother, several relatives, many fellow-students, his
spiritual director. Father Norbert, and even the lady, now the
wife of an officer in the Italian army, who had once thought
it such a great pity that Gabriel turned his back on the world
and herself to become a Passionist.
The [volume is founded principally upon the sworn depo-
sitions contained in the Episcopal and Apostolical Processes.
The author treats the life of Blessed Gabriel under these head-
ings: *' Secular Life," "Religious Life," "Work and Means of
Perfection," " Consummation in Death," and " Glorification."
The reading of this book will bring home the lesson that
essential perfection or holiness is not to be sought in wonder-
ful deeds, but rather in the ordinary duties of life sanctified
by the love of God.
♦ Th€ Life ofBUsstd Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Gabriel Possemti of the Con^re^ati^n
of ike Passion. Begun by Rev. Hyacinth Hage, C.P. Rewritten and enlarged by Rev.
Nicholas Ward, C. P. With an Introduction by Cardinal Gibbons. Philadelphia: Kilner
&Co.
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I9IO.] New Books 689
During the month of July the
WHIRLPOOLS. Poles celebrated with much cere-
By SienHewicz. mony the five- hundredth anniTer-
sary of the battle of Tannenberg,
when the victory of the Jagellons meant the beginning of
Poland's greatness. Poland lies now dismembered and at the
mercy of strangers. Whether the kingdom of Poland will exist
again or not is a question difficult to answer in the present
confused state of European politics. But the call of their
ancient country is still strong in millions of hearts.
Almost simultaneously with this national celebration, Henryk
Sienkiewicz, the Polish patriot. and well-known writer, has pub-
lished his latest work Whirlpools^^ which sounds like a bugle
call to all lovers of Poland to hasten to the rescue and the
rehabilitation of their country. The struggle of the twelve
million Poles of Russian Poland against Russian tyranny con-
tinues to this day with unabated vigor. The doctrines of
Russian socialists and Russian atheists have secured a foothold
in the land. They are bearing destruction and chaos in their
wake, and their triumph will spell utter defeat for the restora-
tion of Poland. The fate of any people struggling for inde-
pendence and for nationality, particularly when that people are
brothers with us in faith, must be of interest to us. And from
out these pages rings the pitiful cry that tells us of the terrible
trials of a conquered people ; of their wrongs inflicted both by
those without and within; and most tragic of all — how the
virtuous lift prayers in vain; how the responsible ones are
faithless to their trust; how truth and morality are sacrificed
for self- advancement and self- gratification; and how shame is
written in red letters by the hands of her own sons across the
face of Poland.
The book, moreover, has a world-wide interest and a world-
wide value. Poland may here be the only background to the
storm that threatens, but the real background is the world — for
the storm threatens the whole of civilized society. They that
have ears will hear ; and they that have eyes have already seen«
But Gronski spoke further: ''Socialism — good I That, of
course, is a thing more ancient than Menenius Agrippa.
* Whiflp—U. By Henryk Sienkiewicz; Translated from the Polish by Max A; Drennal
Boston : Little, Brown & Co.
vou XCU— 44
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That river has flown for ages. At times, when covered by
other ideas, it coursed underground, and later emerged into
the broad daylight. At times it subsides, then swells and
overflows. At present we have a flood, very menacing, which
may submerge not only factories, cities, and countrieSi but
even civilization. Above all, it threatens France, where com-
fort and money have displaced all other ideas. Socialism is
the inevitable result of that. Capital wedded to demagogism
cannot breed any other child ; and if that child has the head
of a monster and mole, so much the worse for the father. It
demonstrates that superfluous wealth may be a national dan»
ger. But this is not strange. Privilege is an injustice
against which men have fought for centuries. Formerly the
princes, clergy, and nobility were vested with it. To-day no*
body has any; money possesses all. In truth, I^bor has
stepped forth to combat with it."
And through this same Gronski, who seems to be his offi^
cial spokesman, Sienkiewicz shows that in the solution of thcat
pressing agrarian and economic problems Socialism is showing
itself an idiot. And finallyi when all has been summed up aad
the story told, an unbeliever speaks;
'' Hear, sir, an athiest, or at least a man who has nothing
to do with any religion. Knowledge without religion br«^d&
only thieves and bandits."
The pen of Sienkiewicz has lost none of its power. He
can still present a picture with telling lines and vivid colors.
His analysis of character is marvelous. He gives us Poland
in its nobility, its peasants, and its rabble, detached and ac-
curate. We know their beliefs, their aims, and their morals.
To Poland itself the book must be a sort of patriotic classic;
to us it is valuable as the apology against Socialism of a keen
observer and a deep student.
We regret to say that, like other books by this same ao«-
thor. Catholic as he is, this story is tainted by what some
would call, for the sake of using a euphemism, exaggerated
realism. If the filth was there it was sufficient to indicate it;
it was not necessary to expose it, and hold it long before the
jreader*s eyes. We are sorry to see such stains upon an un-
usually powerful book. The translator's work is poorly done*
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When Lord Russell, in 1883, visited the United States, he
had the happy foresight to jot down in the pages of a diary
his observations of the places and persons whom be met on his
trip across the continent. These pages,* intended originally
for family perusal, have been edited under the auspices of the
United States Catholic Historical Society by Charles George
Herbermann, Ph.D. Intensely interesting, this dinry possesses
great merit, because it reflects the mind of a man of excellent
judgment, keenly observant of the things around him and fully
sympathetic with American life and institutions. At no point
dull, his impressions are enlivened by touches of Irish humor
and the affectionate effusions of a tender, fatherly heart.
The last few years have been for French Catholics a time
of persecution. All have suffered, yet on none has the hand
of the government fallen more rigorously and with more dire
effect than upon the nuns. Unable to battle with the world,
they have been east out of their homes, and oftentimes by mere
brutal force. What they have endured, what their sufferings
have been, none of us may rightly imagine. The present vol-
ume,t however, supplies us with a vivid description of the
trials of these poor women. It is the diary of a nun who has
witnessed the expulsion of her sisters and companions, who
has seen her community house pass into the hands of atheist
rulers, and has herself realized in full the meaning of her
Master's words: ''the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His
head I ** The style is not that of one writing for effect, but
simple and unadorned, truly picturing a heart almost broken,
yet never despairing. Deep and touching, it is indeed a story
of sorrow.
Bishop Colton, despite his many episcopal labors, has again
found time to gather together his thoughts on subjects of prof-
itable interest to Catholics. This latest volume. Buds and
BlossomsX consists of numerous short essays and a few poems
that treat of Catholic life from every practical point of view.
^ Diary of a VisU to the Uniiid S$atts m thi Year i88^. By Cbarlesi^L^rd Russell» of
KiUowen. Edited by Charles G«orge Herbennaim, Ph.D. New York: The United States
CathoUc Historioal l^f lyf
\ TM4 Diitry ^^n ^MikdNm. An AuthoHfed TraosUtion. fit LMis: B, Harder.
%Buda amd Biossowu. By Right Rev. Charles H. Colten, D.D. New York; Bensiger
Brothers.
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692 NEW Books [Aug.,
Wide in scope, brief yet pointed in its discuss! on, this book
will afford pleasant and useful reading to the busy Catholic
The scene of this story * is a fashionable hotel in the moun-
tains. There is a little mystery, a bit of detective work, and
two love-affairs; the book has no serious claim to considera-
tion, but is pleasant reading for a summer afternoon.
The Chief Sources of Sin, a small volume by Rev. M. V,
McDonough, and published by John Murphy Company, of
Baltimore, includes a sermon on every one of the seven capi-
tal sins.
From the Atlanta University Press, we have received a
pamphlet on The Ej^orts of the Negro Americans for Social
Betterment. The pamphlet gives much interesting information
and copious statistics. It is an important addition to the lit-
erature concerning the social betterment of the negro.
The latest addition to the series of instruction books for
children, published by Benziger Brothers, of New York, is en-
titled The Laws of the King. With an easy, simple style, and
in clear, intelligible language, with here and there an apt illus-
tration, the author explains for young folks the meaning of
the ten commandments.
" Even to the reader unacquainted with Mr. Veiller's career,
a mere glance at his book f will justify its title of ** practical."
Little theory and no rhetoric may be a departure from the
style of discussion which has been too prevalent in the field
of tenement reform, but it makes this volume a series of valu-
able instruction and unavoidable conclusions — presented in a
very clear and interesting way. We can think of no point
within the scope of the discussion that Mr. Veiller has not
treated — and treated well.
Although not equal in charm to the author's former suc-
cess, Septimus^ this new story,! by W. J. Locke, has neverthe-
* The Cavt-Woman, By Viola Burbans. New York: Henrj Holt & Co.
t Housing Reform, A Hand-Book for Practical Use in American Cities. Bj Lawrence
Veiller. New York : Charities Publication CommiUee.
I Siwton the Jester. Bj W. J. Locke. New York : John Lane Company.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 693
less a decided attraction of its own. The characters are un-
usualy the plot is of a fantastic originality^ and the style, now
pathetic, now whimsical, remains always delightfully clever.
The mysterious death of a pet rabbit leads to a feud be-
tween a ''gang'' and a more aristocratic ''set" in a boys'
day-school. The story of the skirmishes, the open warfare, and
fiaaily the reconciliation, is very real, and is told with evident
knowledge of the genus boy. The book* is not warranted
to suggest novel ideas or to stimulate unduly the young im-
agination, but is probably interesting enough to be popular.
The publishing house of Lecoffre has again claimed our
gratitude by adding another to its long list of publications
bearing on positive theology. The volume f before us is very
unpretentious, claiming to be a book of information rather than
a doctrinal treatise ; but, however we may choose to designate
it, the professor or student of Sacramental Theology will find
it a valuable help in determining the mind of the Fathers of the
first six centuries on disputed points. As the title suggests, the
subject matter is divided into two parts: one dealing with the
Eucharist, and the other with Penance. The arguments drawn
from the writings of the Fathers gain in importance from the
fact that Dr. Rauschen gives not only his own critical opinion
but also the comments of recognized modern scholars ; and the
translators have added notes elucidating more fully the thought
of the French authorities quoted. The index of proper names
will be very serviceable for reference work. At times the nu-
merous names and citations of modern authors and the scho-
lastic terminology used in interpreting the Fathers are some-
what confusing ; but on the whole the work deserves its French
dress, and we trust that an English translation will be forth-
coming.
The purpose of this volume | is to point out the evolution
of dogma in the writings and teachings of the Greek philoso-
phers. That there is organic unity in Hellenic philosophy all
• The Boys of St, Batfs, By R. P. Garrold, S.J. New York : Benziger Brothers.
t L* Euckaristit et la Pinittnet durant Us sixpremUts sihles de VSglise, Par G. Rauschen,
Professenr de Thdologie k l' University Catholique de Bonn. Traduit de TAlleniand par
Michel Decker, Vicaire k Saint- Vincent-de-Paul, et E. Ricard, Professeur au Grand S^ni-
naire d'Aix. Paris : Librairie Victor LecofEre, J. Gabalda et Cie.
XDocirina Reli^uusis dis Philotophes Grecs. Par M. Louis. Paris: P. Lethielleux.
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loTers of Qttmsm will itoutly maintain, and to M. Louis has de*-
▼oted hitnsalf to a task that cannot fail to elicit the intsrest
of scholars and the appreciation of all stodeats of religion.
Eight chapters seem few and insufficient for such a subject,
and jet the author has succeeded in packing all of these
chapters full of knowledge. Some of his theories are originali
either in themselves or in the manner in which they are set
forth. Probably the most interesting chapter is the second
one, which treats of the "Divine Mission and Reform of
Socrates."
Much of what is said here is old and familiar to the
Greek student, but the lengthy and attractive discussion of the
«< Daimonion ** of Socrates is perhaps the best treatment of the
question that has yet been given. The opinions of aadent
and modern writen are attractively set before the reader.
The laws of psychology and pathology, and the Greek religions
doctrines of inspiration and divination, are invoked in behalf
of this phenomenon. Like his predecessors, M« Louis admits
his inability to find a proper translation of this word *'Dai--
monion " ; but he insists that it must not be confosed with
the voice of conscience. In the last chapter the author treats
of the " End of Hellenism.'' Briefly put, he says that Hellen-
ism had its day, and then disappeared '' as all great things do,
because they are replaced by still greater ones" — the dogmas
of Christianity. The whole volume is ably and well written,
and the reader will find himself loath to lay it aside until he
has read the last page.
The masterly ascetical work of Father Scaramelli, S.J., on
Tki Dis^etnmint of Spirits^ has been translated from the
Italian to the French by M. A. Beassioni, and published by
Tequi, of Paris. The translation is ably done. May it inspire
some one of our writers to give us the same work in English.
To those who re&d French we recommend another small
volume, published by the same house and entitled Traiii des
ScrupuUs, by TAbb^ Grimes. The little brochure might well
be entitled Traiti Ccndutsant i la Paix de VAme, so well does
the author handle his subject and lead the suffering soul out
of the labyrinth of its self-imposed miseries. The last chapter
is a translation of Father Faber's treatise on the same subject.
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J^oteidn petiobicald.
Thi nbttt (4 Joiie)! ''The Ditmotid Jubilee of the Restora-
tion of the Hiefarchj " is an accottnt of the ** Papat
agression agitation" which arose after the Brief restor-
ing the Catholic Hierarchy in England had been pnb-
lished.-«**--^The movement of public opinion regarding
''The Royal Declaration'': A summary of expressions
representing the views of Catholics and Protestants
in England, Ireland, and Canada.**-*-^'' Mr. Roosevelt's
Warning to England/' a notice of his ''Guild Hall
Speech." "The Press comments on his speech have
been marked by a note of friendliness."
(n June): "Herbert Cardinal Vaughan/'a brief sketch
of the life and work of the late Cardinal of Westminster,
by William Canon Barry. The text of the Encyclical
Letter on St. Charles Borromeo.-^-—* Under "Divorce in
America " we learn that " divorce was more prevalent
in the United States (in 1908) than in any other civil-
ised country, Japan alone excepted." This is due to
the "lightness and frivolity" with which marriages are
contracted and dissolved in this country.— The degree
D.C.L. conferred upon Mr. Roosevelt at Oxford.
(18 June): "The Germans and the Encyclical." How
some Grerman Protestants became agitated over passages
in the recent Encyclical Letter — an agitation which is
"entirely factitious."
(25 June): "The Catholic Missionary Society" tells of
an historic event — the opening of the Mission House at
Broudesbury Park, with Dr. Herbert Vaughan in charge.
The English institution is similar in purpose to the
Apostolic Mission House at Washington, D. C— — " The
Story of Westminster Cathedral" is a special supple-
ment telling of Cardinal Vaughan and the Cathedral, its
style of architecture, history, etc.— ~-The Holy Father
has addressed to the Archbishop of Chicago, "a brief
full of praise for the Catholic Church Extension Society
of America."
The Month (June): "King Edward VII.," by Rev. Sydney
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696 Foreign periodicals [Aug.,
Smith, is a Catholic tribute to the late King as a kind
ruler, a lover and a promotor of universal peace.— *' In-
crease and Multiply ** deals with some interesting facts
concerning the marvelous workings of geometrical pro-
gressions in the animal and insect worlds.— -—The Rev-
erend Charles Plater, in an article entitled ''The Teach-
ing of Civics in Catholic Schools,'' emphasizes the need
and the advantages of such a course. Affiliation with
the Catholic Social Guild and practical social work are
advocated as means to this end. ''Christianity and
War'' by the Rev. Joseph Keating, reviews some of
the recent peace movements, and in a somewhat de-
tailed manner discusses the attitude of the Church
towards war.— "The Alphabet and the Consecration
of Churches," by the Rev. Herbert Thurston, offers an
explanation of the origin of the ceremony of writing the
alphabet on the pavement as a rite in the consecration
of a church.
Tki Crucible (25 June) : " Citizens of no Mean City " deals
with the question of our faith, and advocates that we
should work effectively " to Catholicize the Catholic
youth of to- day ; " a special appeal is made to build up
a strong middle class of forceful and intelligent Catho-
lics, who will be strong and firm defenders of the faith.
^V. M. Crawford describes "How Giri-Clerks are
Trained at Fribourg" in a recently established institu-
tion known as the &cole de Commerce pour Us Jeunes
FilleSf organized and controlled by the Council of State,
but placed under the supervision of the Ursuline Nuns.
" The Training of Social Workers " is set before us
by E. C. Fortez. Two points are suggested in attempt-
ing to deal with the problems of poverty: (i) Remedial
Work ; and (2) Constructive Work. Felix contributes
"A Catholic Social Catechism," showing what Society
is, what ails it, and how true Catholic principles applied
by Catholics can help in curing it.
The National Review (July) : Episodes of the Month reviews
Mr. Roosevelt's visit to England. The Earl Percy
writes on "The British Army in a European War" It
is a plea for a national army: "The safety of our
shores lies In the maintenance of the balance of power
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I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 697
in Europe.'' ''Coca and Cant. A Study in Radical
Ethics/' is an exposi of men who preach certain prin-
ciples and in commercial life violate them. The article
is aimed at the proprietors of several English papers,
among them being The Daily News^ The Star and
Morning Leader^ and The Nation. Alfred Austin writes
on *' Byron in Italy." The question of a Reciprocity
Treaty between Canada and the United States is dis-
cussed and the writer hopes that no such treaty will be
made.
Hibbert Journal (July) : '* An Open Letter to English Gentle-
men/' signed Pars Minima, is an appeal to the ** men
of gentle birth, of an inherited courtesy and courage/'
to turn their ''serious attention to politics and to a
patriotism broader and less self- regarding " than hitherto.
W. M« Childs discusses "Woman Suffrage." He
criticises the main arguments on either side and con-
cludes with a caution not " to allow novelty and risk to
prejudice favorable consideration of a prudent, an equit-
able, and a necessary proposal/' He says again: "Let
us realize that nothing more injurious to the interests
of women could happen than a premature decision upon
a proposal of such deep moment to the State." E.
Armitage treats of the question "Why Athanasius
Won at Nicasa." He finds the answer in the fact that
Athanasius " stood forth as the exponent of the deeper
soul in every man's soul . . • whose deep spiritual
needs had made him cry aloud for the living God, and
who then declared that in Christ this need had been
met/'
The International Journal of Ethics (July): Felix Adler thinks
that " The Moral Ideal," to which every one should
strive to conform, should be conceived of as a supreme
society, an organism having a multiplicity of parts rather
than as a single Infinite Being — God. His reason for
this position is that no one individual can be conceived
of at the same time as mother, father, brother, sister,
etc. In "The Moral Mission of the Public Schools,"
C. N. Johnston discusses the lessons of the Congress in
London at which America was not among the eighteen
nations represented. The possibility of idealizing "na-
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698 FOkBtGN PSklODiCALS [Aug.,
tioAal duty" or *' social solidarity '' to take tbe i>lace of
God and raligiofi is cofisidertd. Mr. Johnstoii reviews
the experience of Japan and France on the afirtnative
and that of England and Germany on the negative side.
He concludes that the whole problem of morals and re-
ligion in education is^ throoghont the wofld^ in the ex-
perimental stage.
Irish Ec€l$siasHcal tiecotd (June) : '' Agrarian Socialism/' by
the Editor, an essay disclosing various methods of
nationalizing the land. The chief object of Agrarian
Socialism is to make the State a oniversal landlords
Single tax on land should relieve all other taxation.
Some of the principles advocated, and a criticism of the
method proposed by each, are considered.-^^^The article
entitled ''Newspaper Controversy'' is a call to priests
to engage in defense work in the newspaper columns.
This medium of knowledge reaches all classes and what-
ever the newspaper states is taken without criticism by
the majority of readers. Hence error is easily spread.
''The masses should be attended to, heresy must be
checked, the newspaper is tbe means."
Le Coruipondant (to June): "The First Exile of the Duke of
d'Aumale." The entire correspondence of the Duke
d'Aumale with Cunllier-Fleury was published by M.
Limbourg. The article at hand is a review of some of
the letters of this publication, relating to the Duke's
first exile, which was spent at Clermont Castle, Eng-
land.-^-----Baron de Witte, in his article entitled " Twenty-
Six Years of Catholic Government in Belgium," gives
an account of affairs in Belgium since the reactionary
election of 1884 gave power to Catholics. The topics
considered by the author are: The School Question; The
Revision of the Constitution and Electoral Reform ; So-
cial Questions; The Question of Languages; The Colo-
nial Question.*-"— " Prayers and Unedited Meditations
of Ernest Heller." These prayers and meditations are
published on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the author's
death.
(S5 June) : " The Papacy^the View of Germany/' Mgr.
Batiffol refutes G. Krueger's German work— ^TIW Papacy^
lu Idea and In Upkoldifs^in which the latter 'says
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I9ia] FOJiSTON JPJUUOJMCAU 699
that ** the Papacy is a worldly powtr, but that the Pope
dots not consider the diffioolt problems of the times,
bot leaves their solution to the divine grace which is
given him/' Mgr. Batiffol appeals to Janssen and says
that Kraeger does not wish to acknowledge the good
that the Charoh has done for Germany^ especially in
the early ages. He considers the book very rationalis->
tic. ''The Submarines and their X4/e in our Navy/'
An anonymous writer under the name ''Seaman'^ re*
fers to the part played by the submarines in the French
manceavres of 1909 as a proof of their eficiency. He
does not believe that such accidents as recently hap-
pened to the P/uvUti will hinder the further adoption
of this means of warfare.— ^*' The UntversitiM and the
Preparation tor a Business Career/' by Mait Turmann.
The Universities are responding to the demands of
business that the youth study the commercial sciences
in preference to the classics as found in the curriculum
of the past generation. We find that ''auditors" are
outnumbering the regular students in the large German
universities.
JSntdis Franciscaims (June): P. Edouard d'Alen^oU makes a
short, critical study of "A Letter of Indulgences, 148 1/'
This was written by Sixtus IV., and appears to forgive
the sins of Ange de GasoUo, in view of a contribution
to the Crusade. It is explained that in reality it was
merely an ordinary indulgence and the granting of per-
mission ;to confess to an ordinary priest sins reserved
to the Pope.
Rivue du CUrgd Franfais (i June): P. Pisani writes of "The
Directory and the Pope" (1796. 1797).— P. Lanier has
an article on " The Bible and the Origins of the World/'
His thesis is that the account contained in Genesis was
originally revealed to Adam in a series of visions. The
biblical narrative gives a series of seven days for the
moral purpose of teaching the people the necessity of
sanctifying the Sabbath.
(15 June): J. Bricout, treating of "The Auxiliary In-
ternational Language/' gives an historical sketch of
" Volapak/' "Esperanto/' and "Ido/' a modification of
Esperanto. He discusses also the advantages and the
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70O FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Aug.,
feasibility of the project and treats of the various ob-
jections brought against it H. LesStre^ discussing
''The Day of the Last Supper/' cites the data of the
Sacred Writers^ and .concludes that all the probabilities
point to the day of the Pasch as that on which our
Savior was crucified.— —A. Bros and O. Habert give a
brief sketch of Pre- Islamic Religion (of the Arabs),
Mahomet, and the Doctrine of Islam.
£tudes (20 June) : Jean V. Bainvel reviews '' The Last Book
of George Tyrrell.'' This work, although seeming to
contain indications of a return of the author towards
the Church, still leaves a great deal wanting to make
his theories conformable to Catholic doctrine.-^-»Auguste
Hamon writes of ''The Devotion to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus after the Blessed Margaret Mary.
Rivue Pratique d^ Apologitique (i June): "The Intelligence of
the Savage," by Clodius Piat. The savage is, according
to the writer, a specimen of the primeval man, he is in
the lower stage of evolution, and in many, if not in all,
respects bears similarity with the child. The writer not
only gives his views, but cites the different theories set
forth by Mr. Levy-Bruhl and H. Spencer "pro and con.''
Lubboch and his followers believe the question to be
as yet insoluble.
(15 June): "The Protestant Declaration of the British
Sovereigns at the Time of Their Accession," by J. L.
de la Verdonie. "The Duel in Ecclesiastical Legis-
lation," by F. Cimetier. According to the author the
Church at large always did forbid the duel proper for
any reason whatever. To prove this the writer enumer-
ates the various ecclesiastical documents which condemn
this form of " honorable " homicide.
La Revue Apologitique (June) : " Jean Ruysbroeck the Admira-
ble," by P. Kremer, C.SS.R. The nature of mysticism
and its development up to the time of Ruysbroeck are
discussed. The fundamental difference between Christian
and pagan mystics is that the former alSrm the neces*
sity of supernatural faith and grace while the latter are
guided by mere natural speculation and a superstitious
theurgy. "Shintoistic Mythology," by Th. Gollier.
H. Pinard, SJ., discusses two recent ^books on the
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I9I0.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 70I
history of religions (by Reinach and Toutain) criticizing
their unscientific methods. Toutain, e. g.^ asserted that
the totemism of the natives of America and Australia
is perfectly known and that it is a stage of religion
through which all the peoples of the globe have passed
— both of which assertions are mere postulates. Rein-
ach finds in all mythologies analogies to the Trinity,
Communion, etc.« and many biblical personalities, and
infers from them that these are unreal or only adapta-
tions.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (June): ''Critical Difficulties in
Apologetics/' by C. A. Kneller, SJ. Scripture-texts as
they stand are admitted by rationalistic critics to prove
the truth of the Catholic Church and dogma; but these
texts themselves are now rejected as not genuine.
Should Catholic apologists enter into textual criticism?
No ; for apologists have chiefly to deal with Protestants
who believe in the Bible as it stands.— ''The Psychol-
ogy of Religion, a New Branch of Experimental Psy-
chology,'' by J. B. Linwurzky, SJ. The methods and
aims of this science, which is chiefly an American growth,
are discussed with regard to its usefulness for Catholic
sciences. A phenomenon of religious life should not be
explained by referring to the " causa prima " as long as
any possibility of a natural explanation is not excluded*
Theologisch^Practische QuarialscAri/t {July): "The Education
and Training of the Clergy in Accordance with the
Times," by Dr. Reinhold, is a risumi of Dr. Schroer's
book of that title. The author insists that higher edu-
cation is a necessity, and points out the important part
the meagre knowledge of " Church matters " played in
the catastrophe of the Dark Ages. He compares the
Italian with the French seminaries; lastly he notices
the houses of study under Jesuit direction, which he con-
siders ideal. " Theft in the Law of Moses and in the
Code of Hammurabi." Dr. Andrew Eberharter com-
pares various passages in each code. As a whole they
agree, through the code of Hammurabi is often stricter
than that of Moses. That the Law of Moses originated
in Babel is absurd in the light of the foregoing compari-
son. " The So-called Biblical Questions and the Edu-
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fQ$ FOXXIQN PERIODICALS [Aug.,
cation of the People/* by Dr. Hugo. Any apparent
errors in the Bible must be confined to profane qnes-
tionf. They are to be explained by the human element
in the Scriptures and the theory of implicit quotation.
La Civilid Cattolica (4 June): The need of '^Congresses to
Improve the Morals of the People/' such as was held
in Rome recently, is shown to be beyond question ; but
the ignoring of religion as a remedy for the evils of
society by this congress must be censured.-^-^*' Prayer
According to the Theosophists/' There are three kinds
of prayer for the Tbeosophist; and the object to which
these prayers arc directed is '* God '' ; but this '' God ''
is only a threefold category of beings which pervade
the universe.
(18 June): Contains the Latin text and an Italian trans-
lation of the Encyclical on the Centenary of the Canoni-
zation of St. Charles Borromeo *-^-^The Encyclical is
made the subject of an article. The writer believes that
the storm which arose in Germany over the Encyclical
is due to the intrigues of certain apostates |from Catho-
licism, espeeially of one residing in Rome, who put a
false interpretation on the words of the Pope,
(a July); ''Christianity at the Crossroads/' tells of the
"challenge flung at Christianity by poor TyrrelP'; it is
an exposition of the principal thought put forth in Tyr-
rell's last works \ Tkrm^ Scylh 4nd Ckatybdit, M$di€vml-
ismf and Christianity at tha Cpossr^ds.^^^-^^**The Re-
ligious Spirit in the Army *' is an account of the fight
carried on by anti«olericals and others against every
manifestation of religion among the members of the army.
The writer shows even the national effects produced by
religion.^-^^" The Encyclical jEdiio! Sofia and the Agi-
tation Among the Protestants of Germany.'' Now that
the storm has subsided the writer deems it advisable to
put the whole affair of the Encyclical in its true light
La ScuQta Cattolica (June): Fra Semeli, who is also a doctor
of medicine, writes on "Scruples and Obsessions" for
the use of confessors.— i— A. Cantone endeavors to show
that " Biblical Monogenesis " has anticipated those in-
vestigations which tend to prove the existenot of a sin-
gle home of all mankind in a favorable section of Asia*
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1 910.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 703
RaxSn y Fe (June) : R. Ruiz Amado, under the caption '* Re-
ligious Education/' asks why the devotion of so many
religious men and women to this cause has not been
more fruitful. He lays the blame largely upon the
materialistic atmosphere of modern society and political
opposition from anti-clericals; but he suggests, as a
partial remedy, a study of modern pedagogic methods.
First of a series of articles on proportional representa-
tion by F. Lopez del Vallado. The rights of a minority
are pointed out.
Espana y Awt/ma (June) : P. M. Rodriguez H. sketches '' The
Yankee Infiltration in Latin America." The author
thinks that the United States is trying to absorb the
nations of South America and that certain agitators in
Peru and elsewhere are willing to further such action*
He looks to Brazil and Chile to block the move.— — **R.
P, Requeijo describes the deep devotion to religion in
''The City pf Mexico/'— ^P. Maximiliano Estebanei;
shows that recent Spanish-American congresses have
brought Spain and her former colonies closer together
by dispelling ignorance on both sides.— —*P. B. Martinet
gives an account of the drowning of three Augustiniap
missionaries in China. They were run down by an Engf-
lish vessel in the Tang Su River.
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IRecent Evente^
France, it is said, is entering upon
Franco. a new era of parliamentary gov-
ernment. Up to the present some
one or other of the many groups of which the Chamber con-
sists has secured, by alliances with others of these groups, the
dominating power, and has used this power for their advantage
alone, governing against the parties outside. M. Briand has
announced his intention to change all this. ''The Government
is to govern with Republicans in the interests of the country
as a whole.'' He will not place any longer the Republican
Administration at the mercy of a clique. This determination
of M. Briand dissatisfied the largest group of those who had
hitherto supported him, and at first they were unwilling to
do more than give their adhesion to the measures which he
announced and refused to approve of his methods. M. Briand
would not accept half-hearted support and announced his in-
tention of resigning if he did not receive a vote expressing the
perfect confidence of the Assembly, not only in the measures
proposed, but also in his methods of government. After con-
siderable wavering, the Socialist Radicals gave the asked- for as-
surance, and, by a vote of 403 to no, M. Briand was empowered
to introduce the new era — the triumph of a national policy over
the petty and factious interests of certain tyrannical political
groups. The government is in future to govern for France
as a whole. The judicial, the executive, and the legislative
powers are to be kept in their respective spheres, the majority,
and not a selfish minority, is to rule. What Gambetta tried
to do thirty years ago, M. Briand has accomplished. His sup-
porters in the decisive vote were the Progressists or Moderate
Republicans, the Nationalists, the Ripublicains de Gauche^ and
a large proportion of the Radicals and Socialist Radicals. The
Socialists without exception voted against him.
The President of the Republic, in the course of a series of
visits made to various parts of France, gave his support to the
same policy. Addressing the Mayors of the department of Puy-
de-Ddme, he said : '' Defend ardently the Sag of the Republic.
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19 10.] RECENT EVENTS 705
It is the flag of France^ the emblem of our glories. But when
you act in your capacity of administratorsi act in the interests
pf all. If you are elected Mayor by a party, let all your
fellow-citizens profit by your administration. Thus *will you
insure your influence and your authority.'' And in paying a
visit to a hospital, he gave expression to his high appreciation
of the Sisters of Charity and of the devotion shown by them
in the service of the patients. Perhaps this may be taken as
confirming the rumors which have been circulated, that efforts
are being made towards a more conciliatory mode of action in
respect to the Church. The recent rioting in Paris, and several
other evidences of a widely spread spirit of lawlessness, may
well make every one who has the well-being of the country
at heart anxious as to the future, and willing to take the nec-
essary steps to avert any coming dangers. The Confedera-
tion of Labor declares that the present republican organization
is made up of hypocrites, spies, and assassins. How far this
is a true representation of the opinions held by the mass of
French workingmen, we do not know. But that an authorized
association should give public utterance to such views shows
that in the background there are many elements of danger.
The foreign relations of France have undergone but little
change. The idea of entering into closer relations with Ger-
many may have received something of a set-back, owing to
Germany having applied to certain French exports the maxu
mum Tariff, and to the reprisals threatened in consequence.
It has been found necessary to enter upon military operations
in Morocco on account of the machinations of a very influen-
tial sorcerer, but as these were attended with complete success,
there is no likelihood of long-drawn*out hostilities. There is,
however, no reliance to be placed upon the Sultan, who, if
the accounts — widely circulated, although denied by himself—
may be believed, is one of the most cruel of the long line of
cruel despots, inflicting upon those from whom he wishes to
extort money tortures too atrocious to be described.
A visit in state has been paid to Paris by the grandson of
Louis Philippe, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, recently de-
clared King of Bulgaria. He was received with every mani-
festation of welcome and seems to have at once become quite
popular.
VOL. xci.— 45
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706 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
There has been qaite an exodut
Germany. from office of Grerman officials.
The first to go was the Colonial
Secretary, Herr Dernburgi appointed nearly four years ago.
The aristocrats of Germany claim for themselves, as of right,
all the high offices, and when a banker was appointed in order
to effect absolutely necessary changes in the management of
the Colonies, deep resentment was felt at the innovation, and
at the indignity involved in the fact that persons of their
quality should be placed under the control of a mere com-
mercial man. These feelings made them act in such a way
towards the Colonial Secretary, that he found his position too
unpleasant to retain. It is said, with how much truth we
know not, that the Catholic Centre was in part responsible.
The resignation of Herr Dernburg was followed a short time
afterwards by that of two Prussian Ministers, Herr von Moltke,
Minister of the Interior, and Herr von Arnim, Minister of
Agriculture. No particular importance is attached to these
resignations. Neither of them was desirous of office; the for-
mer declared that he would willingly walk all the way back
to his home at Konigsberg, and the latter that he was glad to
return to the cultivation of his own cabbages.
A more important change was brought about by the trans-
fer to Paris of the Foreign Secretary, Baron von Schoen, as
German Ambassador to France, to take the place of Prince
Radolin, and by the appointment in his place of the Grerman
Minister to Bucharest, Herr von Ktderlan-Wachter. Even these
changes are not so important as they appear, for the control
of the foreign policy of the Empire is not in the hands of the
Foreign Secretary. It is the Chancellor who nominally con-
trols, but it is thought that the Emperor William is the real
controller. The last of the changes is the resignation of the
Prussian Minister of Finance, Baron von Rheinbaben. Rumors
have been rife that the Chancellor himself, Herr von Bethmann-
Hollweg, was upon the point of going the way of the rest,
success not having attended his efforts to settle the Prussian
Franchise question. These rumors, however, have so far proved
to be unfounded. There is said to be a lack of men fit to fill
so exalted and responsible a position. It is the Emperor, of
course, who is responsible for these changes, and for the ap-
p ointments consequent upon them, and what they mean is»
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I9I0.] RECENT EVENTS 707
therefore, more or less guess work. But it may well be be-
lieved that nothing has been done lightly, for he has himself
informed the world in a recent communication that in all his
thoughts and actions he is accustomed to ask himself what the
Bible says about the matter, and to find in it the fountain
from which he draws strength and light. His subjects, how-
ever, seem to be looking in other directions, for recent elec-
tions have resulted in victories for the Social Democrats.
The Duma has shown by its pro-
Russia, ceedings with reference to Finland
that a parliamentary assembly can
be as arbitrary and as little amenable to reason as the sheer-
est of autocrats. The crucial clauses which provide that the
autonomy, of Finland, should be subordinated to the Imperial
Legislature, that the schools, the Press, and the right of meeting
and association, the Imperial taxation, the Customs, military
service, and the merchant marine, should no longer be within
the exclusive jVirisdiction of the Finnish Diet — these clauses
which abolish the century- old Finnish constitution were passed
through the Committee stage in the brief space of seven minutes.
Two days afterwards the second and third readings were carried.
In the Council of the Empire, which is largely a nominated
body forming the upper House, more consideration seems to
have been given to the matter.
And so the Tsar has found his Parliament willing to co-
operate with him in making naught of his plighted word and
that of his predecessors, that they would preserve intact the
rights and privileges which were a condition of its annexation
of Finland to the Empire, and of the acceptance by the Fin-
landers of the sovereignty of the Russian Emperor. According
to these promises Finland was to be free in her internal affairs,
she was to take her place in the rank of nations, she was not
to be looked upon as a conquered province endowed with tem-
porary privileges, but as an autonomous organism, united by
free agreement to a sovereign state, which, on account of this
agreement, was obliged to respect this autonomy. Finland was
to be a part of the Russian Empire consisting of Russia and
Finland, but not a part of the Empire of Russia. All this
has been set aside, in spite of representations made by various
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708 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
authorities througboiit Europe. One hundred and twenty Brit*
ish Members of the House of Commons and forty-three Irish
Nationalists signed Memorials to the Duma in favor of the
Finns. Members of the Belgian Senate and House of Depu-
ties, and a large number of Italian Deputies, including several
members of the present government, took a like course. One
hundred members of the French Chamber of Deputies and fifty
of the Senate also sent a Memorial. We have already referred
to the Manifesto of some of the most distinguished Juriscon-
sults of Europe.
We said, in spite of these representations the Duma passed
the restrictive legislation. Perhaps it ought to have been said
on account of these representations greater unanimity was se-
cured. For Russia, like Most other countries and some indi-
viduals, resents outside interference and is more likely to stick
to a wrong course on account of it than to accept advice from
outside.
The only justification offered for this violation of their
pledged rights was that the Finns had refused to fulfill their
military obligations, and that it was inconvenient to the Em-
peror to run the risk that measures taken for the good of the
Empire by the Imperial Parliament should be thwarted by the
action, or want of action, of so small a body as the Finnish
Diet. It has to be admitted that the Finns have shown no
love for the Russians in the past, and have in several ways
made things inconvenient for them, and that they may in fact,
in some cases, have acted unjustly. So there were grounds
for thinking that the Diet might not act in unison with the
Duma.
It is in this way that the action of the government and of
the Duma may be explained. It ought to be mentioned also
that a modification was made in the Bill by which it is left to
the Tsar alone to initiate all action to be taken under the new
Law in the practical and actual exercise of any of the powers
conferred by it. Moreover, there were considerable minorities,
both in the Duma and in the Council of the Empire, against
the passing of the Bill; and there is said to be a large num-
ber of Russians who are strongly opposed to the new Law.
What action the Finns will take remains to be seen. It is al-
most certain that they will offer passive resistance all along
the line to any practical exercise of powers in derogation of
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19 la] RECENT EVENTS 70g
their rights. The Finnish Diet has already unanimously de-
clared that the prorisions of the new Law cannot be regarded
as valid in Finland. Finnish judges and administrative officials
will, it is saidi declare that they cannot comply with it, since
it is in conflict with the Constitution which they have sworn
to uphold. What will Russia do? Shall we see another era
like that under Bobrikoffi when judges and officials were sum-
marily deposed and private persons exiled, imprisoned, or de-
ported to remote parts of Russia ?
It is not the Finns alone who are to be deprived of hither-
to existent rights. The Poles are to become victims of the
same unifying policy which is the cause of so many of the evils
to which various nationalities in Europe have to submit, and
which is the excuse of so much tyrannical action. A Bill has
been introduced into the Duma which is primarily intended to
deprive the chief landowners of the right of election to the
Upper House, and to exclude them from the chief elective
offices and salaried posts. This Bill was considerably modified
before it passed, and the* injustice inflicted was not so great,
therefore, as its promoters intended ; but a further assault upon
Polish privileges, such as they are, is projected for the coming
autumn.
The Jews, too« have been made to suffer from this revival
of national sentiment. It is hard to estimate to what extent
the recent expulsions have been carried out, as accounts vary ;
and they are said to be legal, that is, in accordance with the laws
of Russia. But in one or^ two instances even Russian justice
stood in the way of the government, and prevented it from
carrying out its orders.
In view of the Duma^s participation in the Finnish legisla-
tion, there is a temptation to pass upon it a severe condemna-
tion and to despair of any hope of the advent of a better time
for the Russian people, seeing that Tsar and Duma are bad
alike — squally arbitrary and ready to oppress. This,: however,
seems premature. The mere fact that there is at least the
semblance of open debate and of discussion before the public
is better than the issue of Ukases on the Tsar's sole authority,
passed under nobody knows what secret influences.. The nation
is becoming accustomed to the gradual diffusion of light upon
matters which in former times were wholly wrapped in dark-
ness; a school of political education, is being formed, and the
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7IO RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
power of public opinion will, in consequence, become greater.
The Duma has already been the means of reforming a large
number of administrative abuses. Incompetent, unscrupulous,
and corrupt officials have felt its power, and the measure of
their dread is the violence of the opposition which they offer
to its continuance. The reactionaries in the third Duma form
a group of fifty organized members, mostly, it is said, men of
low education and led by two agitators, who speak on all oc*
casions and carry on a constant campaign of provocation. Some
of the speeches of one of these agitators, M. Purishkevich, are
not fit to be printed, and are avowedly made to bring disgrace
on the Assembly by exciting disorderly scenes. The resigna-
tion of the latest President was due to the uproar caused by one
of these speeches. A large number is doing all within its
power to discredit the Duma^ but these advocates of extreme
reaction are bankrupt both in policy and in personnel.
That the Tsar remains a firm supporter of the constitution
which he granted offers a firm barrier to the efforts of its
enemies. M. Stolypin has been able to thwart the many at-
tempts that have been made to remove him from office, and
has, besides carrying the Land Law of November, 1906, ef-
fected a large number of administrative reforms. One factt
however, enables an estimate to be formed of the degree of
progress so far attained in Russia. Upon the adjournment of
the Duma the President, M. Guchkoff, resigned his position in
order to go to prison for one month, this penalty having been
inflicted upon him for having a short time before fought a duel.
No other evil effect seems to have followed upon conviction of
such a crime — a fact which goes to show how little public
opinion in Russia is influenced by moral considerations. This,
however, need not cause surprise, when it is remembered under
what a vile police system the country is governed — a system
in which the spy and agent provocateur of one day may be
a high official of the force on the next.
It is too soon to tell what will be
Spain. the outcome of recent transactions
in Spain. The government, with«
out consulting the other party to the Contract, have given a
new interpretation to the Concordat, which rules by mutual
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I9I0.] RECENT EVENTS 711
agreement the religious conditions of the country. They have
also taken steps to control the religious orders, a thing which
is outside the competency of the civil power, incompatible with
religious liberty, and contrary to the feelings and wishes of
large numbers of the Spanish people. Meetings have accord*-
ingly been held throughout Spain to protest against the action
of a government which represents in this matter only a minor-
ity of the nation.
After operations which lasted near-
Turkey, ly two months the rising of the
Albanians is declared to have been
suppressed, although there are those who are somewhat scepti-
cal as to the complete success of the expedition. One of the
objects of the campaign was the disarmament of those dwellers
in the mountains who for centuries have prided themselves upon
their independence and freedom from control. Abdul Hamid,
for his own purposes, as the Albanians formed his body- guard
and protected him from the punishment he so richly deserved,
confirmed them in these privileges. The new order, the object
of which is to establish the reign of law for all parts of the
Empire alike, necessarily came into conflict with these ideas.
The government at Constantinople spared no effort and stuck
at no measures necessary to overcome the resistance of the in-
surgents, burning down their homes and quartering upon them
large bodies of troops. The Minister of War himself appeared
on the scene of warfare. Success was for a time doubtful.
At length, however, arms were surrendered, but as they are
for the most part very old and antiquated, it is thought that
the really useful arms have been retained by the astute moun-
taineers.
Friends of the new constitutional order have, on the whole,
reason to feel satisfied with the course of events. The Com-
mittee of Union and Progress is still the real source of power,
and therefore military force is the controller of the situa*
tion. But with a few exceptions this committee seems to be
using its power by taking steps which will lead to a higher
kind of government An earnest effort has been made to re-
place the despotic and extortionate governors by honest and
impartial administrators. Night-schools are being established,
normal schools are projected and even universities. New courts
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7 1 3 Recent events [ Atig.,
of justice are being set up^ and efforts are being made to find
just judges. Concessions for railways are being negotiated.
Investigations are being made as to the feasibility of the irri-
gation of Mesopotamia which, if carried through, would render
this district a source of the enlarged cotton supply which is
so much needed. Improved methods of agriculture are being
introduced) and the postal service developed. Theologians are
discovering that the Koran sanctions all these innovations.
Even the animal world is feeling the power of the new riginu^
for an edict has gone forth that the dogs, which for so long
have infested the streets of Constantinople, are to be destroyed.
All of these reforms cost money, especially the increase and
reorganization of the army, and there is, in consequence, a def-
icit of five millions of Turkish pounds. The Turkish Assem-
bly was willing, however, to make the necessary sacrifices, and
.adjourned at the end of June to meet again on the first of
November. In the course of its session ii8 Bills were presented
for its consideration, of which 65 passed. The result is con-
sidered as highly satisfactory. Except in the districts in the
neighborhood of Baghdad peace has been established throughout
the Empire.
The Cretan Question, however.
The Cretan Question. cannot be considered as definitely
and finally settled. That it should
ba is the wish of the Ottoman government. But the way to
do it is not easy. The Cretans desire to be united to Greece,
and nothing will satisfy them until this is brought about. It
Is surmised that on the occasion of the declaration of the in-
dependence of Bulgaria, in 1908, the Powers protecting Crete
gave a promise that this union would be allowed — a promise
which induced both Greece and Crete to remain quiet at that
time. This promise the four Powers have broken, and have
.sent a note to the authorities that they will re-occupy the
island with their troops in case the Mohammedan members of
the Assembly are not allowed to take their seats, although
they have refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King
of the Hellenes. In consequence the Cretans are dissatisfied.
On the other hand, equal dissatisfaction exists at Constantino-
ple, for the same Powers will take no further action to bring
about the definite settlement desired by the Turks. In fact.
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I9I0.] RECENT Events 713
they have replied that they are incompetent, and that all the
Powers that signed the Berlin Treaty must join in such a set-
tlement. This is a very adroit way of getting out of the diffi-
culty, for Germany and Austria- Hungary, while willing enough
to promote dissension, are for that very reason unwilling to
gratify either the Turks or the other Powers.
Nothing, therefore, can be more unsatisfactory than the
present state of things in Crete. On the one hand, the Pow-
ers protecting the inhabitants of the island^ while securing
their complete autonomy and self-government, explicitly rec-
ognize the fact of the sovereignty of the Sultan. On the other
hand, the Christian members of the Assembly, the judges,
military officers, and officials, have taken the oath of allegiance
to King George, an oath which the Mussulman Deputies and
officials refuse to take. For this refusal they have been pen-
alized by the Christian majority, a majority which, in its turn,
is to be coerced by the Powers in the event of its refusing to
yield to their demands. And yet the Powers will go no
further, and refuse to do anything definitely to settle the
question whether Crete is to belong to Turkey or Greece.
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With Our Readers
THB following incident is a curious example of the increasing lax-
ity of discipline in one of our most prominent ecclesiastical
bodies. In a state educational institution the salaried chaplain
holds service every Sunday (excepting in the summer, when there
is none because he is in Europe). He is an ordained Episcopalian
minister. Many of the young men obliged to attend his service
(rendered in keeping with the American edition of the Book of
Common Prayer) are not Episcopalians but Presbyterians, Baptists,
Methodists, and others having no religious belief whatever. A few
of the more piously inclined expressed a desire "to take the sacra-
ment " once a month with their Episcopalian brother students. At
first the chaplain hesitated to administer the sacrament, since some
were not only not confirmed but not even baptized. After a time he
suppressed his scruples and invited all who so desired to partake
of communion. The violation of this rubric would not occur in
England, since the law is well defined by the authority of the
Crown, at least, for the beneficed clergy. Strictly considered, con-
firmation may be regarded as a " rite " and not a sacrament, there
being but two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist. By what
law, then, may an Episcopal minister give communion to young
men who are Baptists, Presbyterians, or Methodists ? By what law
may an Episcopal minister consecrate and give communion to young
men who are not even baptized ? This is a matter more serious for
the High Church party than even the question of " the open pulpit,'
for it is a more striking manifestation of that growing doctrinal dis-
ruption which is undermining the Protestant Episcopal Church in
America.
N'
[OT unfrequently we see men accusing Catholic Churchmen, and
especially the members of the Curia, of mental dishonesty, and
betraying, even in the very attack, a surprising degree of moral
obtuseness. Some found it difficult to accept the plain evidence
for this in the case of an eminent priest who died out of the visible
unity of the Church ; we can hardly shut our eyes to a flagrant
and more recent instance in a non-Catholic who stands sponsor for a
violent assault upon the Church. The author of this assault, we
deeply regret to state, is a former Catholic priest, whom his spon-
sor presents to the public as still engaged in the Catholic ministry
and devoted to his pastoral work, '' a devout Christian and a good
Catholic in the broad sense of the word.'' Will it be believed that
this is the characterization — misleading, as it will appear— of a man
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19 lo.] With Our Readers 715
who proclaims his disbelief in all Catholic doctrine, and even in all
that the world has hitherto agreed to call Christianity ? What idea
of honesty and sincerity possesses the soul of one who can praise a
man who will at the same time disbelieve Catholicism and act before
the world as a Catholic priest ? That an unbeliever should applaud
the lapse of a Catholic priest into unbelief is intelligible ; but that
he should praise one who lives the life of an unbelieving priest,
proves only one thing — that he himself is incapable of discerning be-
tween sincerity and the deepest dishonesty and hjrpocrisy. He is,
in fact, so blind to the difference between the two that he naively
exhibits his blindness to the world without any suspicion that it will
be discovered, or rather that there is any blindness to be discovered.
Surely a Catholic priest, by his very ministry, professes belief in
Catholic doctrines and loyalty to the papal authority ; if his profes-
sion be false, his life is a lie, a greater lie than the life of a soldier or
statesman who should be a traitor to his country and work in the
interest of the enemy. The thought of an unbelieving priest is in-
tolerable to any Catholic, and, thank God ! the instances of it are
as rare as they are hideous. It should be intolerable to any honest
man. An Bmest Renan is commended, and very justly, for refus-
ing to accept the priesthood of the Catholic Church after he had
ceased to believe her doctrines. One only course is open to honest
doubt — not to enter upon, nor to continue in, a priesthood which is
essentially a profession of faith. A man in a transitional stage, not
knowing his own mind, may be pitied or excused ; but there can
surely be only condemnation for one who disbelieves and yet con-
tinues the exercise of the holy ministry. We do not speak thus be-
cause we feel there is any call for such a word to our priests — far
from it, for we know perfectly well that they deserve the confidence
which the laity repose in them ; but we speak out in order to con-
demn and reprobate a position assumed, in the present instance, by
one who takes a lofty tone of moral superiority. It is pitiful, in-
deed, to see one come before the world as a teacher of morality who
cannot distinguish between light and darkness.
• « •
THB philosophic sponsor for this book — we shall not gratify him
by advertizing its title — assures his Protestant readers, in his
brief introduction, that they have one thing to learn from the Catho-
lic Church. Many conjectures will occur to the mind of the Catholic
reader before he would dream of the true one : the one thing which
Catholicism can teach Protestantism is — the love of art I At first we
were tempted to smile at the simplicity of this grave philosopher ;
but we soon fell to admiring it as an unexpected and charming hu-
man trait. He forced us to note the great resemblance between him-
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7i6 With Our Readers [Aug.,
self and a certain lady who had an interview with Tennyson. '* How
did the poet impress you ? '* she was asked. ** Wonderfully," the
lady replied rapturously. **I never in my life saw such a lovely
head of hair! " And we recalled the more striking resemblance
between our philosopher and another lady who admired a certain
preacher. " Your sermon was beautiful," the good woman assured
him, " and your surplus was such a lovely fit ! " And so our friend,
who has long played the riles of public teacher, of philosopher, and
critic, admires the Mother of the Faithful for her flowing locks and
well-fitting robes, and urges the Protestant world to frequent her
salon and learn there a love of art. It is worth while to gather up a
pleasing absurdity of this sort, when we find it blossoming beside the
dusty road of religious controversy, and to inhale its perfume ; but
we should like our philosopher, before he stands sponsor for further
attacks upon the Catholic Church, to learn something of its real
nature and power. Perhaps, after some years of study, he may be-
come persuaded that the Catholic Church is powerful because she
convinces multitudes of all classes and all degrees of culture of her
ability to satisfy those two imperious needs of the religious soul — the
need of truth and the need of forgiveness or of union with the Deity.
She convinces men that she has this two- fold ability, because they
see, with their own eyes, that she has the ability, however sheac*
quired it, and because she presents the best credentials for its divine
origin. Philosophers are eternally calling upon the Church to
become strong by surrendering her unique claim to be the immortal
prophet of God upon earth ; but her strength lies in that claim and
in the reality on which it is based, that she is, in truth, the oracle
and vicegerent of God upon earth.
w
TB who have the happiness of believing in the Catholic Church
cannot read without sorrow the pages of this book (whose in-
troduction, by a non-Catholic who has been for many years an as-
sailant of Christianity, we.have commented upon), when we remem-
ber that its author is a former Catholic priest. F6nelon and New-^
man, we believe, have both asserted that impatience was the charac-
teristic sin of heresiarchs ; we feel that it is characteristic of this
author, who will, however, be no heresiarch, because, like De Lamen-
nais, like Tyrrell, like I#oisy, he will draw no souls after him into the
abyss of unbelief and hopelessness. A noble soul gone far astray, is
the thought that haunts us as we turn over these sad pages ; we are
impressed as when we gaze on the ruins of a once majestic monas-
tery, or as the poet when he viewed the wintry branches,
^' bare, ruined choir
Where late the sweet birds sang.''
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igio.] With Our Readers 717
Faith and love and hope, we feel and we know, once reigned
in this heart now possessed by so different a spirit. All that was
good and strong in this soul is transformed and pressed into the serv-
ice of unbelief, into a furious attack upon Catholic faith and the
power of the Papacy. It is not ours to judge the causes and the
process of this transformation, yet no one can help seeing in this
book the lack of measure, the one-sidedness, the unfairness which
usually characterize the extremist who turns upon the institution he
once loved. Fortunately for the influence of the work, its hatred of
the Papacy and its bitter unfairness are too conspicuous for it to ef-
fect harm among Catholics. The author essays the impossible rile
of a reformer of a Church which he declares founded upon falsehood
and compacted of errors and blunders. He might destroy such a
Church, but he never could reform it. Once he has proclaimed his
disbelief in the divinity of our Lord, and in the divine origin of the
Church He founded, the author's influence upon Catholics is gone
and gone forever. No new light is shed by him on old questions.
There is no need of fighting old battles over again, and this would
not be the place for it. The old foundations remain unshaken ; the
old, battered building shows no sign of cracking or crumbling. One
more figure passes out into the dark night of scepticism, trying vain-
ly to persuade itself that the sun is shining ; we think of those that
preceded it, of De Lamennais, of Doellinger, of Tyrrell, of I^oisy, of
Houtin, and of their wretched lot ; we reflect on the hopelessness of
their fight and of the good they might have rendered the Church if
they had remained her faithful children ; we see this new recruit join
them and we remember the past. The Catholic Church has many
arguments ; and not the least powerful is the fearful shipwreck of
the Christian religion which overtakes those who abandon the bark
of Peter.
« « •
A GREAT Catholic educational convention was held in Detroit
during the month of July. We are informed that its complete
minutes, with all the papers presented by Catholic educators and
Catholic leaders of to-day, will be published shortly. The report
will be of keenest interest to all interested in education. The con-
vention was attended by many archbishops and bishops, prominent
priests and laymen, and by more than five hundred Sisters from
communities that devote themselves to the education of the young.
These conventions are an emphatic evidence of our vitality and our
power. They receive but scant notice from the secular press, and
yet it is upon the fidelity to right principle, as laid down by Catholic
teaching, that the welfare of our country rests.
The Detroit Free Press said, editorially, of the convention:
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7i8 With Our Readers [Aug.,
<< The meeting of the Catholic Educational Association in Detroit
has brought together a body of men and women of whom the public
at large knows but little, but whose work must have a profound
effect upon the nation's future. They are primarily reponsible for
the education of 1,200,000 of the nation's children, who are already
in Catholic schools, and they are aiming to gather into those institu-
tions at least as many more who are compelled still to go to the pub-
lic schools for lack of room in the parochial ones. That they will
ultimately succeed in weaning all their own fold from the public
schools there is much reason to expect, especially if their claims of
the low cost and excellence of their system be correct.
LAST month, about sixty years after the restoration of the hier-
archy in England, the Cathedral of Westminster was solemnly
consecrated. The importance of the celebration can hardly be over-
estimated. In historical significance it overshadows all other events
connected with the restoration of Catholicism in England. The
Emancipation Act gave relief and freedom to a long and bitterly
persecuted people ; the restoration of the hierarchy was the harbin-
ger of a Second Spring, and now — sooner, it seems, than Newman ex-
pected — comes an event that speaks of strong, religious life ; of a
spring that was well planted, a summer fruitful, and a harvest that
is constantly increasing. The event gives reason for every hope that
the harvesters will be many and capable and that the harvest itself
will be so great as to tax their every effort. Wiseman, Manning,
Vaughan — the hopes, the prayers, the life-work of all these are in-
corporated in the history of this magnificent London basilica. The
Catholic faith is again set before England in its rightful place of
dignity and of power. No longer is its only evidence the dingy
chapel on the side street attended by Irish laborers. That faith is
set upon a hill in order that its beauty and its universality may be
known to all men. No longer is that faith a thing that once was
great. It is great now, and the consecration of this cathedral is a
proof of its divine, unending life. The Catholics of England may
well rejoice and their fellow-Catholics throughout the world also
rejoice with them.
« « «
THE consecration occurred at a time that offered signal opportunity
for impressing favorably the public mind with the universality
and the spiritual power of the Catholic Church. The second reading
of the bill to change the notorious Royal Oath was carried by an over-
whelming vote of 342 to 41. Protestant bigotry and non-Conformist
prejudice will certainly receive a death blow. The Irish members, of
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I9IO.] With Our Readers 719
course, voted solidly for a change in the wording of the Oath. And
the unquestioned fidelity of the Irish should never go unmentioned
when the history of Catholicity in England is discussed. And the
I^ndon Tablet is conspicuously in error when it says that "alone
among the nations England gave martyrs for the rights and supre-
macy of the Apostolic See."
THE consecration of the Cathedral of Westminster brings more
forcibly than ever to our minds the joy and glory which will be
our own at the consecration, in September next, of St. Patrick's
Cathedral in New York. That event will be replete for us with his-
torical importance. It will mean not only the successful labors of a
diocese that is one of the greatest in the world, but it will recall and
commemorate the deeds of our fathers in the faith, bishops, priests,
religious, laymen and women, who endured sacrifice, fought the
good fight, and made possible the favors and the prosperity that we
of the present day enjoy. The consecration of St. Patrick's Cathe-
dral will be an enduring testimony to the imperishable glories of our
past — short comparatively as it has been — and a most hopeful in-
spiration for us to labor unceasingly in the future, for great as is
the body of the faithful, rich as is the harvest, both will, under God's
providence, be greater and richer still in this our land for the years
that are to come.
« « «
AMERICAN Catholic literature suffered a notable loss in the
death, on June 17, of the Rev. John J. Ming, S.J. Father
Ming was born in Switzerland in 1838, and began his labors in this
country in 1874. He was a contributor on philosophical and sociolog-
ical subjects to the American Catholic Quarterly^ the Messenger^ the
Catholic Encyclopedia^ and America. Data of Modem Ethics was his
first published volume. The Characteristics and the Religion of Mod-
em Socialism and The Ethics of Modetn Socialism are two noteworthy
works from his pen that refute the claims of radical Socialism and
show its utterly unchristian spirit. He labored steadfastly in the
cause of Catholic apologetic almost to the very day of his death.
« « «
AS we go to press we learn that the extensive preparations for the
International Eucharistic Congress, to be held at Montreal, Sep-
tember 7-1 1 , are almost complete. Without doubt this Congress will
witness the greatest religious ceremony ever held in America.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. XCI. SEPTEMBER, 1910. No. 546.
CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM.
BY W. T. C. SHEPPARD. O.S.B.. B.A.
[JTSIDE the Catholic Church the question, What
think ye of Christ? is still being asked, and the
answers that are given to it are legion. Although,
as Catholics, we gaze upon the dispute with the
attitude of spectators who have no personal in-
terest at stake, since for us the question admits of no dubious
reply, yet we cannot be wholly indifferent to the course of a
controversy which is causing many to lose such faith as they
once possessed, and which is of vital importance to all profess-
ing Christians who are separated from the unity of the Church.
The present time is characteristically an age of ''new the-
ologies." There is little, indeed, that is altogether novel in the
main conclusions of the modern theories about Christianity, but
in the methods of presentation there is much that is peculiar
to our own time. A large section of society, claiming to be
representative of the ''modern mind/' with new sciences, new
ways of thinking, and new philosophies, has grown recalcitrant
of old beliefs, and, intoxicated by success in mai
knowledge which modern research has opened ot
recklessly onward, eager to encompass within its ci
that Christians have ever held to be most sacrcsan
erable. Continental Protestantism is rapidly cet
Christian in any true sense of the term ; America, toe
Copyright. 1910. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the .
IN the State of New York.
VOL. XCI.- 46
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722 Christology and Criticism [Sept.,
have made strides along the same path ; and it is to be feared
that even in England, where, generally speaking, a spirit of
greater moderation has prevailed, very many members of the
Established Church, as well as of the numberless other denomi-
nations which have hitherto held fast to the truth of Christ's
Divinity, are gradually but surely coming under the influence
of what is euphemistically termed a *' Liberal Theology.*'
We are told in many quarters that the ''old theology" is
dead. The very name of dogma is become a byword. The
Christian Revelation means, it is said, not a heavenly message
sent down from God to man, the acceptance of which is a
necessary condition of salvation, but only a particular effort
in the general and natural striving of mankind after the tran*
scendent and divine. Hence it does not differ in any essential
particular from other religions. Like them, it may be left be-
hind in the march of the world's progress, and if it is to con-
tinue in the future to be of service to mankind, it must be
subjected to restatement or alteration in order to answer the
requirements of the advanced knowledge and ideas of the time.
Such a process, we are told, is in fact needed in our own day,
in which the criticism of the New Testament and of Christian
origins, combined with the new study of comparative religiont
has made imperative the abandonment of the old Christological
formularies.
The consistent attitude of the Catholic Church in opposing
these attacks upon the traditional doctrines is naturally a seri-
ous block of stumbling to the apostles of ''reform." We are
accustomed by now to the oft-repeated taunt hurled at us from
the rationalist camp, that the Church is an effete and antiquated
institution cumbering the path of progress ; though it is a lit-
tle difficult to listen with a straight countenance to the dreams
of fervid advocates of new theologies, who look forward to a
golden age when a Modernist Pope will arise to put the house-
hold of the Church in order and to bring her teaching into line
with present-day ideas. It is not unreasonable to ask what
manner of restatement ought to be accepted in place of the
ancient doctrines of the Church, and whether— even apart from
any divine and infallible authority lying behind the Catholic
dogmas — the answers given by the various critical schools have
such compelling force as to establish the prudence (to say the
least) of our embracing them.
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I9IO.] Christology and Criticism 723
The ** assured results of criticism " — to employ a phrase of
the late Father Tyrrell — hold a prominent place in the writings
of the liberal schools, especially in reference to recent study
of the New Testament These ''results'' are referred to as
something so notorious and so evident that by many critics
adherence to traditional beliefs respecting the Person of Jesus
Christ is regarded as the mark of an antiquated mind and as
indicative of a lamentable want of appreciation for the progress
of modern science and thought. It is true that all the forces
of criticism, sane and insane, have been brought to bear upon
the writings of the New Testament to such a degree, that it
is no exaggeration to say that never, in any former age, have
these documents been submitted to so close and so searching
an examination. Far be it from any Catholic to disparage or
ignore the good work that has been done in the field of New
Testament study by scholars of whatever religious views. We
readily acknowledge the vast amount of erudition and scholar-
ship that has been displayed in many quarters outside the
Church, and are grateful for all that criticism has done, whether
in the matter of text or exegesis, or in throwing light upon
the background of the Gospels and Epistles, or in contributing
in any way whatsoever to our knowledge of the sacred writ-
ings. Within this wide area solid results have been attained.
But to one who is not predisposed by philosophical prejudices,
it is not easy to see wherein the '' assured results of criticism "
have made necessary a revision of our traditional doctrines with
regard to the Divinity of Jesus Christ. What are these results ?
The critics themselves do not seem to know, although they
appeal to them so loudly.
Father Tyrrell, speaking for the so called '' Catholic '' Mod-
ernists, after declaring that all [are united in ''the belief in a
possible reconciliation of their Catholicism with the results of
historical criticism," is yet bound to confess tha* "*'**^ — Aia^^
widely as to what those results are, and as to
reconciliation."* A glance at the literary outpt
criticism in recent years will show how widely tl
of the various liberal " theologians " respecting C
differ one from another. The much-discussed H
SuppUment for i^op, if not very valuable in oth<
at any rate instructive in giving some idea of tt
* CJkristiamiif at iJU Cross-Roads^ p. zz.
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724 CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM [Sept.,
opiaion which prevails among those who are seekiDg to adapt
Christianity to the '' modern mind/' M. Loisy himself is struck
by this want of agreement, for he writes in the Hibbett Jaut'
nal (April, 1910, p. 496) that ''one feels strongly tempted to
think that contemporary theology-^except for Roman Catho-
lics, with whom traditional orthodoxy has always the force of
law — is a veritable Tower of Babel, in which the confusion of
ideas is even greater than the diversity of tongues/'
The fact is, that the only point upon which the various
schools of liberal criticism are agreed is in the rejection of the
supernatural and miraculous. '' Miraculous " and '' historical "
are opposed terms. The idea of a supra mundane interference
in the established and orderly course of things, as manifested
by ordinary experience, is assumed to be an impossibility.
Hence the traditional attitude towards the New Testament, in
which the supernatural figures so largely, can no longer be
maintained, and the central Personage of the Gospel narratives
must be unfrocked of the garb of glory and divinity with which,
as it is said, later generations have invested Him, and be re-
duced at all costs to the category of ordinary humanity. This
attitude towards the supernatural is the real motive of the
critical attacks upon the Fourth Gospel, which is rejected, and
denied all historical value, not because of any serious weakness
in the evidence for the Johannine authorship, nor because there
is much real difficulty in reconciling it with the earlier Gospels,
but simply and solely because it emphasizes the divine char-
acter of the Christ and refuses to submit to the arbitrary dis
section of modern critical methods for the removal of the super-
natural. The unhistorical character of St. John's Gospel is now
assumed as unquestionable by all the rationalist critics, and
everything in the Synoptics which in any way approximates
to its teaching is treated in a similar fashion. The Divinity of
Jesus being regarded from the outset as an impossibility, every
critic is free to devise his own Christology, and the '' results "
of criticism are just those views which happen to fit in with
the individual critic's philosophy.
The cry '' Back to the historic Jesus I " has been dinned
into our ears ad nauseam. We have had enough, it is said, of
the unreal idealized Christ presented to us by the formularies
of orthodox theology: we want to get behind that figure, and
to see the real living man Jesus, who actually moved and taught
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I9IO.] CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM 72$
upon the soil of Palestine. Hence the long succession of lib-
eral theologians for the past two centuries has been unceasingly
employed in the attempt to depict the ''Jesus of history'' as
He actually was. The history oi this movement of historical
''reconstruction/' from Reimarus (1694- 1768) down to our own
day, is melancholy reading to any one who is not possessed
by the prejudices of liberal theology ;* and, as we read, a long
procession of strange figures passes before our eyes, ranging in
character from the ideal man to a deluded lunatic or a disrepu-
table charlatan, each bearing the label " the historic Jesus," each
professedly portrayed from a study of the facts, and each pos-
sessed of no real existence apart from the inventive imagina-
tion of the critics. A writer.f who can scarcely be accused of
excessive devotion to traditional views, has said with truth that
" when we are bidden to choose between the Jesus of history
and the Christ of dogma, few, except professed students, know
what a protean and kaleidoscopic figure the ' Jesus of history '
is."
It is no exaggeration to say that the state of liberal tkeoU
ogy (as its exponents are pleased to term it) is nothing short
of chaotic. To single out any one theory and to label it as
the dominant view would, perhaps, be too definite; judging from
the rationalistic literature which is pouring continually frcm the
press, especially in Germany, there would appear to be no
dominant view. It is possible, however, to give a rough classi-
fication into which the various theories about Jesus Christ may
be fitted, despite the considerable differences which often divide
critic from critic; and we may distinguish three main classes:
the humanitarian, the eschatological, and the mythological.
A school which has been very prominent all through the his-
tory of criticism is that which we may call the " humanitarian,"
which, by the elimination of everything that is supernatural
or eschatological in the Gospels, attempts to reduce Jesus to
ordinary manhood, though, to be sure. He is to
as a veritable paragon of humanity. There hdve
advocates of this view, but the exposition wbicl
known best in this country is that of Professor H
Das Wesen des Chtistenthums. Approaching the
* C/. Tht Quest o/the Historical Jesus, By Albert Schweitzer. Trans
gomery, 1910. London : A. and C. Black.
t Professor F. C. Burkitt, introduction to Schweitzer's book already m
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726 Christology and Criticism [Sept.,
the usual presuppositions about the miraculous^ he discovered
in Jesus a merely human teacher, a preacher of ethics. Whose
doctrine is concerned in no way with his own Person, but with
lofty conceptions of God's Fatherhood and love for men, with
the priceless value of the human soul, and with the advance-
ment of right conduct in a purely internal, invisible^ and ethical
'* Kingdom of God/' Such is the ''Essence of Christianity,"
which abides permanent and immutable for all time, though
disfigured and obscured from its very infancy by elements bot-
rowed from Greek religion and other extraneous sources, until
German professors restored it, rejuvenated in all its pristine
beauty, to the light of our own generation.
The arbitrary method by which this conclusion is reached
has not escaped criticism from other quarters in the liberal
camp. It simply succeeds in reading modern German ideas
into the Gospels and in rejecting everything that conflicts with
them ; and hence M. Loisy's well-known criticism is very true,
when he says that Professor Harnack, looking back through
the ages at the figure of the historic Jesus, is like a man who
peers down a deep well and sees reflected in the waters be-
neath the countenance of a modern German Protestant. It
has been objected that Harnack and other critics of that class
fail to take into account the thought and condition of the
Jewish world in the time of Jesus, and especially the eschatc-
logical ideas which were then widely current.
This leads us to the consideration of what we have classi-
fied as the second school, the eschatological, which takes its
stand upon the eschatological teaching of Jesus^ i. ^., the say-
ings about the '' last things " — and claims to find in that alone
the essence of Christianity. This theory has grown very
prominent in recent years. Reimarus had, indeed, long ago
suggested something similar. Strauss too, in the earlier por-
tion of his life, seems to have inclined to some view of this
description; but the theory did not meet with great favor
until much lateV. The studies of Helgenfeld* and Dillmann,t
in the field of the late Apocalyptie literature of Judaism, had
drawn attention to Jewish eschatological ideas. Johannes
Weiss (1892) gave considerable impetus to the attempt to
place Jesus Christ on a level with the Apocalyptic visionaries
of declining Judaism, and in more recent years an ardent apos-
.• Hnueh, 1851. t Judiscke ApokalyptU, 1857.
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igio.] Christology and Criticism 727
tie of a more developed form of the theory has been Professor
Schweitzer.* This species of '^ Christology '' has grown only
too familiar to* us through the writings of the so-called
''Catholic'' Modernists, and, in the form expounded by the
late Father Tyrrell {Christianity at the Cross-Roads)^ it presents
Jesus to us not as a German professor of ethics-^Who, if He
were only a reality, would be a really estimable personage—
but as a mysterious Apocalyptic yisionary, Who in some way
-^we know not how— became possessed of the idea that He
was to be the Messias, Whose destiny it was to return very
soon upon the clouds of heaven, escorted by angelic hosts, and
to inaugurate, by some strange and sudden cataclysm, an en*
tirely new order of things in the ''Messianic kingdom"; His
function meanwhile on earth being to warn men of the com-
ing catastrophe and to stimulate their minds to thoughts of
"other worldliness/' Or, as a reviewer f of Tyrrell's book
correctly says, the Jesus Whom this class of criticism offers
us is " a man who believed Himself to be a demi-god though
there are no demi-gods; Who lived in the expectation of tak-
ing the chief part in a dramatic transformation scene which-
never occurred; . • . Who bade His disciples transfer all
their hopes from the world in which they lived to a millenium
which existed only in His own imagination."
When the Modernist, in the person of M. Loisy, accuses
Harnack, in the criticism already cited, of arbitrary dealing
with the Gospels, it is natural to recall the remark which a
certain proverb records as having been addressed by the pot
to the kettle. Both the theories which we have been consid-
ering stand condemned as a priori and arbitrary, as necessitat-
ing the most unwarrantable manipulation and expurgation of
the text, and as being based upon methods which are capable
of leading to any conceivable result that the private judgment
of the critic may desire to draw in support of his peculiar
notion as to what the Jesus of history ought to have been.
Hamack's school seeks to read modern German Protestantism
— or, rather, a single phase of it — into the Gospels; Modern-
ism, precluded by its philosophy from admitting the possibility
of man's obtaining to any permanent and abiding truth, and
* Dtu MeuianitStS' und Leidims-itheimnis, Z90Z ; and The Quest of the Historical Jesut
(English translation), 19x0.
t Dr. W. R. Inge, Hibbert Journal, January, 19x0.
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728 CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM [Sept.,
compelled to regard all religion as in a state of unceasing flux,
and all doctrines and beliefs as merely symbolic expressions
oi transient " religious experience " which may be true for one
age and false for another, succeeds only in extracting from
the Gospels precisely that idea of Christ which it has itself
placed there; and whatsoever is found to be at variance with
the theory must be either ignored or attributed, after the
methods of M. Loisy, to the idealization of early Christian
"faith/' or to the exigencies of primitive apologetic. This
view of the Gospel Christology is not critical but one-sided;
it cannot do justice to the moral teaching of Jesus; it cannot
give any adequate account of a great deal of what we may
call " non->eschatological " material in the Gospels; and it fails
to recognize the complex nature of the "Kingdom/' and does
violence to an important group of sayings which represent
that Kingdom as something actually present.
There is^ moreover, another objection which strikes at all
these attempts to find a so-called "historic Jesus/' in contra-
distinction to the Christ Whom the Church has always wor-
shipped as divine. If there was an "historic Jesus" at all,
and if out of this real personage the disciples' " faith " (or
whatever else we care to call the motive power in the process),
as reflected in our earliest documents, created a glorified and
idealized being as the object of their enthusiastic love and ad-
oration, it is a serious difficulty to imagine how this most
sudden and unparalleled development could have taken place
between the Crucifixion and the dates to which modern scholar-
ship assigns the earliest writings of the New Testament. The
growth of myth and legend requires time, and it may be
gravely questioned whether in the space of twenty years, or
even less, which must be allowed for the process, we have a
period sufficiently long to account for the beliefs regarding
Christ's Person which are found to be universal in the earliest
Christian communities of which we have record. A great deal
of modern criticism is still dominated by the theory that St.
Paul was uniquely responsible (or the line of development
which Christology is supposed to have taken in the early
Church. But, whatever be St. Paul's place in the process of
a deeper and fuller realization ci the truths of Christianity, it
is impossible, on the evidence of our documents, to show that
in his Christology he was in any way opposed to, or different
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I9IO.] Christology and Criticism 729
froaii the older apostles.* It is clear that whatever was the
content of the private revelations which he mentions, these
were not (as is often asserted) the means by which he acquired
doctrines which were not hitherto existent in the Church ; and
the paradosis in I. Cor. xv. 3 following, which he declares he
has himself '' received " from others and taught at the first
onset {en protois) to his Corinthian converts, shows that some
at any rate of the main truths about our Lord's life and
atoning mission lie behind St Paul, and that the apostle is in
their regard a merely passive recipient of established tradition.
Everything points to the homogeneity oi Apostolic doctrine.
And is it not reasonable to suppose that this doctrine is au-
thentic and goes back to the Founder of Christianity Himself T
It seems difficult to account for the faith of the primitive
Church on any other hypothesis. There were other so-called
Messias, who made many followers, an4 some suffered for their
presumption. Why was none of these made the object of this
strange apotheosis? Even if we ignore the improbability that
such a process would have taken place in a company of
Palestinian Jews, whom we should naturally suppose to have
inherited all the Jewish abhorrence of idolatry and pagan my-
thology, it is surely an extraordinary phenomenon that an
obscure Galilean peasant, Whose life ended in apparent failure
with a cry as of despair upon His lips, should have been
transformed, within a few years, and while membets of His
own family were yet alive, into a Divine Being endowed with
the lofty attributes to which even the earliest of our New
Testament writings bear testimony.
Our documents must be taken as a whole. No satisfactory
or permanent result can be expected from the application of
such arbitrary methods as those which have just been dis-
cussed. The supernatural is too closely interwoven with the
rest of the material to be so easily separated; and this applies
not only to the Fourth Gospel, but even to our earliest Gospel,
St. Jidark's, where the central Figure of the narrative is One
Who cannot by any sort of legitimate criticism be reduced to
the category of ordinary humanity. *^ Go as far back as you
like in your investigation," says a recent writer,t who cer-
•Cf, Gal. ii. 2,7-11.
t •• The Collapse of Liberal Christianity." By Rev. K. C. Anderson, Hibhtrt Journal ^
January, 1910.
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730 Christology and Criticism [Sept.,
tainly has scant sympathy with orthodox theology ; ** what you
have at last is a supernatural Christ . . . nowhere can we
get back to an historic Jesus." In so far as these words de-
scribe the hopelessness of seeking in the Gospels a Jesus Who
is mere man, they are true.
That the objections against the above theories are some*
thing more than a fiction of orthodox apologetic seems to be
indicated by the attitude of certain other schools of liberal
criticism. Clearly^ if the hypothesis of an ''historic Jesus'' is
to work at all, we must allow a much longer period for the
process of transformation. Such a period has been allowed by
some critical schools in one of two ways: either by assigning
the ** historic Jesus " to an earlier date, or by relegating the
documents to a later age than is usually accepted. Certain
Dutch critics^ of whom Van Manen may be taken as the chief,
have adopted the latter alternative, and have not hesitated to
place all the Gospels and Epistles at an advanced date in the
second century, and to regard them as legendary matter which
has grown up not only around an ** historic Jesus/' but also
around an ''historic Paul." This dating of the documents,
however, encounters such enormous difficulties that the school
of Van Manen has not found many disciples. In the other^
direction a few writers — happily insignificant— who claim sup-
port from certain very dubious statements in the Talmud,
seek to remove the higher time*limit by placing Jesus about
a century before the Christian era.
It is not too much to say that the quest of an "historic
Jesus" has terminated in a culde sac. It is perhaps the recog-
nition of this fact that has given an impetus at the present
day to what we may call the mythological explanation of the
Christological problem. However that may be, there are cer-
tainly strong tendencies in many quarters to relegate the
whole life of Christ to the category of myth ; and just as the
later Greek, who had outgrown the primitive religious con-
ceptions of their forefathers, sought still to retain the »old
myths about the gods, and to render them more or less re-
spectable by covering them with a cloak of allegory, so does
a certain class of extreme critics endeavor to adapt Chris-
tianity to modern needs.
The older German criticism was not wanting in advocates
of the mythological theory, though they did not meet with
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I9IO.] Christology AND Criticism 731
any considerable support, even from liberal critics themselves.
Bruno Bauer had gained a notoriety by working out a theory
which regarded all the Gospel narratives as the projection into
the form of history of the '' reflexion '' of the early Church ; *
and Albert Kalthoff developed a theory in the interests of
what he called "social theology/' finding in Jesus nothing
more than an eponymous hero, owing His origin to the social
conditions and ideas of the second century.f We have recent-
ly had, nearer home,| a fair sample of this view of Jesus
Christt which discovers the origin of Christianity not in a
single Person, but in a " synthesis of the factors that controlled
the historical development of the time/' It sprang up in an
age when religious feeling found its expression in the " Mys-
teries'' and in numberless cults or religious associations which
were constituted under the patronage of a protective deity,
whose name the members bore and whose honor and service
were their special care. Christianity was simply one of these
societies, and just as there were cults of Zeus Soter, Serapis,
Dionysos, or Hercules, so did men gather together under the
patronage of a god Christos. As in the "Mysteries," so in
Christianity, the central idea is the story of a dying and ris-
ing god — a conception which goes back to primitive nature
myth, derived from the yearly experience of the withering of
vegetation in autumn and winter, and its revival in the spring.
A German professor (Jensen) tells us that the story of Jesus
Christ is merely a version of the old Babylonian legend of
Gilgamesh, and hence His religion is one out of many forms
of the worship of the solar deity. More recently, M. Salomon
Reinach has suggested that the roots of Christianity lie in
totemism. If we ask how it is that a religion founded upon
mere myth has been able to survive so long, and to exercise
so profound an influence as Christianity has done, we receive
divers answers: some critics, after the manner of Strauss, still
tell us that the power of Christianity lay in the " idea " of
god* manhood, the realization of which in every personality is
the ultimate goal of humanity; others, again, say that the
• Chriihu und dU Casarem, 1877,
t Das Christus-Problem, 1902 ; and DU Entsttkmng da Ckruitnthmms, 1904.
% Dr. Anderson, Hibhtrt Journal, January, 1910, article cited. There is another recent
work (which the present writer does not yet know from personal perusal) advocating the
myth-theory ; Di* CkrUtusmytkt, of A, Drews (1909). An American professor (W. B, Smith)
has been prominent in the same class of "critics."
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732 CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM [Sept.,
element of permanent value in the Christos-myth was its lesson
that we must ** die to live."
"In proportion as the science of religion progresses/'
observes M. Loisy» " it becomes more and more difficult to up-
hold that Christianity was born, that it was developed, that it
is maintained, under conditions quite different from those of
other religions."* The whole universe of paganism, ancient
and modern, has been ransacked for analogies to Christian
doctrines and beliefs, and it has been said, with the most un-
blushing confidence, that all the main features of Christ's life-
story were in existence hundreds — it may be thousands — of
years before Christianity. Long lists of alleged parallels have
been collected to show that the miraculous elements in Christ's
life, the sacramental system, and practically the whole scheme
of Christian doctrine, so far from being new things in the
world, are only particular expressions of religious ideas, which
are a common heritage of humanity all the world over. We
are referred to legends of miraculous births, such as those re-
lated of the Buddha, or of Plato, or of Perseus; to stories of
dying and rising gods like Serapis and Dionysos; and to the
sacramental character of Greek-mystery cults; and by emphasiz-
ing superficial resemblances, and ignoring the points of dif
ference, critics take these myths as proofs of the natural origin
of Christianity. This is not the place to enter into the long
discussions and minute comparisons which the reputation of
these theories involves; but in general it may be pointed out
that if the critics would lay as much stress upon the differ-
ences as they do upon the resemblances between the old myths
and the Christian doctrines, the "results" attained from the
comparative study of religions would recede to a much less
prominent place in rationalistic argument than they at present
hold ; for it would be seen that very many of the examples that
are cited, especially in connection with the Virgin Birth and
the Resurrection, stand in the relation not so much of similar-
ity as of contrast to the Christian truths. Even were the re-
semblances much closer than they actually are, it may be
seriously questioned how far they prove the rationalistic thesis.
The historical arguments still remain; and it is difficult to lee
how any unprejudiced reader can peruse tbe writings of the
Nejif Testament, to say nothing of the testimony afforded by
* Hibhert Journal, April, 1910,
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I9IO.J Christology and Criticism 733
pagan and Jewish writers, and of the abiding and conspicuous
fact of the Church's existence for nearly two thousand years,
without coming to the conclusion that there lies behind the
Christian tradition a very real and concrete Personality. In
the Synoptics (as liberal criticism from its own standpoint has
so strongly emphasized), and even in the Gospel of St. John,
Jesus is a man subject to the conditions of humanity, touch-
ingly human in His emotions and His sorrows; and it is re-
volting to the historical sense to suppose that He is merely
the creation of mythologizing fancy or the projection of an
idea into the world of actual existence. The Jesus of the
Gospels has too close a relationship with actual history, and
the background of His life — as in the case of the religious and
political forces at vork in Palestine during His day — is de-
scribed with too great a vividness and accuracy to enable any
reasonable person to regard these facts as the mere vesture of
an ideal.
From this scanty survey of modern liberal tendencies in
theology it will be seen that with numerous and important
differences, which we have been unable here to indicate in
detail, the critics give three main answers to the question with
which this paper opened. The '' humanitarian '^ view shows us
Jesus as a mere man, generally a very worthy and admirable
personage, with a strong suggestion about Him of a modern
German professor of theology; Modernism, with the eschato-
logical school generally, introduces us to a kind of harmless
maniac ; and the myth-theory offers us a nonentity, or (in some
cases) a personage whose existence does not transcend the
hypothetical. It may well seem to us Catholics that liberal
criticism is not far removed from its reductio ad absurdum.
Sufficient, at any rate, has been said to show how fluctuating
and unstable are those views of Christ's Person which we axe
accustomed to hear proclaimed with so much confidence and
dogmatism as ''assured results of criticism'' in dea
the early Christian documents. The one element in
is the denial of the supernatural. Some of the the
vanced seem to be too ridiculous for any person in {
seriously to propose. Yet they really appear to repi
true views of their upholders, and to be offered a
" solutions " of the Christological problem ; and if th<
no other value, such theories are, at all events, inte;
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734 CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM [Sept.,
the psychologist who makes it his study to investigate the
strange aberrations of the human mind. A stream of litera-
ture is steadily issuing from the press in support of hypotheses of
the crudest description, which would exact demands upon our
credulity surpassing those required by the most stupendous
miracle ever recorded in orthodox circles. The fact is, that by
reiecting the possibility of the supernatural, the critics have
blown out the lamp which alone could shed light upon the
New Testament and the course of Christianity from the be-
ginning until now, and consequently are groping blindly, hope-
lessly, in the darkness.
Even in an age of nebulous philosophies it may not be ex-
travagant for most men to expect that a cause should be pro-
portionate to its effect: and there may be grave reason for
doubting whether it is probable that the various theories put
forth by modern liberal theologians are sufficient to explain
the part which has been played in the world by Christianity.
To descant upon the power which this religion has exercised
through so many centuries over peoples of most diverse nation-
ality and temperament, would be to enlarge upon a truism* It
is difficult to imagine how this result-^this religious, social, and
moral transformation which stands out unique in the history
of religions, and which is admitted by liberal critics themselves
—could have been effected if Jesus Christ was nothing more
than His critics represent Him to have been. It may be doubted
whether it is ^sufficient to attribute the success of Christianity
to the lofty ethical teaching which it contains. But whatever
may be the speculative probability that ethics alone should have
been able to achieve such great victories as history records to
the credit of Christianity — and those who know human nature
as it is will perhaps feel somewhat sceptical upon the point-^
there can be no doubt that the real secret of the success of
Christianity lies in the fact that it preached a Person, Who,
"being in the form of God, took the form of a servant''—
became man and suffered and died for His fellow-men, in order
to draw them to Himself. Morality was simply a consequence
flowing from union with Christ. Whether or no it is possible
to regard this faith in Jesus Christ's Divinity as a deception
or a mistake must depend upon one's belief as to the existence
of a rational principle directing this universe of visible phe-
nomena.
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I9IO.] CHRISTOLOGY AND CRITICISM 735
Liberal criticism, led by its philosophical presuppositions,
is ioToWed in an impasse. Has not the time come, then, to
question the competency of its gaide, and to doubt the valid-
ity of a philosophy which is found to be so frankly opposed
to the facts of history and the data of the documents ? Such
would seem to be the reasonable inference. But so far there
seems little, if any, indication that liberal ''Christianity" is
beginning to reconsider the validity of its premises, and we
peer in vain through the mists of controversy to ** catch a glory
slowly gaining on the shade." We must rest content in the
hope that, with the progress of investigation, as successive
theories languish and expire, and the disorder and instability
of the rationalistic forces become increasingly apparent, there
may at least be found many in the liberal camp who will re-
consider their fundamental presuppositions, and acknowledge
that, when all is said and done, not all the things in heaven
and earth are dreamed of in their philosophy.
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PATRICIA THE PROBLEM.
BY ESTHER W. NEILL.
Chapter IX.
UGH appeared at the house late that afternoon.
Mrs. Delarue hovered in the hallway^ making no
effort to conceal her curiosity at the strangeness
of this summons.
** He's a dying man, Hugh/' she said by way
of warning. ^* I know you don't care for him; I know you
don't believe in him; but if he makes any request of you — I
hope you will not lose your temper — I hope you will try and
oblige him."
''My dear aunt/' said Hugh smiling, ''have I proved my-
self an unfeeling brute? I can't help thinking the gentleman
is crookedj living or dead, and if he wants me to take up some
of his circuitous methods — "
''Oh, Hugh I Hugh I" she said. ''You are such an ideal-
ist. There is no idealism in business. Sometimes I doubt if
the modern man will be judged by the ten commandments at
all."
" Most of them hope not to be. Now, please show me to
Mr. Cuthbert's room. Father Joe told me he wanted to see
me at once; and I confess I ^would like to get the ordeal
over."
Tom Cuthbert lay in his massive mahogany bed, a shrunken
figure. In spite of the luxurious furnishings of the room, the
white capped nurse, true to her long years of training, bad
unconsciously created an indefinable atmosphere of hospital
austereness. The lace curtains were twisted into unrecogniz-
able spirals to admit more air, the oriental scarf on the table
had been replaced by a linen towel on which stood an enamel
basin, a number of medicines were arranged in a systematic
row on the mantel, and a fever chart was spread out on the
ornate desk in the corner.
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i9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 737
<' Howdy-do, Dr. Farrell ? " said the Hon. Tom, stretchiog
out a hot hand to his visitor. '^ Sit down and tell the nurse
to keep out until I ring for her. She's a tyrant ; but I reckon
that's her business. If a man hasn't got but a week or two
to live, I don't see why he can't do as he pleases."
The nurse, who stood near the bed, forced a weak little
smile, as if she were accustomed to abuse from her patients,
and then moved quietly out of the room.
•'Now shut the door. Dr. Farrell, shut the door — don't
want any evesdropping — haven't any breath to waste— it's
getting shorter all the time — you think I've got the flounders
— I sent for you — ^because — I heard you had lost money — "
'' Yes " ; said Hugh, reluctantly taking the chair nearest to
the invalid.
The Hon. Tom's keen eyes searched his visitor's face.
" Much ? " he asked.
" About all I had."
"And you were rich?"
''Well that depends on how you look at it."
The old man smiled tolerantly. "Don't want to give me
the figures, eh?"
" I don't mind, if it would be of any interest to you — about
half a million, I should say."
" On your uppers now, are you ? "
"No, not exactly"; he answered, trying to fight back a
feeling of resentment at this inquisition. " I have my profession,
which might pay if I had any system about collecting bills, and
I have a small place in the country, so I'm not homeless."
"But you have no income?"
"No."
" Don't suppose you would object to having one ? "
"No."
" Well, I sent for you to-day to make you a proposal — may
be a little out of the ordinary, but then you don't expect an
ordinary proposal from a dying man — I know I'm dying, and I
want to have this matter settled some way — I ain't got any
breath to waste." He half raised himself on his elbow and his
voice, which had been sinking lower, sounded like a croak.
"I want you to marry my daughter," he said.
For the moment Hugh was speechless with amazement. He
had been bewildered by the summons to this interview, and
VOL. XCI.^47
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738 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
(or the last five minutes he bad been watching the Hon. Tom
with growing suspicion. He had expected some crooked busi-
ness proposition— anything but a suggestion of marriage.
'' Let me finish/' the Hon. Tom went on. '' I know you
are surprised — I reckon I am too^ — I haven't cared for you and
you haveQ't cared for me — but a dead father-in-law is often
more convenient than a live one. I know men, and I know
you are clean — I think you've got the correct ideas about liv-
ing — I ain't had them myself. This idea of doctoring people
for nothing, and housing them for nothing, and feeding them
for nothing — I've called them dern fool notionSi but I've come
to see some sense in them. If you take that much interest in
outsiders, your wife won't have nothing to fear; and there's
another reason, too, not much in my line — I want Pat to have
some position in this town, and even if you're broke your name
stands for something. Now, what are you going to say ? "
''I was going to ask," began Hugh with some hesitation,
for the Hon. Tom had sunk back among his pillows, gasping
for breath, '' I was going to ask if Miss Patricia had been con-
sulted?"
'' Lord, no ; Pat would raise the roof. You'll have to do
all the courting, but I think you can win out Will you
promise ? "
The old man looked so pitifully weak in the dim light that
Hugh tried to escape from the direct answer to the prepos-
terous question.
''She does not like me," he said.
"Has she told you so?"
'' She has shown it in many ways."
'' That's a good beginning."
'' I don't think I quite understand."
''Then you don't know women — ^that's another point in
your favor. When I was your age I had been in love twenty
times; start an active dislike in a woman and |she begins to
think about you — she is no longer indifferent. Let her think
enough about you and she's in love before she knows it. But
I can see plainly that you don't like the idea. Is it some
snobbish notion that Pat is not good enough for you ? "
Hugh was rapidly losing patience. "It's a question of re-
serve of privilege," he said.
"For what?"
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 739
''To choose my own wife when I get ready/'
The Hon. Tom*8 small black eyes sparkled like coals«
''And money makes no difference?"
'*I have never cared for money/'
"Because you have always had it/' said the old man in a
tone that reminded Hugh of Patricia's own. "Wait nntil you
begin to suffer for the lack of it — wait until the world kicks and
cuffs you around^ and grinds you down until you're willing to
seize any chance to get back to a position of power. I tell
you every man wants money. It isn't so much the money, it's
the power that money brings. I want you to think about what
I have said, young man — I don't want you to decide off-hand ;
and I tell you this: I'm trying to keep my temper, I'm try-
ing to remember just how I would have felt if a rich old man
had made such a proposition to me when I wasn't expecting
it and I wasn't very well acquainted with his daughter; I'm
trying, I say, to put myself in your place, and keep my head,
young man, because if I thought you felt superior to my Pat,
I believe I'^ blow your brains out"
" Then I had better leave at once," said Hugh, choosing to
interpret the Hon. Tom's threat humorously. "I hope you
will soon be well again."
" Even if you have to face a six shooter ? " said the old
man, with a touch of his old genialty; "but I reckon you
need not worry about that. I judge the Almighty thinks it
about time for me to pull up stakes. I trust you won't men-
tion this little talk to Pat ; she would never forgive me. If
she asks what I wanted with you, say — business. Reckon
that's no lie."
"You may certainly trust me." And he could not help
smiling at the thought of the tempestuousness that would
follow such a revelation. Getting up he shook the invalid's
hand in a perfunctory way and left the room. He heard Mrs.
Delarue's voice in the library, but he did not stop. He was
anxious to get out into the fresh air — to be alone. Inside the
sick chamber pity for a strong, gnarled old body struggling
for its life blinded him to his own feelings. Now that he re-
hearsed the interview, he seemed to experience a white heat
of rage. Why should Tom Cuthbert take advantage of Pa-
tricia's absence, and offer her to a man she did not care for?
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740 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept,
Why should he be the man almost duped into makiog prom-
ises to marry a woman for her money ? Tom Cuthbert had
offered to buy him, nothing less; and because of the old
man's physical condition he had felt it would be unkind to
protest. It was an unfair advantage to take — unkind to Pa-
tricia — more unkind to her than to him. It was like offering
her in the marketplace. He felt in some way that they had
both been victimized, and he fell to wondering unconsciously
what she would say if he should propose marriage to her.
He smiled at the thought of the vehemence of her refusal;
then another phase of the situation came to him. His old
suspicions of Tom Cuthbert returned with renewed force. He
felt that back of the interview there was a hidden, deeper
meaning — something he could not fathom. It came as a pre-
sentiment or an intuition — too elusive to be reasonable. He
forced it out of his mind by asking himself if Tom Cuthbert
would insist upon a definite answer to his proposition; and he
found himself questioning whether a man could preserve his
self-respect and, to humor a dying father, go through the form
of suggesting marriage to a girl whose dislike for him was so
apparent.
His long walk brought him to the Settlement. The short
winter afternoon was merging into twilight, faint lights began
to glimmer in the wretched tenements around him, but in the
friendly neighborhood house the flaring gas showed bright
through the swiss curtained windows. Years ago, when the
city was young and fortunes were reckoned only by thousands,
this home, with its white marble steps and flagged vestibule
and three full stories covered by a brown stucco, had been
considered a pretentious mansion, but that time had passed,
the false front had peeled away, revealing the cheap brick
beneath, the builder and the owner were long since dead, and
the heirs had moved away to a more fashionable part of town,
almost ashamed to confess that their respected ancestors had
ever lived in a street that had grown so ''slummy."
The children of the tenements were to have tableaux this
evening and Dr. Hugh's services were in much demand;
scenery had to be shifted, a curtain swung across the long
dr.awing*room, chairs placed for the eager audience^ and when
the small actors and actresses arrived they needed much
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i9ia] Patricia, the Problem 741
friendly assistance to get them into the bright cambric coats
and dresses that the feminine workers of the settlement had
evolved oat of the '^ remnants'' donated by charitable mer-
chants.
The evening was one of genuine pleasure for Dr. Hugh;
the interview of the afternoon was almost forgotten. The chil-
dren were so funny in their unaccustomed clothes, the specta*
tors so breathless with admiratiouy so unrestrained in their
applause; tired mothers clapped their work-worn hands with
joy as they beheld the unexpected beauty of their little ones
transfigured in the regal robes of kings and queens. What
mattered it if the crowns were only made of gold paper and
the ermine of raw cotton dotted with blotches of black paint?
The happiness was more real than at royal courts and the
night was an epoch in their histories.
In the midst of the festivities Dr. Hugh was called to the
telephone. It was an urgent summons from Father Chatard.
'^ Get a taxicab and come to Mr. Cuthbert's at once.
Don't delay a moment." The old priest's voice was strained
with excitement^ and he cut off further communication at once,
as if he too were in great haste.
Dr. Hugh was no saints He was thoroughly out of patience
with the Hon. Tom. He had carefully avoided him while
livingi and he had no desire to be called in to witness his
exit. The last interview had been embarrassing enough, but
he had escaped without making any rash promises. Now he
would be called upon to be brutally frank. The whole affair
was most unpleasant; but it called for the truth, even if the
truth caused the Hon. Tom to fall into a rage and hastened
him into eternity.
The taxicab arrived in a few moments. Dr. Hugh ex-
pressed his regret at his rapid leave-taking to the actors and
the audience and pulling on his overcoat he hurried to obey
Father Chatard's orders.
The butler admitted him into the Hon. Tom's mansion, a
little curious that an afternoon call should be repeated so
soon ; and, relieving the doctor of his hat and coat, he moved
noiselessly away, leaving Hugh to face Patricia, who stood,
dressed all in white, looking wraith-like in the dim light of the
library.
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74* PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
<< Come/' she said, holding out both hands to him, ''I have
dropped my crutch. Will you help me to a chair? I am so
frightened. Father is dying and yet he sent me away. He
wanted Father Chatard and you — oh I why should he want
you, when you do not care for him? — while I — he is all I
have on earth-^oh, go to him and ask him if I may not come
back — you will help me upstairs — go — go/' her eyes were
wild with terror.
She seemed so helpless, so beautiful, so softened, in her
grief, that he experienced a sudden change of feeling towards
the Hon. Tom's demands as he placed her in her chair.
'^ I will do all that I can," he said, knowing that she little
dreamed of all that his words might mean. '^Is Father Cha*
tard upstairs?"
'' He has been here for an hour."
''And I am expected to go up at once?"
''Yes; I was waiting to tell you."
Reluctantly he ascended the richly carpeted stairs and
knocked at the invalid's door. It was opened by Father
Chatard.
" I am glad you came so quickly," he said, putting his
arm wearily about the young man's shoulders, telling him in
this mute way of the efforts he had put forth in the sick
man's spiritual behalf.
The Hon. Tom half raised hiniself in bed. "Come close/'
he said, the bravado had died out of his voice ; he had grown
perceptibly weaker in the last few hours. "I'm not a Catho-
lic," he went on, and his breath came quick and short, "and
I reckon the Lord will forgive me for not believing all the
things I ain't accustomed to ; but I'm obliged to confess some-
thing. I tried to straighten it out this afternoon, but I reckon
it wasn't fair — this gentleman has been talking to me so much
about mercy and forgiveness — that I reckon some of it has
soaked in, and I'm trying to be honest at last" He caught
at Hugh's hand and pulled him down towards him. " I — don't
own the Larimee — you hear ? " he said hoarsely, " I never
owned it — it was your father's — twenty years ago^Pat — Pat —
is a pauper. Oh, my God I "
He fell back, white and gasping, and then lay inert among
his pillows.
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19 lO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 743
Chapter X,
Hugh brought Patricia to her dead father's bedside. She
leaned heavily on his arm as he led her up the stairs. It would
have been difficult for him to analyze his own feelings — ten-
derness that he might have felt for any woman in deep grief;
sympathy that she had no one nearer than him to cling to her
in her hour of need ; wonder at the revelation that Tom Cuth-
bert had just made; and a gradual questioning of himself when
he considered the old man's last request Was it so preposter-
ous after all?
He watched Patricia as she fell on her knees beside her
father and took one of his cold« rough hands in both her own,
as if she would try to warm it into life again. She did not
cry — her face was white and set and full of dread, as if^ she
stood alone facing an eternity of mystery.
Once she moaned aloud: *^ I must go with him — I must
go/' It was the protective cry of the maternal instinct that
reaches out to the helpless. She rested her head on the pillow,
and the pent-up sobs came at last. Hugh and Father Chatard
withdrew, leaving her with her dead.
In the dimly lit hallway Hugh stopped and turned to face
the old priest.
**l want to tell you at once/' he said, ''that I mean to
take no steps to examine into^what shall I call it ? — my claim.
Mr. Cuthbert may have been delirious."
'' Of course you may trust me to say nothing. It is your
own affair. But Mr. Cuthbert was not delirious. The claim is
just, and you have nothing."
''But it means poverty and disgrace for Patricia."
The old priest smiled faintly. '' There is one way out," he
said enigmatically.
Mrs. Delarue came hurrying from her own room, nervous
and curious. Had the Hon. Tom been received into the
Church ? Had he gone to confession ? Would they have Mass
at the cathedral ? Her face fell with disappointment when she
heard that the Hon. Tom had died, as he had lived, expressing
no preference for any creed.
The funeral was spectacular, monstrosities in the way of
floral decorations came from clubs, lodges, business associates.
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744 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
Resolutions of condolence were drawn up and elaborately illum-
inated and sent to Patricia; the undertaker provided the most
ornate of caskets and innumerable' carriages, which were filled
with the conventional minded, who came reluctantly, because
attending funerals was part of their social code. An obliging
minister read some passages from the Scriptures and prayed
largely for the State, the welfare of friends, the comfort of
Yelatives. Mrs. Dslarue expressed her relief openly when it was
all over.
'^You must pardon my frankness, Patricia,'' she said, ''but
it is all so different from our point of view. Even though I
am a worldly woman, at such times our thought is all for our
dear one's soul — prayers for his eternal rest — help for him in
his direst need."
''Then show me how," said Patricia. "Even if I don't
believe as you do, I suppose I could pray. There must be a
God somewhere — there must be a reason — a plan to account
for all this suffering and death and misery in the world."
" The plan will never be explained to you," said Mrs. Dela-
rue. " It's one of the things that will make dying interesting.
We shall solve so many problems. You look so pale and thin»
Patricia, I wish you would think about your own body a little.
Why don't you go back to Paris? The ocean voyage would
do you so much good."
"Would Marie go with us? "
Mrs. Delarue felt grateful for the " us." She had wondered
whether Patricia would care to live under her chaperonage now
that she was absolute mistress of her own life and fortune*
She settled down in her chair with a comfortable feeling of
security and said : " I'm afraid not. I meant to tell you that
Marie enters the novitiate this week."
Patricia looked puzzled. "And what's that?" she asked.
"The convent, you know," answered Mrs. Delarue. "The
novitiate is — well, I suppose you would call it the preparatory
class for nuns."
" I expected it," said Patricia dreamily. " She seemed so
apart from the world— did you know that my father loved her?"
"Loved her?" gasped Mrs. Delarue in amazement. "Did
he ever tell her so ? "
" He told me," said Patricia. " He said he was too old-
he said he was not fit — he said she was an angel and that he
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I9IO.J PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 745
— oh I I will not tell you what he said about himself — men are
not good in mining towns/'
'* God is merciful/' replied Mrs. Delarue, while her thoughts,
in spite of her sensible efforts to control them, began to picture
Marie as an interesting young widow, sharing Patricia's inheri-
tance.
** Marie never knew," continued the girl. '' I suppose she
never thought of marriage with any one/'
** No, I suppose not " ; agreed the mother regretfully.
Patricia closed her eyes wearily. *^ Perhaps it is just as
well," she said. ''The average man is not very entertaining.
I'm getting worn out and critical/'
" You need rest," said Mrs. Delarue. " Try to go to sleep,
now. Remember your father's lawyer is coming this afternoon,
and you will have to see him. Please, dear, try to sleep for
a little while/' She bustled about with motherly solicitude,
darkening the windows, smoothing Patricia's pillowf, and then,
seeing that her charge was inclined to follow her suggestion,
she left the room and closed the door noiselessly behind her.
It was after two o'clock when the maid announced a gen-
tleman visitor, and Patricia, remembering her appointment with
her father's legal advisers, went downstairs unquestioningly,
to find Bob Bingham in the drawing-room.
She was still a little lame, and he came gallantly forward
to help her to a chair. '' Little Pat," he said, and his voice
was full of tenderness, ** I'm here on the d-^^dest errand that
a man ever traveled for; and I came mighty near murdering
the man who sent me/'
She put her white hand on his coat sleeve with a restrain-
ing gesture. ** Don't, Bob," she said with a faint smile. '' I
wouldn't enjoy a hanging. You are about the only friend I
have left."
''There's Doc Farrell," he said, watching her intently be-
neath his shaggy brows. " He's a good man and square as a
die."
" He doesn't like me," said the girl hastily. " He's only
civil on his aunt's account."
"Well, I would have bet my bottom dollar that he was
clean gone. Pat" — he began again, and he swallowed a lump
in his throat, feeling an unusual emotion at her deep mourn-
ing, which made her pallor more apparent — "Pat, child, I
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746 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
reckon yoo know I*m your friend, and what I've got to say
is mighty private. I'd like to shut all the doors/'
''Then shut them," said Patricia, half* amused at his tone.
He went energetically to work, pulling out the sliding doors,
locking them on the inside, drawing the heavy portieres over
them, then taking a chair close to Patricia's own, he went on :
<< You've always treated me right, Pat, and you ain't got any
reason to doubt me. If yer Pa was alive I'd leave Jim Biggins
and him to fight it out betwixt them, but it ain't fair to let
that cutthroat come here and bully you — it isn't fair."
** And who is Jim Biggins ? " asked Patricia, her old instinct
for excitement reasserting itself.
'' Jim Biggins is the man you met by the roadside the day
your automobile gave out. He didn't have any place to go
and I let him sleep in the stable for a night or two."
''And he stole the horses," interrupted Patricia, "he stole
that wonderful colt?"
" Lord, no ; I wish he had. That colt would have broken
his neck before he had gone a mile. "No; it's worse than
that, Pat, he found a trunk full of old papers, and, having noth-
ing to do all night, he went clean through them."
She leaned wearily back in her chair. The story was losing
in interest. Why should Bob get so excited about a trunk
full of old papers?
" I never did have any use for papers," continued Bob.
"They are always looming up to plague a man when he least
expects it; and the law sets so much store by the written
word. Well, Jim showed me those papers — you understand
they belonged to Doc Farrell's father — it seems he went West
about twenty years ago to go into mining in a gentlemanly
sort of way — no grub-staking or claim-jumping for him — he
bought things outright, and — and he bought the Larimee
mine — "
Patricia's large hands clasped the arms of the chair, and she
leaned forward, eager yet afraid to hear more. " Then, how
did— how did?"
"I'm going to tell you," said Bob, spitting nervously at
the fire. "Your dad leased that mine and got nothing. He
dug so much and talked so much that every one thought it
belonged to him. You see, he leased it for ten years, and he
didn't get a sight of pay dirt during all that time. Folks
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I9IO.] PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 747
laughed at him for keeping on, and when Doc Farreirs father
came out there, on his way to San Francisco, he found his
mine no good; then he went back East and seems to have
forgotten all about it. Then, when Tom began to strike it
rich, he didn't say anything to anybody at first — kind of scared,
you see — nobody paid much attention to what he was doing
in his special hole in the ground. Old man Farrell hadn't stayed
out there long enough to get acquainted, and folks quit soon
in mining towns. Don't know how Jim Biggins ever remem-
bered that he'd been there, 'cause soon after he hiked out for
Australia. Then old man Farrell died — nobody claimed the
Larimee — and your dad wasn't hunting the heirs — "
*^ Go on," she said huskily, ** and the papers ? "
** Well," continued Bob, finding the confession even harder
than he had anticipated, '' I came into the stable one night
and found Jim leaning over a little horse-hair trunk, the kind
people used to carry around with them years ago. ** I've seen
the same sort strapped to a stage many a time. Well, Jim was
excited, I could see that; he said he had found just what he
was looking for, said the Lord was certainly good to him. I
told him I didn't think the Lord had anything to do with him.
I kind of felt it in my bones that he was up to some rascality.
Well, he had those papers, and he was coming straight to Tom
— he knew Tom would give a good deal for them. He calcu-
lated that Tom would give more for them than Doc Farrell,
seeing as Tom stood to lose everything he had. Then, when
he heard Tom was dead, he was coming straight to you—"
"To me?"
" Well, he calculates on selling them to you for ten thousand
dollars; and I reckon, Pat — I reckon you had better buy — "
She passed her hand across her forehead as if she were
trying to comprehend the full meaning of his words. " I don't
think I quite understand."
" Well, it's this way, Pat," he began, sending another stream
of tobacco juice at the sputtering fire, " you see, I'm no lawyer,
but these papers prove that your dad never did own the Lari-
mee — he only leased it for ten years, and he never struck gold
until the lease expired. Jim Biggins has got brains, and he
suspected it all along. He was going to make trouble for your
dad anyway, but when he found the papers — well, then, Jim
knew he could turn them into solid cash."
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748 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
''Bat, Bob, if the papers were so important, why were they
left in the stable?''
''Old trunk full of trash — papers weren't considered any
good. Reckon old man Farrell thought he'd been a fool to
go into any wild-cat mining scheme, thought the least said
about it the better. Jim was coming here to talk to you; I
wouldn't let him. Bat Fat — I hate to say it, Pat — but I reckon
you'll have to buy him off."
Her expression was like a child's in its white helplessness.
"And if I don't. Bob?"
" Then — well then, Pat, you're not worth a cent Jim Big-
gins knew he held the cards, he could have landed Tom Cuth-
bert in jail. You — you'd be as poor as Job's turkey, and your
father would be known as a — thief."
She covered her face with her hands and moaned : " Oh,
what shall I do. Bob, what shall I do?"
He put his arm roughly around her, forgetful of the change
that her womanhood had made. To him she was a child againt
sobbing out her troubles on his shoulder, when there was no
one else to comfort her.
" I ought to have killed him, Pat," he said regretfully, "and
taken those papers away from him. Don't know why the idea
didn't occur to me until just now. You've got to buy him
off, Pat, there's no other way. He says he will leave the coun-
try — he's promised me that — ^you'll have to buy him off."
"But nothing is mine« Bob— nothing is mine."
" It is if you burn the papers. It won't take a minute.
You can't go back to your old life, Pat, you once told me that
you couldn't be poor again. Why, it means beggary, Pat, and
disgrace — disgrace for your dad — "
"Disgrace?" she repeated vaguely.
"Jail if he had lived," said Bob convincingly. "He was a
thief, Pat, and if you don't buy those papers all the world
will know."
"Then I will," she said desperately. "Where are they?
Get them for me. Bob. I can't have my poor father branded
as a thief."
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i9IO.J PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM 749
Chapter XI.
When Jim Biggins received Patricia's check he brought the
papers to the house himself, and then left town with a prompt-
ness altogether due to Bob's importunate and vengeful in-
sistance.
Patricia received the small package with trembling hands
and going to her own room she locked the door, and sinking
weakly down in a low chair by the window she tore open the
heavy envelope of brown manilla and began to examine its
contents.
The lengthy forms and legal language puzzled her, even
while they convinced her of the authenticity and danger of
the documents. She felt that she dared not consult a lawyer
as to her rights, and, as she read the papers over and over
again, she was convinced fully that Bob's conclusion was cor-
rect. She had no rights and she had chosen the only way
possible to preserve her fortune and her father's honor.
But she could not burn the papers. All night she had re-
mained awake reasoning with herself that this was the only
safe thing to be done; and yet she could not bring herself to
the finality of such an action.
There was a small safe in the library which had been built
into the wall for the keeping of jewels in frequent use and the
guarding of ready money. Here was a place of concealment —
the combination was known only to herself — she would put
the papers there, and then she would go away to Paris — to
Italy — anywhere — to forget their existence.
Anxious to get them out of her immediate possession, she
folded them carefully back in their envelope and descended
to the library. She was half-way across the room to the pic-
ture that hung over the door of the safe when she realized
that there was some one sitting before the fire.
Dr. Hugh rose lazily from the big tapestried chair, and
dropped the book he had been reading. "I am afraid I
startled you," he said with that rare solicitude that always
seemed to extraordinarily individualize the person he ad-
dressed. ''I was waiting for my aunt."
Patricia asked herself, with a dull wonder at questionisg
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750 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
herself at all, why he always made a point of exhibiting his
indifference to hen
''And 80 you are disappointed at seeing me?'' she said,
seeking refuge in a conventional coquetry to hide her visible
embarrassment. ''I was going to put away some papers, and
— I am going to ask you to help me.'* The suggestion was
characteristic of her daring. To make him share in his own
disinheritance seemed to lessen her responsibility. ''Will you
tip that Daubigny just a little to one side? There is a small
safe beneath; I want to open the door.''
He approached the painting with the reverence of an art
lover. The picture was one of Patricia's own choosing, a dark,
rock hewn coast, with the bluest of waters and a paler sky
above.
" If the papers are important," he suggested, with mascu-
line prudence, "I would advise a safe* deposit box; these little
household affairs are not always fire-proof."
" I would rather have them here," she said, nervously
thrusting them into the small aperature " and " — she hesitated
— "if I should drown on my way to Europe you will remember
to take them out?" She turned the combination with a sigh
of relief.
"Then you are going to Europe?" he said, and there was
unconscious regret in his tone.
"Yes; Mrs. Delarue has promised to go with me. I am
nervous and want a change."
She walked back to the fire and stood with her hands
clasped behind her; they were so cold and she did not want
him to see their trembling.
"And Marie?"
"Why, did you not know?" she replied, looking up at
him, "I thought you knew that Marie has entered the con-
vent I can't understand it."
There was a silence. "I can," he said at last.
The old feeling of distance fell between them. This spir-
itual difference of viewpoint seemed more of a barrier than
the sin they had just shared.
"I wish you would explain," she said, and then she
laughed mirthlessly. " I seem to be struggling for light.
After all, life is so short, the world seems so full of pain and
misery. Can you help me to see the plan?"
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19 la] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 751
''There's always the doctrine of compensation/'
'' And that means ? *'
''That our lives are more even than they seem."
"I don*t believe I quite understand that either/'
"I mean that our lives are more or less alike in joy and
sorrow. Some people have less pain, but have more capacity
for suffering; some have less joy, but have more capacity for
happiness."
" Perhaps it's true/' she said, " I do not know. Marie be-
lieves many strange things, and they seem to make her happy.
I thought "—again she hesitated— "I thought—"
"What?"
"I thought you cared for her."
" Of course I care. I care tremendously for her happiness ;
but if you mean sentiment, of the Romeo variety, I can tell
you honestly that I was never in love in my life. Marie tried
to urge me into the priesthood; but I'd never make a priest,
I find praying hard work."
"Then perhaps you can understand some one who doesn't
know how?" she said, turning away from him to face the
fire; "and if a person — an ignorant person of that kind-
should do — well, let us say, something very dreadful or sinful,
I suppose she wouldn't be as culpable as people who were
truly religious?"
"Why what great crime are you contemplating?" he
laughed.
"Nothing more," she said, making an effort to smile.
" I've done enough, God knows."
The seriousness of her tone arrested his attention ; but she
was full of quick surprises. He had always told himself that
that was the only reason for his interest in her. Her moods
were unaccountable. She had been his chief thought of late.
Tom Cuthbert's last request had assumed the form of an obli-
gation, if the old man's last confession was true. All day Dr.
Hugh had been trying to piece together broken recollections
of conversations he had had with his father, exciting stories
of western travel, and hints of foolish mining schemes. It was
all so long ago. He was only twelve years old when his
father died; but he found himself forcing his memory back to
that time in his effort to give personal proof of Tom Cuth-
bert's startling statements.
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752 PATRICIA, THE PROBLEM [Sept.,
And as he examined further into his motives he found that
it pleased him to think that Patricia was living in ignorance
on his bounty. It seemed to bring her closer to him. And
he began to wonder if Tom Cuthbert's plan to save her from
poverty was not more honorable than bis own. He felt that
Patricia would rebel at the thought of preserving her fortune
only through his careless generosity.
"How long will you stay in Europe?'' be asked, wishing
to break the tenseness of the situation that he only half
understood.
** Six months^ — a year — I do not know — as long as it pleases
us.'*
Her face looked white and drawn in the sudden blaze of
some falling embers.
. " Then perhaps I may join you there."
She turned to him with a strange expression of frightened
amazement. Then she said, with her old indi£ference : ''I did
not know you thought of crossing this spring.''
** Neither did I until just a moment ago ; and now that I
think I would like to go, I am forced back on the reflection
that I can't afford it."
''Oh/' she said with a little crying sound, ''not even
that?"
Again he could not understand. " I have an unfortunate
way of forgetting my present poverty," he said lightly.
"But — but don't you make any money out of your — pro-
f ession ? " she asked hopelessly.
He smiled at her evident belief in his inability. " Most of
my patients are poor," he said. " Collecting bills is a heart-
rending job. Being sick is bad enough, but paying for it
afterwards often entails more suffering. Oh, I have enough — a
home, and land to farm when I have to. All men at some
stage in their careers believe that they are divinely ordered to
become farmers, and when I failed to feel the call of the land
I suppose the fact had to be forced upon me."
" And you do not mind ? "
"Well, I'll be honest. You see, I do mind. I had some
pet projects and they had to fall through."
The room was very still, even the fire seemed to hold its
breath. "And — and those pet projects?"
"I'm afraid you wouldn't be interested, they are semi-
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I9IO.] PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM 753
medical matters. I wanted to establish an institution of some
size for defective children. I believe a great deal of crime is
directly traceable' to a poor physical make- op. There's nothing
original in the idea, but we lack facilities )n this town.''
'' Will you let me help ? " she interrupted, and her youth
seemed to return with her eagerness.
'' You ? " He made no effort to conceal his astonishment.
'' I would rather you would not, until — well until you have
considered it for a long time^ It would cost a great deal — I
{eel somehow as if I had asked you."
'' And why shouldn't you ? " she said. '' I have too much.
My lawyer was here the other day, and the fortune — well, it
is fabulous — I did not know how much. My father made wise
investments and added greatly to the actual sums he got out
of the Larimee mine."
Her last words seemed to bring her some unspoken satis-
faction.
''And you are tired of your possessions?" His lips were
smiling, though his eyes were sad. '' Has life been stripped of
its illusions so soon ? "
"1 do not know."
''You once said that you could not live without money."
"And I could not now," she said with a touch of fierce-
ness. " I could not now. What could I do ? — where could I
go? — ^back to the Golden Eagle that my father still owned
when he died ? — back to the life of a barmaid? — oh, my God I "
she buried her face in her hands.
" Patricia I Patricia I " he cried, startled out of his cold calm
and taking both her hands in his, so that he could look into
her face. " Why should you talk this way when I love you ? "
She broke away from him; her face had flushed crimson,
her gray eyes blazed with sudden fury.
"Did you think I was trying to persuade you into some
sort of pitiful proposal ? You have always disliked me — I have
felt it — seen it. You have told me I was a pagan, which means
our point of view is as wide as the world. I cannot under-
stand your religion — you cannot understand me. You have
tried to be kind to me — I wish you had not. Are you offer-
ing to martyr yourself through a lifetime? I would rather
have you murder me than to marry me — "
He looked at her for a moment helplessly, and a great light
VOL. XCI.'4S
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754 PATRICIA^ THE PROBLEM [Sept.
was borne in upon him. Her refusal bad made bim realize wbat
tbe loss of ber would mean to bim.
''It's of no use, Patricia/' be said quietly. ''I am sure
now tbat I bave bs^ttled against it — you will try — tbe end will
be tbe same. We love eacb otber.''
He expected another outburst. He was wondering bow be
would meet it, when Patricia laughed. It was a poor attempt
at mirth, but it relieved the strain of the situation.
'' Wbat melodrama I '' she exclaimed. ''.You bave always
bad tbe power to make me more angry than any one else*
Of course I wanted you to propose to me — you've been so
indifferent. You did it very badly. It's plain that you haven't
acquired proficency through practise." Her tone was mock-
ing.
It was bis turn to be angry now. "You do not under-
stand " be said, towering white and stern above her.
*' Better than you think," she interrupted bim. " I want to
ask you one question and you must answer me. You bad no
idea tbat you were in love with me when you came into this
room this afternoon ? "
He met ber attack with bold truthfulness. " No " ; be said.
"It proves my point"
"It proves nothing.
"It proves your excessive truthfulness." And without
apology or adieux she turned and left tbe room.
(to bb concluded.)
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IN CARRA AND TIRAWLEY, COUNTY MAYO.
BY WILFRID ST. OSWALD.
I.— CONN AND CULLIN.
your honor, and it's St Patrick himself as
in Carra, and blessed the lough and all
thould be on it forever.'^ This, by way of
ragement presumably, from one of the boat*
irho pulled our Galway-built craft away from
the wooded Corriasla shore of the Southern waters of Lough
Conn, which at times is as tempestuous as any Scotch loch on
which we have been in peril. Bat to- day and on many another
day the beauty of a singularly beautiful May morning casts its
spell upon us as we trail rod and line, thinking less of sport
than of the loveliness of the scene around us and of its wealth
of associations.
Breaking through vaporous mist, golden sunlight is irradi-
ating Nephin, the country's giant mountain, which, embodying
strength and mystery and guardianship, is to the people of
Carra and Tirawley much what La Rhune is to the French
Basques, or the Oertler Spitz to the Tyroleans of Trafoi, or
Roseberry Topping to ancient dwellers on the Cleveland moors
of Yorkshire. Nearer to us than Nephin, and seemingly nearer
too to the sunshine, rises the serrated ridge of Larragan, a
glorious harmony of gold and russet and purple hues; while
opposite these towering heights the lough is dark beneath the
beetling brows of Cuinbeg and Tawnaghmore, over which hovers
an eagle ready to swoop down on its ptey. Well within our
ken lies a belt of islands, possibly long ago broken o£f by aque-
ous or volcanic action from the rocky promontories which,
united by the Pontoon Bridge, divide the lakes of Conn and
Cullin, whose combined length measures about twelve miles.
The largest and most interesting of these islands, lUanaglashy
or Glass Island, is conspicuous by the ivy-clad ruins of its
thirteenth century, square-towered Gothic church, and is singu-
lar in having a population all its own — five peasant families of
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7s6 IN Carra and Tirawley, County Mayo [Sept.,
Tirawley, who, when the winds and waves permit, row on Sun-
days to the mainland where they have a many^mile walk to
Mass. A bi-weekly post, duly organized from St Martin'f-le-
Grand, is their link with the outer world, and letters are de-
livered by a postman of * no mean parts who, none the less,
cannot read. Rather proud is he of his probably unique posi*
tion in the postal service. When we are told that '' the blind
Abbot *^ had a foot amputated on lUanaglashy, we are expected
to believe that there was on the island a monastic house, of
which he was the grave and reverend senior; whereas there
never was a monastery there, and '' the blind Abbot,'' though
actually a living entity, was not an abbot at all, but a certain
William Burke, the fighting father of a fighting family, blind
only in a strictly metaphorical sense, possibly to his own in-
terests or to those of the country, of which he was for a short
time nominal ruler as '* MacWilliam '' in the stormy sixteenth
century.* Tiniest of the island belt is Tory island, a collection
of cliffs submerged only in roughest weather, lying at the edge
of a cross-current, formed by the waters of Cullin forcing them-
selves back into the larger lake Conn, from which they flow in
too great volume to be all at once received by the river Hoy,
which is Cullin's outlet.
Hard by the richly wooded Corriasla side of Pontoon is
Freaghillon, most beautiful of this island group, better known
to us as Bilberry — a woodland hillock carpeted with moss and
fern and shamrock and wild- flowers, earthstars all of them—
primroses and bog violets, wood anemones and sweetgale, gorse
and trailing bilberry, and scarcely opening heather, the glory
of days to come, beneath a tender green canopy of budding
oak and birch. ''Lunch on Bilberry'^ is most often the word
after a morning on the southern part of the lake; or, if not
on Bilberry, out east among the boulders on Sdhool House
♦ Mayo formed part of the grant made by King Henry II. to Wifliam de Burgo, the first
of the Anglo-Norman invaders: he made alliance with Cathat of the Red Hand, King of
Connaught, whose daughter married Richard de Burgo (or Burke) the great Earl. His
descendant in the elder line, Earl William, was assassinated in 1333, and left an only
daughter, who was taken to England ; whereupoa two Burkes or de Burgos of the younger
branch seized and divided between them the inheritance of the infant girl, and, taking the
name of MacWilliam, became lords of Western Connaught ; Edmund de Burgo, who bad
appropriated County Mayo, being distinguished as MacWilliam Eighter ; while the usniper
of County Galway was differendated as Mae William Oughter. Their descendants retained
the MacWilliamship, with varied fortunes, for about two hundred years. The child heiress,
who had been dispossessed, married Lionel, son of Edward III., and handed on her claim to
her daughter, who married Edmund Mortimer, Lord Lieutenant in 1380.
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I9IO.] IN Carra AND TiRAWLEY^ County MAYO 757
Bay, whence there is no finer distant view of Nephin and Lar-
ragan ; or, if we row westward and have succeeded in rounding
the often stormy Terrybaun and Castle Head, we land at Mass-
brook for the midday rest, remembering that some two miles
away, ^twixt Lough Levally and Nepbin's foot, rose heretofore
at Bofeenaun a house of Franciscan Conventuals, which unfor-
tunately seems to have left nothing save its name to recorded
history.
To Castle Head attaches a legend held in firm faith all over
the countryside, that in the far-off days, when kings were
plentiful in the land, a certain king's daughter was carried off
by force from her father's home in Scotia to be the bride of
the lord of Castle Head. Her brothers started in pursuit, but
not for a year did they discover their sister in her lonely home
on Conn. Greeting her with fair words, they asked her to tell
them where they could find her husband. In all trustfulness
she bade them seek him at a spot where he had that morning
gone hunting. They found him and slew him, and brought to
their sister his severed, bleeding head. Distracted with grief,
she took in her arms her infant son, and rushing from the cas-
tle cast herself and her child from the hill-top into the lake
below: wherefore, add those who relate the legend, are the
waters ever rough round Terry.
Once more on the lake, in the quiet waters of Massbrook
Bay, we pass Massbrook House, a mansion modem as any on
Windermere or on the Starnberg See, striking a note of incon-
gruity with the delightful reckless fecklessness of nature's wild
ways in Tirawley. Further north on the western shore lie Lord
Arran's woods, a glorious labyrinthine tangle of undergrowth
and gnarled, ivy-clasped pillars defying the storms and stress
of centuries ; while nearly latitudinal with the highest heights
of Nephin rise the lakeside hills of Cuilkillew, pointing to the
ancient holy well and ruined church of Addergoole, almost
certainly a copy of the famous parish church of Inishrobe at
Cuslough, known as Tempul na Lecca, a typical Irish adapta-
tion of early Gothic. To be laid in the churchyard of Adder-
goole is what the local peasantry most earnestly desire for
their bodies after death.
Where this churchyard touches the lake, the land forms
another tranquil bay before jutting out into a bold headland,
from which on a long, lonely promontory the stately Abbey
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758 IN Carra and Tirawley, County mayo [Sept,
of Errew, erstwhile sharing with Killala the honor of being
the religious centre of Tirawley, echoed with the soand of
praise and prayer to God, as it kept watch OTcr the waters.
Not of the more ancient monastery, founded early in the sixth
centory by St. Tigeman, the Apostle of South Tirawley, ire
the ruins at Errew, but the remains of a twelfth or early thir-
teenth century building of the style made familiar by the
Cistercians, though there seems to be no cTidence to show
that Errew was ever the home of the Sons of St. Bernard be-
tween its early Patrician or Columban period and its recon-
stitution as a house of Augustinian Canons, by which title it
was described at the dissolution of monasteries in the sixteenth
century. Inland from the abbey, but still on the headland, is
the Errew Hotel, built in great measure from the monastic
ruins, and misliked accordingly by the people, who naturally
look upon it as an actual, albeit unintentional, desecration of
a holy fane.
Beyond Errew and the woods and islands of Eoniscoe,
whence chieftains waged war in days long ago, yet another
relic of medieval religious life is there, a mile inland from the
lakeset hills of Gortnardhy, at Croesmolina, where was one of
the many Franciscan friaries, which may have given to Carra
and Tirawley and to other parts, too, of County Mayo the
honest if unconscious Franciscanism of its peasantry. With
them it is certainly not a pose. Close to its northernmost
point Lough Conn receives the waters of the river Deel whicb,
before reaching Croesmolina, has passed by the hills of Bally-
carron, traditionally described as the Grave of Kings, a title
claimed also by Errew and by many another place in Mayo.
Past Castle Kelly and the Annagh islets, once the seat of
the O'Dowda Kings, and made memorable in the fourteenth
century by the murder of Bishop Barrett, we next skirt Clog-
bans on the lake's northeastern shore — a stony stretch of bn^
prettily indented but lacking the distinction of mountain or
forest — and come to Kinmore Point, barely a mile distant from
Errew on the opposite shore. A suggestion that in days looif
ago, rocks uniting the two points may have been rent asnoder
by the forces of fire or water, thus making one lake of what
had been two, elicited from St. Patrick's client the ready ^
joinder that maybe the saint had broken up three loughs (Cooo
Upper and Lower and CuUin) to form but one, when be wtf
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i9ia] In Carra and Tira wle k, County Ma yo 759
preaching Christianity, **Xo learn the people the Trinity/'
This apt adaptation of the shamrock episode to a twelve* mile
scale, however improbable, says not a little for the trend of
our unlettered friend's thoughts. Well loved of the peasantry,
two lonely ancient graveyards, looking south from a bend of
the rocky eastern shore far out upon Illanaglashy, seem yet
to receive from its ruined church the blessing of Him Whose
sacramental presence once hallowed its sanctuary. Never, be
it noted, do the quick-witted people of this wild country for-
get what made and makes sacred their churches.
We are writing as if one day sufficed to make acquaintance
with Lough Conn ; whereas many hours of many days are all
too few to reveal its varied. beauties, of which we have indi-
cated only a very small number. Greatly enhanced are they,
especially during the spring and autumn months, by the
changeful skies that make the lights of one hour, nay of one
moment, the shadows of the next, playing fitfully upon crag
and creek and wave and mountain, and suggesting significance
in the bursting of the storm-cloud, the echo of thunder, the
roar of raging waters, and in the blessed return of sunlight, of
songlight, and of peace. To some such day, when time was
young, may we attribute the genesis of the pre-Christian
legend that an infuriated giant flung across the lake from
Nephin a seemingly ilUpoised but really immovable rock, a
marvel of }ust balance, on a distant mountain. There is a
similar legend in Tyrol, but there the mighty hand-baller is
not a giant but an infuriated, checkmated devil.
Gladly do our sportsmen welcome, not the storm, but the
quietly fitful or all gray skies that lure trout and salmon and
char to the trailing rods; and even those of us who are but
novices in matters piscatorial, learn to feel the fisherman's
thrill in playing and reeling up and netting the fish. To one
of our boats, and to the practised hand of our host, fell the
good fortune last year of capturing some of the largest trout
ever caught on Conn, and before the end of the season one
of the finest salmon ever taken in the lake was his prize.
Too reedy in the later fishing months for boat or line or
rod, CuUin calls the fisherman in early spring, but is beauti-
ful always, and often storm- tossed, as befits the wild character
of its setting. Better known than Conn is it to casual travel-
ers, for along most of its northern and part of its western
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760 IN Carra AND TiRAWLEY, County Mayo [Sept.,
shore raos the road from Ballina and Foxford to Castlebar — a
feat of engineering which is appreciated when we notice that
for nearly a mile on the Pontoon there is barely room for the
road between the rocky bases of the mountains and the water.
Never to be forgotten indeed is the now familiar drive from
Foxford to Pontoon on entering the ancient barony of Tiraw-
ley, now, with the barony of Carra, better known colloquially
as the Conn and Cnllin country. With here and there a few
cottages, primitive and picturesque and sometimes sheltering
poverty, six miles of rugged rock and dreariest bog are broken
by a single stretch of gracious roadside woodland, and bright-
ened only here and there at the lough's stony brink by gor-
geous groupings of mingled gorse and sweetgale, or, as it is
commonly called, bog myrtle. ''The country likes its birth-
day suit,'* remarks a racy son of the mountains. In these
apparently irreclaimable wastes it is not easy to see how it
could be made to don any other. Griffin's island on Cullin
has the questionable distinction of having been the home of
Gallaher, the last wholesale robber captaita in Ireland, and of
his band of freebooters, which was broken up by the capture
and death of their leader as late as 1818. Suggestively but
inconsequently, as they are of later date, the now disused
Constabulary Barracks are on the Pontoon close by, and near
them is a pleasant fishing lodge, while the well-known Anglers'
Hotel welcomes holiday fishermen congruously with the char-
acter of the country.
The heights of Knockaglana stand sentinel to Cullin where
the road divides, turning south to Castlebar, and branching
to the northwest, rises and falls to touch Conn at Corriasla
and Massbrook. If the drive from Foxford lives in memory,
still more vividly pictured there is the oft- repeated walk along
the Corriasla road. We know and love its every feature — the
pine- clad slopes of Knockaglana, the mountains sunlit and
shaded, distant and near, the tiny farms on hillside or in hol-
low, their little fields broken by big boulders, the lakelets and
the little river, the wealth of wild flowers in their seasons;
even the stray dogs and fat pigs, the mild-eyed cows and
silly sheep; the happy larks praying or gossiping in heaven
(who shall say which?) the stately blackbirds and the trilling
thrushes, the warbling robins and the tame finches and yellow-
hammers, fearless all of them and to all friendly.
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I9I0.] IN CARRA and TIRAWLEY^ COUNTY MAYO 761
There at the foot of Larragan, or [by the rude roadways
reaching out to Lough Conn, or on the hills rich in legend, at
Pontoon and at Terry, by Dark Lake and Deer Mountain, at
far-away Deerens and historic lUanaglashy, live a peasant people
who have found their way into our hearts for all time. To
paint them as we know them, these Gaels of ** cheerful yester-
days and confident to-morrows,'' would be impossible, for our
appreciation cannot be crystalized into cold comment, nor can
we fairly generalize where individualities are marked. Strong
and true-hearted their men, their women gracious and tender
and dignified, not without reason are the people of Carra and
Tirawley held to be among the finest peasantry in the world.
If, like the rest of us, they have the defects of their good
qualities, and if the enervating climate makes listless the weak-
ly among them, surely this cannot be laid to their charge in
blame; rather should we wonder at the grit and virility of so
many dwellers in a district sheltered by high mountain ranges
from the sea winds of the Atlantic. Simple as is the manner
of life of these children of Western Ireland, it is marked by
certain characteristics of high civilization, and it is less primi«
tive than was the life of St. Francis of Assisi and his disciples,
who loved even to familiar companionship the beasts and birds
and fishes of God's worlds Good gifts indeed from the Anglo-
Norman settlers to Carra and Tirawley were the Franciscan
friaries, whose influence of long ago may have been an impor-
tant factor in forming among the people a tradition of simplic-
ity of outlook upon the things of earth and heaven, which has
outlasted the vicissitudes of centuries.
Greatly we wondered during the early days of our visit to
hear the soft Connaught burr attuned to phrases and expres-
sions unmistakably reminiscent of ** God's own County '^ in the
sister isle; but the reason was not far to seek. When their
own ''hurrying time" at home is over, many Mayo men
swell the crowd going to England as harvesters, and year
after year work in the same pastoral and agricultural districts
of Lancashire, returning to Ireland before Christmas. Last
summer one of the harvesters, a younj^ man of great promise,
was struck dead by lightning during a severe thunderstorm at
Ormskirk. Within two hours after the telegram announcing their
Ji>ereavement had reached his parents at their little farm bard
by Pontoon, the whole countryside for many miles around had
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762 IN CARRA and TIRAWLEY, COUNTY If AYO [Sept»
in some seemingly magical way become apprised of their loss,
and quickly gathered at the saddened homestead for the caoin
or wailing for the dead — a low, pleading sound, piteous and
pathetic, and withal eerie, falling in soft cadences, and telling
of loving sympathy with the bereaved family, and mourning
for the departed whose body was laid to rest in the Catholic
churchyard at Ormskirk.
Miles away from church live the families, on mountain
side, or bog, or islet in the Conn and Cullin country; but, if
frequent Communion is practically impossible for them, Christ
our Lord gives Himself sacramentally to these scattered children
of the Faith at the biennial ** Stations," which are regularly held
at appointed places in each district One sturdy man told us
with pride that it was his privilege, as it had been the privi-
lege of his father and grandfather before him, and of his
^' fathers for evermore,'* to serve Mass when the '' Station'' was
held at Pontoon; and a like privilege was the boast of a homy
handed son of toil on lUanaglashy. Without a reference to
the ''Stations'' the most cursory glance [at the remote Conn
and Cullin country would be incomplete, and we cannot more
fitly close our tribute to our friends there than with words
spoken by Father Ryan, P.P., V.G., at the Eucharistic Con«
gress in London in September, 1908:
It is true that for the most part the ^' Stations " are now
held not in the homes but in the churches. Still in remoter
parts of extended country parishes it has been found unwise,
for the sake of religion, to break with the ancient custom.
• • . Twice a year, at Christmas-time and at Baster-time,
the country home is prepared for the coming of the Divine
Visitor. Within and without the DonusHca EccUsia is cleansed
and reverently set in order for this greatest of honors and bless-
ings. The £Eunilies in the immediate neighborhood have
gathered with their households, and are waiting when the
priest arrives. The best room has been prepared for the hear-
ing of confessions, and there the old and young, master and
mistress and servant, enter in turn and receive the^Sacrament
of Penance. . . . Confessions ended, or, at least, the Mass
hour come— for in older da3r8 before the drain of enigration
the confessions had to be resumed and were often continued
far into the day— the priest enters the roomy ** kitchen," as
the larger room is generally called, and there all has been
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i9ia] IN Carra and Tirawley, County Mayo 763
prepared for Holy Mass. The walls, and even the roof-
beams, are snowy white ; gleaming metal, sparkling glass and
china, tell what loving hands have done to show their simple
reverence. The homely table is the '' mensa '' of this domes-
tic chapel, and altar-stone and altar-cloths, crucifix and
lighted wax candles, and all the other rubrical essentials for
the Holy Sacrifice, are duly arrayed. The priest has rested
and begins his Introibo ad altare Dei. Reverently grouped
around, kneeling on the rude floor — as often as not a floor of
day — ^the worshippers join with him in the great Act. The
time for the Communion comes and the Bread of I^ife is dis-
tributed, lyittle children, whose happy day has not yet come,
look on with longing eyes. The priest passes them by now,
but it will not always be so. In the same places their fathers
and grandfathers had knelt as children, knelt and waited. It
is Hope looking on at Faith and Love. The Mass over, priest
and people make thanksgiving together, and in another hour
the simple house resumes its usual appearance. But the place
has been sanctified, and the blessing seems to cling to these
houses ''unspotted from the world.'' When at night the
household again gathers there for the Rosary, the memory of
the morning's blessing hangs like incense around the place,
and that nightly Rosary goes on until the Blessing comes
again.
Most true it is, indeed, that these ''Stations'' are the key
to the gladness and content and holy purity of the lives of
^ our peasant friends in the wild country by Conn and CuUin.
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SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND.
BY VIRGINIA M. CRAWFORD.
V tourists find their way to St. Gall, near the
Lake of Constance. Yet it is a picturesque old
town lying, like Innsbruck, at the foot of encir-
cling mountains and dominated by the great red-
roofed Abbey Church which tells of long centuries
of Benedictine rule. To-day the monastery buildings, among
the vastest in Europe, are turned to civic and secular purposes,
though happily the famous library has been preserved intact
and still contains priceless MSS. from medieval times. The
church itself, several times destroyed by fire, survives only in
rpcoco eighteenth century form, but so spacious in its florid
curving lines, so mellowed in its gold and white decoration, as
to achieve a high measure of dignity and beauty.
It was, however, it must be confessed, none of these things
that drew me to St Gall last February, when the town lay
radiant amid bright sunshine and melting snows, with a warm
south wind bringing visions of spring from Italy. It was the
assurance that at this remote mountain city I should find an
efflorescence of Catholic social activity well worthy of study.
St. Gall is as German as Fribourg, which I had just left, is
French. The one is residential, somewhat exclusive, and mainly
devoted to education; the other industrial and progressive.
St. Gall, as every one knows, makes a specialty of muslin and
of so-called " Swiss " embroidery, sent to all parts of the world ;
mills and workshops abound, and the town has a more purely
industrial population than almost any other in Switzerland.
Hence labor problems, and the moral conditions under which
the industrial worker lives, have asserted themselves more com-
pellingly than elsewhere, and have demanded a concrete so-
lution.
The main characteristic of the democratic agitation in Swit-
zerland for economic and industrial reform was, in its inception,
that it was wholly undenominational, and that, for a time at
least. Catholics, Protestants, and Socialists worked side by side.
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I9IO.] SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND 76|
Religious differences, of ceursei existed and later asserted them-
selres, but for some years mutual toleration prevailed, and the
welfare of the worker was the end for which men of opposing
schools of thought were ready to combine. Thus many Catho-
lic workingmen's societies affiliated themselves at its foundation
in 1886 to the Arbeiterbund or Fidiration Ouvriire Suisse, xtprt'
senting men of every creed and of no creed, being content to
work together for economic reforms, while acting independently
in religious and educational matters. The movement in Switzer-
land was in close union with that in Germany, of which Bishop
Ketteler was the accepted representative; its leader M. Decur-
tins, a staunch Ultramontane and advanced democrat, was a
personal friend of Cardinal Manning's, a follower of Baron von
Vogelsang, the Austrian Catholic leader, and, it need hardly
be added, a devoted son and disciple of Leo XIII. The pub-
lication of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum^ which came as a
definite and supreme sanction to all for which the Christian
labor leaders on the Continent were striving, was hailed with
special enthusiasm in Switzerland, emphasized as it was by
constant personal directions given by Leo XIII. to M. De-
curtins.
Perhaps the high water mark of the movement, as far as
Switzerland was concerned, was reached at the celebrated inter-
national Congress of Labor that met at Zurich, with the express
sanction of the Pope, in August, 1897, when, for a whole week,
Catholics of all nations, priests and laymen, discussed funda-
mental labor problems with Socialist leaders such as Bebel,
Liebknecht, Vandervelde, and many more. It was an historic
occasion which made a profound impression upon all who took
part in it. The regulation of the labor of men, of women, and
of children respectively, and the prohibition of night and of
Sunday work formed the subjects of discussion, and though a
deep cleavage of opinion made itself evident on certain points,
more especially on all that concerned women's woik, a general
agreement was reached on many fundamental points of inter-
national , labor legislation. Indeed, at the time, hopes ran high
of a far-reaching democratic movement under supreme Catholic
auspices which was to bring economic independence and decent
industrial conditions to every workingman's cottage, hopes
which, unhappily, were not destined to be realized.
Circumstances, far too intricate to be discussed here, have
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766 SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND [Sept.,
given a different direction to the movement in Switzerland.
The ideal, eloquently preached by M. Decnrtins, Dr. J. Becke,
and others of a constructive policy, of social justice in which
men of all creeds should unite, became more and more difficult
to uphold, perhaps more and more out of touch with the prac-
tical necessities of the moment. Extremists on either side ren*
dered any sort of common platform increasingly precarious,
and the narrow anti-clericalism of the Socialist party in other
countries became a factor in the situation that could not be
ignored. Meanwhile the individual needs and influences of each
canton tended to foster a variety of experiments, useful and
instructive in themselves, but somewhat destructive of that unity
of Catholic social endeavor that had once seemed so all impor-
tant. Thus in recent years it has come about that St. Gall has
devoted its best energies to the development of Syndicats Con^
fessionnels^ notwithstanding that such action ran counter to
earlier Catholic ideals. Indeed its policy, actively pursued, may
be taken to indicate a definite parting of the ways.
As a result a somewhat acute controversy has been in prog-
ress for the last few years, over the rival merits of confessional
and non-confessional Syndicats Prcfessionmls or trades* unions.
It was felt to be so burning a question that it was debated at
length in the pages of the Revue de Frihourg (December, 1904).
Some years previously the Swiss Hdiration Ouvriire had passed
a resolution that all professional syndicates should be strictly
neutral in matters of faith. Hence when the St. Gall syndicates
came into existence it was a question whether they could legally
be affiliated to the Fidiration Ouvriire^ and at a Congress held
at Lucerne in 1904 the proposals made for their admission
were rejected ^by a large majority. On the one hand it is
contended — I summarize the views expressed in the Revue de
Fribourg — that the Syndicats Neutres were more efficacious pro-
fessionally, that they brought together, in a beneficial way, men
of every party, and that they in no way interfered with the
religious beliefs and practices of members. On the other hand,
promoters of the Syndicats Confessionnels assert that they are
absolutely essential as a means of keeping Catholic workingmen
together; that syndicates are not merely economic organiza-
tions, but moral and educational forces, molding a man's whole
ife and thought, and consequently full of dangers to faith unless
built upon a definitely Christian basis. They assert that the
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I9IO.] SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND 767
so-called SyndicaU Niutres are never really neutral, and that
they often circalate objectionable literature. It is pointed out
that the St. Gall trades-unions are not strictly Catholic, but
Christian, that Protestants join them in considerable numbers,
and that it is only Socialists, Anarchists, and Anti-Christians
generally who are excluded. Finally, it is urged — and this is,
perhaps, the most conclusive argument of all — that the success
of the movement is its best justification, that it has clearly
filled a want, and that Catholic workingmen themselves have
been the first to agitate for an organization of their own. It
only remains to add that in the earlier stages of the contro-
versy the promoters of the neutral associations believed them*
selves to be interpreting the wishes of Leo XIII., while in the
later stages their opponents have claimed to be carrying out
the directions of Pius X.
Whatever may be thought of the merits of the problem,
and clearly there is much to be said on both sides, there can
be no question that the Syndicats Confessicnnels of St Gall are
doing a remarkable work for the Church. They form the nu-
cleus of a whole network of organizations, constituting what
is known as the St. Gall Kartell of the ''Central Federation
of Christian Social Workmen's Associations of Switzerland,''
of which the head offices are at Zurich. To this Central Feder*
ation over one hundred Catholic Arbeiter-vereim or Working-
men's unions, situated mostly in German Switzerland, are
affiliated, having a total membership of over 7,000; and as of
this number 1,150 members belong to the St. Gall Verein, It is
obvious that it is among the most important. Indeed, except
in St Gall and Zurich the Vereine cannot claim to have attained
as yet to any numerical importance; their virtue lies in the
fact that they constitute an organization that is capable of in-
definite expansion and one that represents a genuine effort at
a constructive social policy on Catholic lines. Judged from
an English standpoint continental workmen's syndicates appear
somewhat weak on their economic and industrial side, and the
St. Gall unions seem to me no exception to this rule, although,
undoubtedly, they have intervened successfully on various
occasions to prevent strikes and to improve the conditions of
daily toil for their members. The raising of the rate of wages,
which is the main object of English trades-unions, seems to
occupy them but little. On the other hand, they are very
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768 SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND [Sept.»
Strong on thrift and education. In connection with the St
Gall Arheiter^verein there are a flourishing Savings Bank, pay-
ing, interest at 4 per cent on all deposits, sick and burial clubs,
^ an Unemployed and an Old Age Pension Fund. A Labor
Bureau and free legal advice are at the disposal of members,
also a Loan Fund to pay the railway fares of men in search
of work. The Verein owns splendid premises, including a really
spacious hall for meetings and entertainments. I had the good
fortune to be present at the annual business meeting held one
Sunday afternoon when the place was crowded to the doors,
and the routine was enlivened by much indulgence in tobacco,
beer, and coffee, and by the singing of chorales.
Another closely allied branch of activity is the develop-
ment in the villages of small loan and savings banks on the
well-known Raiffeisen system of unlimited liability. Of these
there are now some no, mostly in the Catholic districts of
Switzerland, and all affiliated to the central Swiss Co-Opera-
tive Bank of St Gall, which affords them the necessary security.
Thanks also to the existence of this bank, it has become pos-
sible to open a number of co-operative shops for the benefit
of members of the various unions, and these have proved ex-
tremely successful. There is also a flourishing co-operative
printing press at Winterthur which carries out the printing for
the whole organization.
Excellent as all these features are on the material side,
they are not of themselves sufficient to give a distinctive
character to the .movement. Its real strength is derived from
the ideals that inspire it, ideals of religious faith, of Christian
justice, and of organized self-help. These are perpetually
preached to the members by the two priests who have been
mainly instrumental in the development, in the face of con-
siderable opposition, of Syndicats Confessionnels, Professor Jung,
President of the Arbeiter-verein^ and Dr. Scheiwiler, Rector of
St Othmar on the outskirts of St Gall. By conferences and
by frequent courses of lectures on social subjects, as well as
through the various newspapers published by the organization,
members are taught to feel that they are brothers of one
family, sharing in the same joys and sorrows, and are urged
to seek progress not in enmity and class wars but in righteous
dealings one with another. All these societies are, moreover,
affiliated to the recently established Swiss Volksverein^ which
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i9ia] Social Work in Switzerland 769
organizes the annual Catholic Congresses or Katholikentage^ at
which enthusiasm is kindled and a fuller understanding gained
of the duties of Christian citizens. In all these ways the
moral and intellectual life of the Swiss Catholic workingman is
molded and strengthened, and a sense of religious esprit de
carps developed. Finally on the spiritual plane there are the
workingmen*s retreats, carried on at the Jesuit bouse at Feld*
kirch, the value of which has only recently begun to be fully
appreciated.
Far more remarkable, however, are the results achieved by
the Arbeiterinmn^vereint or workwomen's union. In the facto-
ries in and around the town some 3,500 women and girls are
employed, many of whom necessarily live away from their
homes, and of these factory- workers and embroiderers, no less
than 2,400 are organized in the Catholic Afbeiierinmn-verein.
It is a splendid result, representing an arduous ten years'
work. In England, and, I believe, in most European countries,
workgirls of all trades have usually shown themselves singu-
larly indifferent to the advantages of trades-unions and sadly
lacking in any intelligent social spirit. That the progress of
the Swiss unions should have been so rapid is no doubt partly
due to the excellence of Swiss education, but in part also to
the inspiring ideals preached by the Swiss Vereine. Economic
principles are never quickly grasped by women, but when they
are skillfully linked with definite material advantages, and the
whole movement is infused with a religious spirit, the sex is
not slow to respond. So at least one may assume from the
experience of St. Gall. The women's union is entirely auton-
omous as far as its internal administration is concerned, but
it is affiliated to, and directly represented in, the Central Feder-
ation at Zurich, and on its economic side it is closely linked
to the men's unions. Thus the Savings Bank, Sick and Burial
Clubs, and old Age Pension Fund serve equally for men and
women, while the latter are, of course, among the regular
customers of the co-operative shop '' Concordia."
I had the pleasure, during my short stay at St. Gall, of
long talks with the President of the Arbeiterinnen^vereinf Fraii-
lein Anna Frank, and learnt from her how much the organi-
zation is effecting for the material and spiritual welfare of its
members. Perhaps the most satisfactory feature is that there
is no almsgiving in the concern. It is an entirely self-sup-
VOL XCI«'49
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770 SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND [Scpt,
porting enterprise, managed by the members themselves under
the general supervision of Professor Jung, the energetic pro**
tagonist of trades-unions. Fraulein Frank is herself, I may
say, employed in a shop in the town and gladly gives the
whole of her spare time to the service of the Verein; so
too do the members of the Executive Committee, who are all
workers in factory or shop, and who, like the president, are
elected annually by the members. Under Fraiilein Frank's
guidance I visited the fine property of the union, the Pension
Felsengarten, consisting of two large six-storied buildings
standing pleasantly in a garden in the upper part of the town.
That the Verein should have been in a position to raise suffix
eient money for so spacious a building is in itself a fair proof
of solvency. Felsengarten is not only the working centre of
the organization, but it offers ah attractive home to some 120
members, whose work compels them to live away from their
families. Charming bed-sitting-rooms, furnished with every
comfort, and containing either one or two beds, can be had at
prices varying from 2.50 francs to 5 francs a week. Complete
board, consisting of four meals, costs only i franc a day.
Thus the charge is well within the means of the ordinary
workgirl, earning from 12 francs to 15 francs per week. The
large dining-hall seats over 200 people and members not liv-
ing in the house can come there for their meals.
The building is heated throughout with hot air and lit by
electricity, and bathrooms are provided. There is a large hall
where courses of lectures and practical classes are held every
evening in such subjects as cooking, ironing, fine sewings
dress-making, embroidery, book-keeping, shorthand, and social
economics. Each course, for which members pay only 1.50
francs, consists of 20 lessons, and last year some 400 girls
took part in them. Here, too, is housed a lendiilg library of
1,600 volumes, of which members have the free use. Each
member is further entitled to the free use of the employment
bureau, and to legal advice when needed, and she is supplied
weekly with Die Arbeiterin, an excellent little propagandist
organ. All these benefits are paid for, in addition to the
general administrative expenses, by the small monthly sub-
scriptions of members to the Verein. A choral society, with
annual entertainments and theatrical performances, represents
the healthy recreative side of the busy life lived in and around
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I9I0.] SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND yjl
Felsengarten. Finally, I must not omit a feature which stamps
the whole house with a religious impress: the presence within
it of a few nuns, to whom the domestic and kitchen super-
vision is entrusted. They are Menzingen Sisters, members
of that admirable Franciscan congregation founded some sixty
years ago by the celebrated Capuchin, Father Theodosius,
which has grown with such amazing rapidity that to-day the
Menzingen Sisters are to the German Cantons of Switzerland
all that the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul hare long
been to France. They are found everywhere in humble and
arduous labors, and they have contributed no mean share to
the prosperity of innumerable Catholic institutions. Yet they
are not in any sense the directors of the house ; they are con-
tent to restrict themselves to the domestic management which
ensures the comfort of the boarders and to maintain by their
presence an atmosphere of peace and orderliness of inestimable
value.
Of the immense advantage, material and moral, that such
an institution must be to girl workers, stranded in a town
away from home and friends, there can be no question. It
was satisfactory to learn in addition that the Venin does not
neglect the industrial interests of its members. On the whole,
so Fratilein Frank assured me, factory legislation, owing to the
combined efforts of all parties, is fairly adequate; the in»
spection is well carried out and over-time is strictly regulated.
Nevertheless hours are still unduly long in solme trades and
wages very low. Encouraged by their Vitein the girls in the
cotton mills have agitated with some success for shorter hours
and better pay. In the hand-embroidery work-shops, where
the cutting out process was extremely badly paid, improved
conditions were granted as a result of the organized protests.
At St. Gall, as elsewhere, *' sweated'' labor and all
of female home-work prevail in certain trades, more (
in shirt-making and underclothing. It was to obvii
drawbacks and to set a higher standard in the tow
woman's work-room was opened in connection with
operative shop ''Concordia," in which the workers
nearly double the rate of pay prevailing locally, i
the less a profit of lo per cent is realized.
It must not be forgotten that the Arbeiterinnen^
St. Gall is no isolated development. Scattered over
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77^ Social work in Switzerland [Sept.,
land there are no less than 74 of these women's anions^ with
a total membership in 1909 of 10,575. Not a few of them
possess, like St. Gall, their own premises and boarding-henses;
all afford facilities for thrift and self-help, organize courses
of lectures, and develop a Christian social spirit, and the
greater number are in a flourishing condition. At many places^
such as Rorschach, Schaffhausen, Olten, etc., the membership
of the women's unions far exceeds that of the men. St. Gall
was quoted to me, however, as the town where I should find
the fullest efflorescence of Catholic activity on modern lines,
and even my short stay afforded me pleasant glimpses of a
very busy little world. The Vereine I have described are in-
deed far from exhausting local Catholic enterprise. Female
servants, equally with workgirls, have organized a union of
their own, with some 350 members, and they possess not only
a large servants' home and registry office, but a beautifully
planned and almost luxurious mansion where aged servants or
Pfrundnerinnen can eke out their savings in comfort and refine-
ment. This house, too, is under the care of the Menzingen
Sisters and has its private chapel, and it also receives girl
clerks, teachers, etc., as boarders. Then there is an active
centre of that most necessary organization, the International
Association for the Protection of Girls, the office of which
has been made to serve as the base of a voluntary distributing
agency of Catholic literature, girls with leisure carrying round
fresh books every fortnight to working-class families. Even
that popular subject, Temperance, excites enthusiasm at St.
Gall. A lecture by Frau Hoffmann of Geneva on the Sunday
afternoon of my stay drew a crowded audience, and was note-
worthy for being based less on the needs of the individual
than on the wider grounds of social welfare and national
hygiene which it was the duty of every one to further.
What, then, I asked myself, at the close of my two bewil-
deringly busy days at St. Gall, is the main impression to carry
away from so much well-planned and intelligent activity ? It
seemed to be this : in other countries an undue proportion of the
social work of the Church has to be devoted to the mere relief
of distress, to almsgiving in a more or less organized fashion,
in other words, to palliating, abnormal and unhealthy conditions
of national life. Some measure of such work is no doubt every-
where needful— disease and destitution can never be wholly
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I9IO.] SOCIAL WORK IN SWITZERLAND 773
wiped out — and in some lands at present it is necessary on so
gigantic a scale that it tends to overshadow everything else,
and to cripple other necessary activities. The Catholic Church
becomes in the eyes of many a mere machinery for the relief
of distress, a society with which individuals are apt to claim
membership mainly for what they can get from it. What Chris-
tian workers often fail to realize is that they are trying to do
quite inadequately and amateurishly what it is the plain business
of the State to do thoroughly and systematically, and that in-
stead of struggling individually with an impossible task, it
would be more to the purpose, even from a strictly religious
standpoint, to combine in an active crusade of industrial re-
form, in order to clear the ground for the spiritual action of
the Church. Such a realization would be the first step towards
the evolution of a Catholic policy of constructive reform, prac-
tical in its application and based on broad Christian principles.
We are, alas, still far from having elaborated such a policy,
but in Switzerland, after thirty years of active, if intermittent,
agitation, based largely on the teaching of the Leonine en-
cyclicals, muck has been accomplished in labor legislation, in
housing, in education, in the development of the civic sense.
In Switzerland we find no extremes either of poverty or of
wealth with their blighting evils^ — no destitution on the one
hand, no enervating luxury on the other. Everywhere through-
out the Republic there is to be found a widespread observance
of Sunday rest, and almost complete religious toleration.
Hence at St. Gall, although in point of fact the population is
only three-fifths Catholic and two-fifths Protestant, the social
student can watch the Church at work under normal and
healthy conditions in an environment favorable to spiritual
growth. And the conviction is forced upon him that in the
world of to-day only democracy, wisely understood, furnishes
such a basis.
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STOLEN FORTUNES.
BY MARIE MANNING.
~ OXFORD could never quite forgive Mrs. Burrell
Peters her ''queer" marriage. It knew that
surprises will occur in the best regulated town-
ships and — priding itself on its cosmopolitanism
— it was willing to condone them. But to be
invited to a wedding, and then have it turn into a — Roxford
believed such things were called '' surprise parties *' — was taking
too much for granted. It was not a frivolous town, and a
generation ago it was less frivolous than it is to-day, when
many of the old famflies have succeeded in disposing advan-
tageously of their fine old places to Northern capitalists, acd
these ''new people'' have different ideals.
But twenty years ago things were very different — then no
one thought it necessary to leave town from June to October.
Such a proceeding would have been construed to indicate phy-
sical weakness, and nothing could have been resented more
anxiously than such an impression. An outing of a week or
two to Saratoga, Niagara Falls, or Lake George— these very
names, then, recalled perspectives of flowered parlor carpet,
crystal chandeliers, and draped lambrequins — and the traveler
returned and told the stay-at-homes about the extortions, his
fellow-" boarders," and— the scenery. The ladies seldom trav*
eled ; for the most part they made preserves and pickles during
the long summer days, and after supper they sat on their porches
in wholly charming muslin frocks of their own devising.
These gentle arts of pickling, preserving, and needle* work
filled the lives of the young gentlewomen to pleasant ovesflow**
ing, for it was long before the days of girl- bachelors, or pro-
fessional women, or careers. Then it was a woman's career to
have as many "alternatives" as possible, one of which she
finally chose, and her wedding was the great event of her life.
If for any reason romance did not come about in this harmoni-
ous sequence, at the age of twenty-five, she regarded herself
as " an old maid," and from henceforth she plied her needle
in the romantic interests of her younger sister, and in time took
her place in this sister's family as that now wholly extinct
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I9I0.] STOLEN FORTUNES 775
connection — the . maiden aunt. On the whole, the number of
marriages was greater then than now. Perhaps it was that
girls did not sequester themselves at summer resorts, at which
there were no pen, and dance the precious, fleeting years away
with other young ladies. They stayed at home where business
kept the men, who would ''drop around'^ and sit with the
muslins on the porch, and later there would be sangaree and
a little music — ^all the girls played then, it wasn't necessary
to have studied with Letitichsky before they'd dare touch a
piano-^and the air was full of romance.
Therefore, when old Matthew Reverdy died very suddenly
and his daughter, Sydney — named for her mother's family in
good Southern fashion — became the ward of Judge Maitland,
he was naturally aghast at her request that she ** go out into
the world " — that was the phrase, they didn't believe in soften-
ing the horrors of the undertaking — and earn her own living.
Sydney Reverdy was twenty and there was a something
about the warm duskiness of her coloring that suggested a
nasturtium. She was far from conventionally pretty. Roxford
considered her nose too short and her mouth too scornlul— or
at least the ladies did, no man thought anything about her
mouth but the marvel of its scarlet. The girl had been much
with her father, who was among the last of the old regime. His
days were spent in gentlemanly idleness and he was a connois-
seur in the almost extinct art of julep- making. He was an
old man when Sydney was born. The girl had had scant
''raising" for a Southern girl, her mother dying before she
was ten. Roxford invited her to its parties and the mothers
thanked heaven that they had been spared to watch over the
destinies of their own daughters. The verdict regarding Sydney
stood that she was a good girl, but "read too much for a young
lady."
' This was what Judge Maitland thought when she advanced
her preposterous plea of going North and earning her own
living. Like Doctor Johnson, he thought a knowledge of Greek
incompatible with female delicacy. Not that Sydney knew a
word of the dread tongue, but dead languages and inclinations
toward independence both came under the judge's ban of " un-
ladylike."
"What would you have me do?" inquired Sydney. "I
have an income of $300 a year. I dare say Cousin Abby Tucker
would let me live with her — girls seem to be like kittens, yco
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776 STOLEN FORTUNES [Sept,
have to find homes for them. You can drown the kittens
you fail of this, but the girls — "
** My dear Sydney/' interposed the judge, ** I beg you will
not telk like that. Your Cousin Abby will be delighted to re-
ceive you."
^' Granting that : out of my princely income I shall have
to dress suitably to the station in which it has pleased Provi-
dence to call mCf fer, as Mrs. Allen Tucker's young relative, I
shall require clothes. Can you conceive of the amount of jug-
gling I shall have to do with that $300? Can't you see me
always making over, always surreptitiously heating irons?"
** My dear child, since the Civil War very many estimable
ladies have spent the major part of their time that way."
She threw back her head impatiently. The foreshortened
view of her charmingly petulant face would have undoubtedly
carried the day, had it not the more sharply emphasized the
dangers of the day to be carried.
''And aren't women capable of better things?"
** It is inconceivable, my dear Sydney, that the destiny of
a girl, young and lovely, should stop with these irksome
details. They are, if I may say so without the touch of cyni-
cism that my words imply, to the life of a young lady what
the grind of a law-school is to the subsequent triumphs of the
successful lawyer."
The judge was wholly unconscious that his portrayal of the
probable destiny of a young and attractive girl filled Sydney
with amusement tempered with antipathy.
** Cousin Abby will undoubtedly do her duty — you know
how well it will be done. Why go into the harrowing de-
tails? Can't you see her on my wedding-day saying to the
family : * Heaven knows I have done my duty to Sydney, I
have been a mother to her ' ? Is there no other profession
open to a girl than that of marriage ? Let me at least try,
I am not a fool, and if I marry it will be because I want to
marry, and not because I'm handed over to a man by my
family."
Plainly this girl had been reading — a dangerous thing is a
little specious argument in the hands of ladies. The judge
was genuinely distressed. Were a girl beautiful as Venus she
would be spoiled by this kind of nonsense. Who would want
a wife with ''views"? It was but one step to "woman's
rights."
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I9IO.] Stolen fortunes 777
In doe coarse Roxford heard of Sydney's incendiary senti-
mentSi and it asked itself, with the consciousness of daty done
at homci what could be expected of a girl who had been al-
lowed to grow up in her father's library, where Tom Paine,
Shakespeare, and Byron were not even under lock and key ?
Mrs. Allen Tucker related to Judge Maitland that when she
was a young girl her father pasted together certain pages of
Shakespeare rather than run the risk of having the young
people read them. The judge bowed before the ripe and per-
feet fruitage of such a system. And Mrs. Tucker continued
that she was willing to offer Sydney '' the sanctuary of her
home" — she could never deny herself a mouth* filling phrase
— ''but that she'd stand no 'women's rights' foolishness."
The young girls of Sydney's own age did not take her am-
bitions toward a profession very seriously; she was quite
clever enough, they believed, to have a trick up her sleeve
that would be offered in due season.
To the great inconvenience of Mrs. Allen Tucker^who was
homesick for her own coffee, her beaten biscuit, and the orderly
swing of housekeeping as it was maintained in her own home
— Sydney continued to cling to the old house, though the
sign announcing its sale was already affixed to the maple on
the lawn; and Mrs. Tucker, scrupulous in fulfilling blood
obligations, remained with her. The girl felt that if she went
with her Cousin Abby, that step would be the last of her as
an individual. She would then begin her novitiate in that re-
pressed sisterhood — that silent order that was only too well
known in the South a generation ago-^of peripatetic guests
and dependents. She had known many of them to grow old
in this polite slavery, ladies who could never afford the luxury
of an idea, for fear it might not be cordially received by their
temporary hostess and task- mistress. The]
for all the manipulation of their own partic
and their relatives accepted their services
or in times of illness, or when there were vi
and there was need of some one to tak<
times the professional visitor would go froi
courteous and repressed — grateful for old c
advice, always grateful for everything, and n
to call her own but what the caprice of
offer for her services — culinary or funereal.
Sydney was willing to pickle, or to pr
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778 STOLEN Fortunes [Sept.,
the sick, but she wanted to do these things away from the
comments of her relatives, and she wanted to be paid for them
in coin of the realm. There was another reason, too, at the
bottom of the girl's desire to '' go out into the world "—a
postscript reason that told the motive that the long letter
lacked— but Sydney showed her postscript to no one. Judge
Maitland, who never suspected it, was at the end of his argu-
ments — and his patience. He wrote a long letter to Burrell
Peters — then in Naples — telling little in the way of detail re*
garding the passing of their late friend and kinsman, but lavish
in diatribe as to the lack of repose in the modern young
woman. Peters, who knew his correspondent, read skippingly
till he came to the last paragraph : '' Sydney Reverdy now in-
sists on going to New York to earn her living; she is full of
specious arguments. Matthew unfortunately allowed her to
read too much for a young lady — ''
Peters folded the letter, consulted a steamship company's
leaflet that offered sailing dates for the next three months, and
decided to go home immediately ; and this despite the fact
that he had come to Naples to make the Amalfi- Sorrento cir-
cuit, and he was reckoned a trifle set in his ways. He was a
bachelor of graciously mellowing years, whose exact number
would have come in the nature of a shock to a new acquaint-
ance. He had *' drifted " with time so suavely — birthdays were
honored in the breach by him, they never came in a series of
rude jolts — that he gave to youth, when youth was of his own
sex and disadvantageously pitted against him, something of
the acrid rasp of an unmellowed vintage. He was one of
those men with whom women, even to the remotest eddy of
cousindom, and sometimes even farther, delight to emphasise a
connection real or fancied. He was '' Cousin Burrell " to half
the county. Beside the glamour of bachelorhood, which
potentially confers a man on every woman, the glamour of
travel, experience, cosmopolitanism was upon him. It was
generally understood about Roxford that the only reason that
kept '' Cousin Burrell '' from making his mark in literature was
that he found life too brilliantly absorbing for him to tie him-
self to the tedium of a desk. He had been the star to which,
alas I many ladies had hitched the wagon of their fondest
trust, but he continued to shine brilliant and solitary — the ex-
quisitely forlorn hope of successive generations. Daughters
dreamed and fluttered where their mothers dreamed and flut-
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I9IO.] STOLEN FORTUNES 779
tered before thenii but ''Cousin Burreir' was always slipping
away to Europe and the Orient, and the voyages which gave
him such prestige in Roxford doubtless contributed^ in no
small degree, to the charmed life he seemed to bear, matri-
monially speaking.
When Jam Eyre was a newer book in Roxford than it is
to-day, and young ladies — often surreptitiously— followed the
fortunes of the governess with full emotional accompaniment,
the delicate aquilinity of '' Cousin Burrell's '^ profile seldom
failed to illustrate the countenance of Rochester. Who could
tell 7 — at that very moment perhaps he was eating his heart
out for — the reader. Some cruel entanglement of early youth,
doubtless, kept him from '' speaking.'^ Be that as it may,
" Cousin Burrell ** had a heavy load of romance to carry on
his broad shoulders. That he carried it and was on friendly
terms with all the contributors argued eloquently for his talents
in diplomacy.
Sydney Reverdy had no such illusions; she knew him too
well to convert him into a vehicle for romance. He and her
cynical old father had been great cronies. She remembered
their amusing comment on Roxford's social conditions*— the
long patient shoeing, in secret, of that tyrannous ''best foot,''
before it could be put forward for the inspection of kith and
kin. Perhaps "Cousin Burreir' was implicated in Sydney's
secret postscript, and she preferred that the makeshifts of her
poverty should play out their little comedies elsewhere than
for his good-natured amusement Humor, that doubtful gift
of the gods, more especially to the feminine recipient, invested
her with a shuddering dread of the rSle her family seemed bent
on her playing. After all, should she have to yield to them
and " make her home with friends " ? This was the euphemis<»
tic triumph, the funeral pomp as it were, that they employed
to bury alive hapless gentlewomen— of no foi '
Roxford felt rather sulkily that Sydney E
ring it out of all proportion to the importano
volved. While she had not spoken of her a
except those who constituted themselves her
that her attitude of revolt impugned their
then they dropped her of their own voliti<
topic perennially new and absorbing. "Cou
returned from Italy — Sydney was among the
news.
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78o Stolen Fortunes [Sept/
''Poor man/' was all she said, ''how many suppers he'll
have to eat/'
Sapper was Roxford's ceremonious meal— it still dined at
midday. Sydney already felt assured of Peters' sympathy ; he
was no narrow provincial who would rob a woman of her
birthright of independence because she was of his kin. He
would be her advocate, he would plead her cause with Judge
Maitland and Mrs. Allen Tucker. And when she had made
up her mind that he would smooth away her difficulties toward
independence, she locked her door and spent the afternoon in
tears.
Next morning's mail brought Miss Reverdy a note from
Mr. Peters, briefly expressing his sympathy for her loss and
the hope that she would find it convenient to receive him that
afternoon. Sydney glanced up from the hastily written page
with a look of blankness in her face. The sight of the hand-
writing had led her to expect a different sort of letter. He
was her kinsman and oldest friend; the happiest recollections
of her life were the evenings he had spent with them— their
delightful triangular talks, he sometimes as ally, sometimes
as opponent, and her keen old father leading the talk, now
humorously, now whimsically, but always keeping it up to the
standards of his day, when men boasted Clay and Webster as
contemporaries«-"and could answer them, too, sir, if they
didn't agree with them."
Sydney had already begun to pack when Mr. Peters' card
came up. Whatever she might do, go to New York or stay
in Virginia with Mrs. Tucker, the ordeal of leaving her old
home must be gone through with. She paid " Cousin Burrell "
the tribute of a fresh coiffure, but whether from a species of
perverse vanity or a deliberate avowal of indifference, only she
could have told. The result was a quakerish demureness not at
all unbecoming. She called it declining to make herself look
pretty "like the rest of them."
Meanwhile " Cousin Burrell " was sitting on the claw- footed
sofa in the meagrely furnished drawing-room. For the first
time its aspect of brave poverty appealed to his sense of pity.
Heretofore, there had been almost a swagger about the few
bits of really good mahogany; they were like a company of
Spanish grandees keeping up a fine tradition of self-sufficiency
among themselves. But now it was as if they had lost the
humor of the situation, with the deluge at hand. The old
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I9IO.] Stolen Fortunes 781
French clock on the mantel seemed to sigh away the moments,
and the miniatures of Matthew Reverdy's grandmother and
grandfather, looking down from either side of the clock, had
already the pathos of dispossession.
'' Cousin Burrell '' could see in the mirror opposite that the
hair about his temples was grayer than when he had last sat
in that room. His slightly faded aspect of perfect distinction
had seemed to him in Paris, in Monte Carlo, in London— and
heretofore in Roxford — an adequate and desirable exponent of
his personality. But now, regarding himself critically in that
frankest of mirrors, he found the presentation a trifle discon-
certing.
'' It is presumptuous." And ** Cousin Burrell " deliberate-
ly turned his back on the reflection in the mirror. Had the
watchful eye of Roxford a glimpse of its universal cousin as
he awaited the appearance of Sydney it would have had dif-
ficulty in recognizing in the submissively apprehensive man
its nonchalant social connoisseur, its pride, its most ornamental
citizen.
Sydney was in the room before he realized it, her black
frock making her seem older and her manner suggesting de-
fenses in reserve. If he attacked her plan of going to New
York — and his letter led her to believe he would — he'd find
she was not unprepared in the matter of argument.
The cousinly privilege that had always been taken for
granted, after long absences, and that each regarded as ''en-
tirely perfunctory'' on the part of the other, was more con-
spicuous on this occasion in its omission than it would have
been in the observance. Conversation balked — they were like
travelers that didn't start — or at least Mr. Peters was, sulkily
declining any of Sydney's various leads.
'' Haven't we made rather a bad beginning?" suggested
'' Cousin Burrell." ** Forgotten something ? I've alway
a stickler for old forms and ceremonies."
''So I've understood," Sydney answered demurely.
I believe I've grown to be a — dissenter." She was all
ling mischief, the teasing Sydney he had known from
hood; but in a moment she was sitting erect in her st
backed chair, relentless as an armored cruiser awaiting
Her defenses wanted but the word; she was ready, shi
shell, to open up fire against any possible assault on tb
nomic independence of her sex.
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78a Stolen fortunes [Sept.,
But astute ** Coasin Barrell " was too old a campaigner to
waste his ammanition against such Fourth of July cannon;
hadn't he taught her to load and fire them himself for the
pure mischief of seeing her frighten the old ladies of Roxford ?
<< You've had a hard time, my dear; shouldn't you like to
travel for a little while and try to forget — "
The toy cannon made ready for business. '* Then you
haven't heard of my plans?"
'Xousin Burrell's" wise, kind eyes intimated that he was
perfectly familiar with her plans. Very soothingly he answered t
''When a great sorrow uproots and strands us, Sydney dear,
we are apt to make plans that leav^ out of consideration any
possible return to happiness."
''You speak as if I had the power to choose."
"And so you have, dear, unless you are going to try to
make yourself over into one of those sad, gray women who
go about looking for wheels on which to break themselves in
the name of duty."
And these were the words of the one-time ally I /' But you
always said, you and father, that when a woman is left as I
am, it is so much better to take whatever little ability she has
and turn it to practical account, instead of being harbored by
relatives like a bit of out- grown bric-a*brac that is allowed to
knock about the house for sentiment's sake."
"But if the bric*a*brac is exquisite, a joy to look at, a
privilege to have, we pri^e it for its intrinsic worth."
Her ey^B were half saucy, half sad, as she answered him:
" Doubtless a great deal of well-meaning bric*a*brac has started
on its career to the attic with that false premise, failing to
take into account that much basking on the mantel-piece will
turn it yellow and that new styles will supersede."
" But age will only increase its value if it's Sevres, or Chelsea,
or Dresden, and — "
"But what a destiny^that of a perpetually smiling shep-
herdess, forever at the mercy of the house-maid's duster."
There was a full measure of pity in his glance, but of that
he was unconscious. The poor child, who spoke so contemptu*
ously of smiling destinies, what sort of destiny would await
her in the world ? But he answered lightly : " I fear this young
shepherdess, whose destiny we are considering, will not evade
the duster in whatever walk of life she elects to tread. If she
refuses to smile beautifully as a shepherdess, she has her choice
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I9IO.] Stolen fortunes 783
of growing old and unbeautifal as a mariooette ; and they, too,
are subject to the peril of the duster— doing little futile things
that any one can do as well — "
''But you never talked like this before. You said — "
''Yes, yes; but now let us look at the reverse of the medal/'
"Let^s not; I'm bored to death with the reverse of the
medal. See, I know all the little stencils by heart. A woman
loses her privileges in proportion as she gains her rights. Let
ber not expect a salary and a seat in the 8trce.t*car, for both
of these things do indicate an exceeding covetousness. Man is
no longer her natural protector, but her rival, ready not only
to wrest from her her job, but likewise the sandwich she has
thriftily brought from home for her lunch. She must be pre-
pared to face all seasons — the rain which causes her hair to
uncurl and herself to look exceedingly unlovely; the wintry
blast which will redden her nose; the summer heat which will
cause the same to shine. Furthermore, let her beware that she
does not lose her heart to one of these rivals — ''
"Don't, dear, don't; there is so much bitter truth in all
that you say so lightly. How can you know, in the beautiful
morning of your youth, that there is nothing sadder in the
world than a girl beating herself to pieces on the inevitable — "
"You've said it— the inevitable. Then why discuss it?"
"Dear child, because ninety-nine sheep go over a cli£f, why
must you be the hundredth ? Why won't you stay with Abby
Tucker till your father's affairs can be more thoroughly sifted ?
Surely some means can be devised to make the estate yield
an income."
"My dear Burrell, as my most distinguished relative, you
would be giving me away within the year to any one-^' rich-
man, poor- man, beggar- man, thief.' Cousin Abby has but one
method with girls: they are made to walk the ]
matrimonial sea, the band, meantime, playing 1
relatives smiling inanely and throwing rice."
" Is that her method 7 Then that settles it, \
but another case of trust betrayed— of the dishc
Granting me the right to give you away, I m
Sydney, you belong to me, I've stolen you. Y
mine."
The color broke on her cheek and brow, wa
then receded. "I don't understand — "
"That I have come to claim you instead of th<
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784 Stolen Fortunes [Sept.,
Dear Sydney, that is one of those pieces of black injustice of
which the world is full. The fairy prince ought to have come
driving up in his golden chariot with the crystal slipper to fit
your foot; but the world has grown old and gray, and the
fairy princes that I used to read to you about when you were
a little girl are all dead. Realism in art killed them, and a
dreadful thing that they call Pure Reason. But if this dread-
ful ogre had not killed your fairy prince, believe me, Sydney,
I would never have spoken. As your nearest of kin I should
have given you to him with the best grace in the world, and
like Punchinello : ' Then sat him down and wept/ "
She put her hand to her forehead. '' I don't understand-^
I think it's because you're sorry for me."
''Sorry for you — because you have youth, loveliness, and
brains, and all the world before you ? Accept my most sincere
condolence for these things."
She smiled at him with eyes that were wet with tears.
''Dear Sydney, please say yes; not because I deserve it,
but because I'm so tired of traveling about waiting for yoo
to grow up. In the absence of the fairy prince, please say
yes."
"You have always been my fairy prince," she said,
Roxford abandoned itself to astonishment, not of the polite,
eyebrow*raising kind, but of the dour species that sudden death
and calamity generate. Its idol had feet of clay. How could
a man who had been twice around the world marry a girl who
had never been away even to boarding school ? Mothers who
had sedulously done their duty in this respect, and "spared
no expense " in the matter of " extras," had the blank look of
asking what the world was coming to? Then, because the
habit of making a hero of him had been going on so long that
it was difficult to drop immediately, they fitted up a working
hypothesis that rescued him at the eleventh hour. He was
marrying her from motives of chivalry. How could he let a
relative "go out into the world and make her own way"?
As for her — every one knew how clever she was.
With mid- October came the wedding-day. The maples had
clothed themselves in wedding garments of scarlet and gold for
the occasion, and the sky was blue as the heart of a turquoise.
It was like a " before the war " wedding, with kith and kin
coming from every side, and Mrs. Allen Tucker's old "man-
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i9ia] Stolen Fortunes 785
sion'* disposing of them all with real Southern strategy. The
darkies who lired on the borders of her land, and who still
regarded themseWes as belonging to the family, were wild with
festal joy and clustered round the outer gate to participate in
the excitement of arriving packages. The florist's men had
driven away, the crimson carpet was spread down the broad
white steps— everything was in readiness.
The ceremony was to be at eight. Already it was six, and
Sjrdney, in a marvel of a petticoat, was stepping about in her
white, high-heeled slippers.
Two of the bridesmaids, dressed in picture gowns of rose
and white, watched the performance critically.
''Do I walk as if they were new?''
'''The bride limped to the altar on the arm of her uncle/
No, they can't say that about you ; but when I get married
I'm going to wear old slippers that I've danced and had a
good time in."
" Thaf 8 an idea." Ada Beverly tried her picture hat at
another angle. "It's always so hard to find the something
'old.'"
'"Something old. something new, something borrowed,
something blue,'" Belle Peters quoted. "Chalk the soles,
Sydney. It isn't that wedding* shoes are tight, it's because
the soles are slippery that makes brides walk so awkwardly.
I know, I've been bridesmaid six times."
"Have you a 'going, going, gone,' feeling, Syd?" Molly
Bainbridge addressed herself to the comnnnv in th^ manni^r of
one thinking aloud. "Do you know,
ately in love I was, I think at the lai
change my mind."
"Sydney, my dear," and Mrs. All
door, " you've only left yourself an hot
to put on your wedding-gown and vei
"Heaven help me, I shall surely d
Sydney, who was rubbing the soles
lump of magnesia, stopped.
" Girls, I really think Sydney will
you go to your own rooms." Mrs. Ti
room of all but Aunt Annibel, who as
privilege of dressing her nursling for t
"Shall you put on yo' weddin'*dr<
VOL. XCI.'50
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786 SlOLEN FORTUNES [Sept,
** O Mammy, get me my wedding- bouquet-^ Uncle Joshua
put it in the spring-house to keep it cool/'
The wedding- gown lay on the bed, a mass of shimmering,
pearly white, Sydney looked at it, a little in awe of its signi-
ficance. How wonderful it all was — she who had been so
friendless, so alone. And she had loved him ever since she
could remember. That was why she had wanted to go away,
that he might not see her first blundering steps in this hateful
venture. Yes; she could call it a hateful venture, now that it
was never going to happen.
From the room on the other side of the hall where the
bridesmaids were dressing, she heard a peal of laughter^then
another — then a perfect chorus of it* Sydney wondered what
it was about. She had a sudden sense of loneliness. Why
had Cousin Abby turned them out? It had been so jolly,
being there all together. She started toward the door, then
heard —
''No, I shouldn't think it was necessary for her to chalk
the soles of her slippers to walk to ' Cousin Burrell I ' ''
''She could have managed it on glass— or a tight-rope/'
"My dears, I always admired brains, and Burrell Peters
would have gone on philandering to the end of the chapter, if
Sydney Reverdy hadn't been clever enough to land him with
her little trick."
"Don't you think she ever intended to go to New York?"
"No, indeed; she knew what she was about. Burrell
Peters would never let a woman relative of his go to New
York to earn her living. She was clever— she always was
clever."
" He did it for pure chivalry."
Sydney put her hands to her ears. Was it true, was he
marrying her because it was repugnant to him to see a young
gentlewoman earn her bread among strangers?
The wheels of reason whirled wildly, then stopped with a
sudden jerk. He had argued against her going North. Yes;
he had begged that she content herself at Cousin Abby's.
Yes; all this was true. He had never married before; and he
was forty- three years of age. They had laughed at the dif-
ference in their ages only the night before. She bid her face
in the folds of her wedding-dress and cringed. But he shouldn't
marry her — no; even at the eleventh hour. She'd hide like
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the bride whose skeleton they found years afterward in a
chest — Genevra. Yes; she could remember sentimental little
girls reciting '' Genevra " on Friday afternoons at school.
She laughed wildly. Cousin Abby's home furnished no
carved chests for recalcitrant brides. She must go away. She
went to the clothes-press and slipped a black gown over the
white silk petticoat. It was but the work of a moment to
button it. She ran to the door and listened — already she
could hear the labored breathing of Mammy Annibel as she
climbed the back stairs bearing the bridal bouquet. Sydney
rushed down the hall and hid in a darkened room. The old
negress passed on. She could smell the delicate fragrance of
mignonette as her old nurse carried the bouquet past the door.
Mignonette was her favorite flower, she had asked her fianc^
to have some sprays of it put into the wedding- bouquet,
Uncle Joshua made way for her at the foot of the back stairs,
he had not recognized her with a black lace scarf thrown over
her head. She gained the back porch — the one on which the
kitchen pantries opened. In her frantic desire to escape she
forgot, for the moment, the pain of her awakening— her only
desire was to release this man who was marrying her because
he was sorry for her.
She ran nimbly down the steps into the darkness, giving
one backward glance at the house
window. At the outer gate of tl
laughing, chattering group of darkies
wedding-guests. They made way fo;
returning hair-dresser or dressmak<
and soon the darkness of the open ro
just time to step into the hedge ai
drove past. '' I wouldn't miss it f o;
the carriage said. '' The most elusi^
captured by a little minx — '' She
and ran — then glanced down at th<
— ah, yes, she had forgotten to ch
She hurried as fast as the uselei
carry her, with no definite plans, or
she loved might not marry her out
riage passed and another — full of
Unconsciously she put her hand i
her purse. She had worn the gov
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788 STOLEN FORTUNES [Sept.,
shopping. There was over twenty dollars in her pocket.
Thank heaven! It would be enough to take her away. The
down train to Richmond would come througli at five minutes
tCL^nine. She would take it — then to Washington, then New
York.
The girl cut across the fields to avoid the road to Roxford.
About a half mile from the town there was a little station
with a watering tank near by, and here trains stopped some-
times to water their engines. And presently, worn, panting,
she arrived at the little open shed and sank exhausted on the
bench.
What were they doing at the house? They must have
discovered her absence almost immediately, but they would
never think of this little station. They would search the
grounds to-night, and to-morrow, perhaps, the pond. And they
would inquire at the Roxford station, and if they did find where
she had been— she would have a day ahead of them. The
moments crept on slowly. Surely the train must be due.
Would it stop, would she be able to signal it?
She heard something in the distance that sounded like the
train. Down the tracks a great smoking light began to flash,
streaming and formless, like a blazing lantern. It kept close to
the tracks. If the 8:5s were on time there would be a col-
lision. The streaming comet slowed down as it approached
the shed and she made out that it was a hand-car with some
one carrying a torch. A man sang out to its occupants from
beyond the tank: ''Nothing but a freight," he said, ''no one
hurt."
"Will the 8:55 be late?" she inquired breathlessly.
"Not more than five or ten minutes."
A frantic apprehension seized her. Would the delayed train
defeat her purpose ? Would they find her and bring her back
for Burrell Peters to marry for charity ? She wouldn't. No ;
she wouldn't make the responses. The splendor of the autumn
night gradually began to lay soothing hands on her distracted
consciousness. She looked up at the dark sky sown with stars,
million on millions, as if perchance the little blind love god
had scattered them to the undoing of mortals. The first hills
of the blue ridge huddled softly as lambs laid down to sleep.
The floor of the shed began to vibrate, then tremble with the
rush of the oncoming train. Its great unwinking eye rounded
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I9IO.] STOLEN FORTUNES 789
the curve and with a succession of heaving shocks it began to
slow down. It was at hand, the train that was to take her
away from love — and all that made life worth while.
The brakeman was holding his lantern to help some one
alight She stepped aside to make room. The lantern revealed
two pale^ eager faces — Sydney's and her lover's. She swayed
unsteadily, he slippedL his arm about her and motioned to the
brakeman. The train moved on, leaving them alone on the
trembling platform.
''Dearest, how like you it was to come! My telegram
must have frightened you. You thought I was hurt, didn't
you ? — ^and you came all alone to see. But they ought not to
have let you come."
" They didn't know, I ran away—"
"You would always find me, dearest, even as you found
the real me years and years ago. But when we crashed into
the freight — I ran over to Peterboro' at the last moment to have
another look at the old place; I wanted it to be at its very
best for my little lady. I thought when we crashed into that
train — that perhaps I wouldn't be able to speak to you when
you came."
Then she knew that her running away had been all but
futile — a turn more of the wheel, perhaps, and she might have
been running away from him— ^eadl
''You shan't make a heroine of me. You mustn't think I
came to find you." And then she told him all, finishing with
true feminine logic : " I don't want to run away now — ^because
—you might have been killed."
" And have I made such a sorry lover that you didn't
understand how much I've loved you? Dearest Sydney, all
other women are platitudes compared to you. Even this run-
ning away is but another page. Dearest child, you are an
ever fascinating romance."
"But I hate them all and shall never be married before
them."
"Nothing easier. We'll walk to Roxford and be married
by the curate. Then we'll go back and tell them."
Roxford never quite understood the mystery, nor did it
quite forgive — ^but the Burrell Peters are the happiest people
in the country.
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PROBLEMS IN CHARITY.
BY WILLIAM J. KERBY, Ph.D.
I.
I HE approaching National Conference of Catholic
Charities serves to direct renewed attention to
the complicated problem of relieving and up-
building^ the socially helpless classes. All con-
ventions of those actively engaged in charity
are efforts to learn more about social conditions, to examine
and improve methods of dealing with the poor, and to test the
practical aims which inspire these efforts.
An accurate knowledge of poverty is very valuable. Thor-
ough study of its causes leads one to question the moral val-
idity of institutions under which it exists. Some who make
the study are led into radical theories of total social recon-
struction. Others are led to reaffirm the fundamental institu-
tions on which the social order rests, but to demand very
important modifications of them and far-reaching changes in
the ways of meeting the problems. Others again see in modern
poverty rather a sign of social and spiritual failure than of
bankruptcy of social organization. Some there are who look
without thinking and see without feeling, and become con-
scious of no problem, agreeing with Podsnap in Our Mutual
Friend^ who first denied that any poor starved to death ; then
claimed that, if they did, it was their own fault; then claimed
that^proud England nobly provided for its poor; and then
asserted that it is by decree of Providence that there are poor;
and wound up by declaring that the subject is disagreeable
and'should'not be mentioned in polite society.
Numberless charity organizations have sprung up because
the condition of the poor does challenge our institutions, our
wisdom, and our methods in dealing with them. The whole-
sale criticism of traditional methods in charity is further proof
of the deep hold which the problem has taken on society, and
the reckless eagerness with which '' new '' views are embraced
is as much a sign of hope as it is a proof of thoughtless love
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of untried innovation. All fundamentals in charity work are
questioned nowadays. The relation of the Church to poverty
and its causes ; the relation of state or city to relief and pre-
vention; the relations of Church and State in charity; rela-
tions of voluntary organizations to political authority in serving
the poor; relations of these organizations among themselves;
the natural rights of the poor when in seeming conflict with
the rights of society; the validity of traditional views against
new views ; the ultimate standards from which the higher laws
of relief must be drawn; in a word, everything is in question*
And thus arise philosophies, policies, antagonisms, with their
undercurrents, all of which worry the peace lover and jeopard-
ize progress in the real solution of the problem.
The questions involved are vital. The mass of poverty
which confronts modern society is simply appalling. The amount
of money that would be required to capitalize charity in the
United States challenges belief. The difficulties in the way of
concerted and sympathetic action of all agencies, because
largely inherent and natural, o£Fer no promise of being mastered,
and yet we must be optimists. We must believe in the suc-
cessful outcome of things. In this field really lies the most
serious challenge to our civilization, to our Christianity. We
have learning enough, literature enough, churches enough,
political institutions and schools enough, to do us credit ; but
the great failure of our time is our failure to treat, wisely and
effectively, our failures.
Every institution, every civilization, fails at some spot. Its
real wisdom is shown in its provision for its failures. Com-
petitive institutions are good for the strong, but fatal to the
weak. Elective studies in universities help one <
and harm another. Trust ennobles the honora
ages the crafty. Modern liberties curse as
bless. Since all institutions include persons oi
terests, of antagonistic temperaments, of diff<
moral insight and intellectual skill, there wi
harvest of failures to be charged up, and in r<
wisdom in any institution should be devoted
of providing for its failures.
The poor are our most conspicuous failures,
paralysis of energy, in the failure of our ideah
to reach and stimulate them, in their lack of
spur of necessity, to the touch of hope, to I
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792 PROBLEMS IN CHARITY [Sept.,
tponsibility, they are failures. Tbey are not our only failures,
but they are the most conspicuous. It is only from the height
that one can see the depths. It is the preinalence of exalted
ideals that makes poverty seem so pitiful. It is the mighty
energy in modern life that causes the poor to appear so help-
less. It is oftentimes the very perfection of institutions, as
such, that emphasizes their failure to uplift e£Fectively the poor.
Christianity gave us the deep doctrine of brotherhood which
social facts so baldly contradict. Christ taught us the infinite
yalne of the individual soul and the inherent sacredness of per-
sonal rights, but the facts in modern distress scorn us. The
roots of charity are in these doctrines. They were destined to
take the agony of nameless fear out of the heart of poverty
and to replace it by the solace of trust. Christianity has fur-
nished the social philosophy out of which charity sprung. Chris-
tianity gave us the doctrine and example on which charity was
formed, and the motive and inspiration by which its energy
was supplied. Charity comes down the centuries, first-bom in
the family of Christian virtues. Its spirit, sprung of the heart
of Christ, whispered to strength the secret whereby stieogth
might be sanctified. And, obediently, hopefully, health served
disease, virtue served sin, learning served ignorance, freedom
served captivity, wisdom served the fool, and wealth served
poverty. Thus arose the- communities in the Church which
loved and served the helpless because they believed that these
were loved of God.
Charity has not escaped the world movement that is chang-
ing everything. Everything is nowadays to be separated from
everything else. Science must separate from faith; education
from religion; morals from dogma; State from Church; and^
say our modern thinkers, charity must separate from the super-
natural. Thus we face the new philanthropy. Thinkers do
more of this separating than life does. As we think these
forces apart, life seems to drive them back into association.
And thus the Church stands out more impressed by the facts
of life than by the innovations of the thinkers. She is quite
as much impressed by the failures of science as she is by its
successes. She realizes that the history of error requires more
volumes than th^ history of truth. She remembers many false
prophets and false prophecies among scientists as well as among
believers. The new philanthropy is not the first ** new '* force
that she has faced. Nor will it be surprising if at some not
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distant day the new philanthropy will turn back to the old and
ask it for some of its time-tried secrets.
And thus, in the midst of disconcerting changes, we are going
to be slow. We shall hold to our philosophy , to our doctrine,
to our motive and inspiration in charity work. It will continue
to be an organic part of our faith and we shall continue to look
to the life beyond — toward which the Savior pointed^for stim-
ulation and recompense. We shall continue to see the bene-
diction of Jesus Christ awaiting us beyond the prostrate figure
to which we minister. But this is only one- half of our attitude.
We have made mistakes and we >hall continue to make
them. We have our failures, as all institutions have their fail-
ures. We do not love our mistakes; we are not wedded to
them; but we know of no infallibility in human reason, and
no finality in earthly wisdom. The philosophy, doctrine, and
motive of our charity must be supplemented by our own efforts.
Our understanding of social laws and causes, our common sense
in dealing with human nature, and our personal consecration,
affect the efficiency and adequacy of our charity at all times.
Relations change, methods wear out, hence we must observe,
reflect, experiment, and learn. We will learn eagerly and grate-
fully from every source : from the new philanthropy as well as
from our own ; from our critics just as hopefully as from our
leaders. The poor are too sacred in the mind of Christ to per-
mit us to be swayed by feeling if those who do not like us or
admire our ways may still teach us well.
If our critics ask us whether we have finally settled on the
one wise way to deal with orphans, we answer: No; nor do
we think that they have. If they ask us if we have discovered
how to give relief without at all enervating the recipienti we
answer: No; nor do we think that they have. If they ask us
if we can prevent wife- desertion and drunkenness among the
poor, we answer : No ; nor do we think they can. If they ask
us if all of our workers among the poor are wise, farsighted,
tender, and patient, we answer : No ; nor do we think that
theirs are. And hence we are willing to learn. But we some-
times formulate our thoughts badly. We have within our circles
the secret of finding tens of thousands who consecrate themselves
entirely to the service of the poor, and are satisfied to leave
the account with God. But often this consciousness takes on
a form of opposition to paid workers who are found in such
large numbers in the new philanthropy. Those among us
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794 PROBLEMS IN CHARITY [Sept,
who reflect, avoid the mistake. If those who serve the Gospel
should live by it, why not apply the law to those who serve
charity. The mind accustomed to unpaid work in charity
needs time and widening of horizon to understand that it may
be necessary to change that order.
The same is true with regard to much of the opposition
to scientific charity. The new philanthropy sometimes ex*
presses badly what it means by '' scientific/' and we some-
times make mistakes in opposing it. When errors are cleared
away, friend and enemy are not so far apart. St. Vincent de
Paul was scientific in a true sense. We are not afraid to follow
him.
Should we Catholics ever drift into the shallow conviction
that we cannot learn anything new, should we ever deceive our-
selves into the belief that we have settled problems in charity,
we would, indeed, need critics whose sharpness would sting us
and startle us out of such a paralyzing illusion. Only by un-
derstanding that everything fails at some point, will we be
docile. Only by believing that we are failing here or there,
and can do better, will we be progressive. Only by recalling
the guesses and mistakes that flock around everything new
in history, can we be conservative ; only by recalling that Christ
gives the poor to us in charge, can we be patient in the face
of criticism and firm in face of trial.
It is well for us to be reminded constantly that in our
charity work we but share the common lot. Respectable tes«
timony is at hand which, it is claimed, shows that democracy
is a failure; that our city government is a failure; that our
public school system is a failure; that our prison administra-
tion is a failure; that our criminal law practices and institu-
tions are a disgrace to civilization. Every day we hear of
'' new '' methods in teaching and of failure of the '' old,** in art^
in music, in raising children, in medicine, in everything. Shall
we Catholics alone claim exemption, and say that we do not
fail ? Shall we refuse to study, observe, experiment, simply be-
cause sharp critics assail us and a too eager spirit of innova-
tion about us leads us to fear all innovation too much?
We must be open-minded toward every problem in charity.
Let us hold to our philosophy, to our doctrine, to our super-
natural motive and inspiration. Then let us seek progress in
method and practical aim from friend and from critic, from
conservative and radical, from new and from old. In doing
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I9IO.J PROBLEMS IN CHARITY 795
this there is no need to surrender the cherished and venerable
traditions of the spirit of charity; no need to part company
with the saints, whose halo of sanctity would seem to be their
visible reward of their service of the poor; no need to forget
the unnumbered thousands of men and women who found a
noble destiny for talent and thought in consecrated personal
ministrations to the lowly; no need to surrender the symbols
of the power of the supernatural motive and heavenly inspira-
tion which was, in old days, a nursery of heroes and heroines
and nowadays meets so often but scant courtesy.
The situation is not simple. We need a more widely de-
veloped sense of responsibility toward the poor and more ac-
curate knowledge of social relations and processes. Means in
greater abundance, secured by more refined methods, are neces-
sary. We are sometimes in danger of surrendering too much
of our traditions because the chorus of fault-finding is impres-
sively loud. We may love an old method because it is easy and
dislike a new one just because it is difficult.
The widely shared feeling of unrest in our charity circles
has given rise to the concerted movement expressed in the
formation of the National Conference of Catholic Charities.
We need the guidance of our collective thought. We need the
inspiration of collective presence. We need collective wisdom
in dealing with the new philanthropy and with the old. The
formation of this conference is a step toward such results. Its
aim will be largely to find out the condition of our charities
and the validity of the methods in them. It will endeavor
gradually to understand the current in modern charity and to
estimate rightly its value. It, therefore, becomes a work of
primary importance to the American Church and one of direct
appeal to Catholics in general. In order to place its eflPorts in
their relation to problems a review in outline of general charity
conditions is herewith suggested.
II.
There are four classes of persons who must be looked to
by the associations which perform works of charity, each pre-
senting distinct problems, a distinct spirit, and each requiring
entirely di£Ferent treatment. First, there are those who do not
know the facts in modem poverty. This class needs informa-
tion, instruction. Second, there is a class which knows the co**
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796 PROBLEMS IN CHARITY [Sept,
ditions well enottgh, but feels no responsibility for them. They
are cold individnalists. This class needs not information, bnt
inspiration, formation of a social conscience. Third, there is a
class which feels the impulse to social service,^ bnt seems not to
know what to do. Snch have need of leadership, of direction,
or organization, and there are those who are actively at work,
some working wisely and some foolishly, some producing noble
results and others holding back progress. Many of these have
need of improvement in methods and widening of social outlook
or deepening of knowledge of social conditions. Organized
charities are thus confronted by four distinct, complex problems :
that of instruction ; that of spiritual information and inspira-
tion ; that of organization itself ; and that of finding e£Fective
methods among changing and complex conditions.
The first class referred to is fairly large. There is no one
who does not know that poverty is to be found. But the
knowledge is remote, speculative. The mass of distress is so
great that many are repelled. Lack of evident relation between
any given poor and any given well-to-do helps to keep one's
sympathies suppressed. Life as most of us live it is busy ; it
is filled with complex relations, with struggle for existence or
for maintenance of standard, or for social advance. Means and
energy are so absorbed that one is conscious of no superfluous
resources, available for any good purpose. The well-to-do are
everywhere separated from the poor: at church, in the thea-
tre, in society, in residence districts. We never see the poor
at work or at home. It is true that modern books, magazines,
lecturers, and official investigations are forcing much knowledge
into higher circles. It is true that there is to-day less excuse
than ever before for ignorance of the details of poverty. But
with all allowances made, an ignorance is still to be found
among the well-to-do that hinders many from any action and
even any impulse toward personal interest in the conditions of
the poor.
Decent interest in one's city; patriotic regard for city in*-
stitutions and administration as these affect the poor; intelli-
gent understanding of modern industrial conditons in one's
city; some grasp on the duty of society as a whole toward
its failures; zeal for the vigorous assertion of social and spirit-
ual ideals; conscientious desire to follow the literal, emphatic
teaching of Jesus Christ— all of this should be found in the
Christian American citizen. Any one of such motives should
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X9ia] PROBLEMS IN CHARITY 797
Uad him directly to take interest in the poor. But many, un-
fortunately, are never aroused by all of them taken together—
never aroused even to a rudimentary interest We may grant
that it is out of the question for one to know all. Yet one
may know something; one may work in some line; one may
lend a hand toward alleviation somewhere. But the number
who fail to do even this is too large to be overlooked.
Progress in charity, in civic life, in religion, demands, then,
that systematic e£Fort be made to instruct this class ; to spread
information in such form as to stir sluggish sympathies into
eager service. Organized charity, then, must give attention to
this problem. Only some such body as a national conference
can make the thorough survey required, and, on the whole,
adopt methods fitted to bring about the desired awakening.
Not that organized charity itself can accomplish all of this:
but it can do much. And it can enlist in the work schools,
press, and pulpit. A difficult task awaits him who would show
that a knowledge of the classics, or of history, or of geology
is of greater cultural, spiritual, and social value to our young
than is a knowledge of the ebb of civilization among the poor.
A revision of valuations on all sides might awaken us to a reali-
zation that accurate knowledge of this literal ''underworld,'*
with stirred sympathies leading to thoughtful service, might be
worth as much in the development of the young as courses in
ethics and possibly higher catechism. The work of e£Fective
instruction in the facts of poverty remains to be done. It is
one of the chief concerns of organized charity; one that a
national conference can in the long run undertake to handle.
There is a second problem awaiting organized charity, an
offshoot possibly of that just referred to : namely, that of awak-
ening the social conscience where it is inactive in presence of
sufficient information. There are hard, cold individualists who
will maintain that poverty is the concern of the poor; that
the poor are to blame usually for their plight Such persons
adopt a rigid standard of justice which is narrow and unsocial.
They are encouraged in their attitude by the harsh struggle
for material gain which they witness on every side, and by their
lack of personal knowledge of the poor. They comfort them-
selves with the vague assumption that there are many good-
natured people who will give whatever relief is necessary to
the deserving poor.
This problem confronts organized charity, but cannot b"
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798 PROBLEMS IN CHARITY [Sept.,
happily solved by it. The social and spiritual teachers of the
race must undertake to help. In as far as the social con-
science enters the religious life, the formation of it becomes in
large part the duty of the religious teacher. Inasmuch as the
social conscience is an integral part of the good citizen, the
formation of it becomes the duty of the school which professes
to form good citizens. Inasmuch as the social conscience of
society, as such, must come to expression in and through laws,
it becomes the particular duty of the law-maker to be pos-
sessed of social conscience, to foster it, to enact it. Inasmuch
as the social conscience is necessary to the man of wealth who
believes that he is a steward, under God, of his wealth for
society, he must develop it if he would be a faithful man. In-
asmuch as the social conscience is a necessary element in the
formation of the Christian-minded employer, he, too, must
respect and obey it if he would be a good man, good citizen,
good employer, good Christian. And thus the work of develop-
ing the social conscience in modera life becomes the joint duty
of Church, school, legislator, property owner, and employer.
It is only through some such contrivance as conferences
that these can be brought together to do this duty in the
name of God, of humanity, of civilization, and of progress.
And, therefore, by duty and by right, all of these must enter
the charities conference. They must work together, must
learn from one another, bear with one another, and seek in
patient trust and tolerant discussion ways and means to organize,
strengthen, and adapt social conscience to life. The charity
worker, with possibly too much sympathy ; the employer, with
too little; the legislator, with indi£Ference or even aversion;
the teacher, not touching the problem at all ; the minister of
the gospel, at times maybe with strong speculative convictions
and limited practical knowledge— must be brought together in
sympathy, trust, and zeal to work out the problem for civili-
zation and Christian faith.
The National Conference of Catholic Charities will find this
a complicated problem. But it must be met fairly, honestly,
patiently, slowly. At any rate, it must be met. And it would
seem that the projected Conference can meet it best.
The third class referred to is made up of those who have
the social conscience and do not know what to do. Their sym-
pathies are active and their will is good. They are confused by
the endless claims on them, by a sense of helplessness, and a
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I9IO.] PROBLEMS IN CHARITY 799
sabtle thought that, since not all can be done, it is not worth
while to try to do anything. Such need leadership and or-
ganization. Division of labor is as necessary in charity as
in shoemaking. The organization can place individuals where
their aptitudes and circumstances will be taken into account.
One allied with a hundred feels power, feels that what one
does is worth while. One thinks of one's achievement in the
totals that organization accomplishes. There are some who
cannot do friendly visiting. They are awkward, self-conscious,
and stupid in a poor home ; but they can organize, sew, manage,
or pray. The negro minister who told the men in his con-
gregation to rush out and save a neighbor's house from fire,
and ordered the women to regiain in the church and pray,
' had a sense of situation that is not to be despised. Through
organization in charity one finds his proper place, sees that
his efforts count, that his wisdom and sympathy influence a
' much larger circle, and that he is protected against his own
^ impulses and mistakes.
Organized charity must, therefore, organize charity. It
^ must find out all who will serve and it must guide them in
^ serving. Organized charity must know the problems in charity ;
it must see them as a whole, and measure resources with
f which to meet them.
^ The National Conference of Catholic Charities can, there-
( fore, render good service to a great cause. It has already un-
i dertaken a survey of the conditions of Catholic charities in
i the United States. Its endeavor to learn problems, organi-
i zation, limitations, successes, and failures; to find out what
( is needed and to take steps toward meeting the needs, stamps
\ it at the outset as a practical, definite agency seriously bent on
earnest work.
\ It is hardly necessary to undertake a defense of organiza-
tion in charity, or to state again and again, with all possible
f emphasis, that no one wishes to crush individuality or formal*
ize service of the poor, or take the heart out of charity. When
\ organization is spoken of, one who believes in it takes it with
r its shortcomings, its dangers ; but one hopes to minimize these
I and to accomplish much for the poor in the spirit of God.
The fourth problem confronting organized Catholic chari-
I ties is that of method in work. We must hold sternly to the
philosophy, the doctrine, the motive, and inspiration of Catholic
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80Q PROBLEMS M CHARITY [Sept.
charity, while modifyiog methods and immediate aims to meet
new conditions. The new conditions are, indeed, complex.
We mnst work oat wisely and carefully onr understanding of
our relations to state and city in relief work. We must con-
tribute our share to the discussion of the f6l$ of the Church
in modem conditions. We have, then, to determine fairly and
broadly our relations to the new philanthropy, with other or-
ganized charities which work in the same field, but often with
different standards and principles. We have to seek out every-
thing that is helpful, wise, approved, even among our critics,
and incorporate it into our own works. We must hold ourselves
in readiness to tell others some of the secrets of power and
consecration which we have had for centuries.
We have, too, to work out new views of conditions. We
must learn quickly to distinguish between what law must do
in relief and prevention ; what public opinion may do and what
organization may do. And we must acquire the mental habit
of referring facts to general situations. We are discovering
that city administration means much to the poor. We must,
therefore, take an interest in it for the sake of the poor. We
see that laws alone can hinder a hundred processes in industry^
in living conditions that are causing death and disease among
the poor. In order to magnify preventive work to the utmost,
we must work to secure legislation that will awaken public opin-
ion.
Such changes in method of charity work will be made as
modern conditions, together with ancient ideals, demand. Or-
ganization may never be too rigid to change as problems change;
Safe guidance in this situation will be found when we come
together in conference.
One may not close one's eyes to these great problems.
Instruction, stimulation of social conscience, organization, suit-
able methods, are collective needs demanding collective wisdom
and action. The National Conference which begins this great
work will invade no field now occupied; it will displace no
organization ; and will in no way enter the field of actual relief.
It can, however, explore conditions, renew the inspiration of
old ideals, guide wisely in the larger relations of the work,
and thus serve in no mean way to make our methods equal
to our problems, our aims worthy of our ideals, and onr achieve*
ments worthy of our Faith and its noble traditions of charity.
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SPAIN OF TO-DAY.
BY ANDREW J. SHIPMAN.
I.— THE COUNTRY AT LARGE.
; newspapers have been teeming with news from
pain regarding the present crisis ; bat very few
lets have been given their readers upon which
3 base any adequate view of events that are
iking place. Even as I write, there are rumors
of civil war and vague statements, without names, dates, or
places, that the clergy are fomenting it. The Catholic com-
mittees have abstained from their projected protest against
the present policy of the government, and that alone, irrespec-
tive of whether troops were massed or Radical counter-demon-
strations were planned, shows that they have no desire to in-
volve their country in insurrection or war. We have been re-
galed ad libitum through the press with extracts from the
speeches of Liberal and Republican, nay, even Socialistic, lead-
ers, but not a word has been said of the speeches, in reply, of La
Cierva, Dalmacio Iglesias, Urguijo, and others, quite as notable
in their way from the Conservative standpoint. This is not an
entirely fair attitude for the American press; it ought to tell
both sides of the story.
Spain is an intensely Catholic country, with Catholic tradi-
tions and Catholic prejudices running back to the earliest ages.
Perhaps the Spaniards still have too much of the Goth in them,
too much of the old inflexible spirit which drove out the Moor
and protected all Europe from the Moslem. Spain has been
the greatest country in the world, an empire vaster than that of
ancient Rome. People are apt to forget this. And the old,
proud spirit, that brooked no contradiction and knew no com-
promise, still dominates the people, although they are fallen
from their high estate as rulers of the world. Perhaps Kings
like Charles V. and Philip II., with their strong centralizing
tendencies, laid the foundation ; while lesser men, with all their
faults and none of their capacity, completed the inflexibility
which seems a part of the Spanish character as a whole. We
who judge Spain as a whole must take into consideration this
VOL. xci.— 5 X
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8o2 Spain of To-Day [Sept.,
inheritance of history and tradition, as it is one of the things
which make up nationality and keep alive the pulsing blood
of the race.
Then, too, Spain is a poor country. It has been devastated
by the English and the French, and has had besides civil wars
of its own. All these things tend to make the Spaniard, some-
what like our proud Southern families after the Civil War, purely
introspective and averse to dealing with things that come from
the great powers which did so much harm to his native country.
And these habits of mind frequently dominate those who wish
to alter things — they desire to impose them autocratically, not
by way of amendment or in the manner of compromise upon
non-essentials.
Spain is a constitutional monarchy with a written Constitu-
tion, adopted in 1876, very similar, aside from the Monarchy
and Established Church, to our own Constitution in its general
provisions, and quite the equal of any of the constitutions of
modern states. It embodies all the best principles of the previ-
ous Spanish Constitutions, together with the matters considered
fundamental in a modern state, such as a bill of rights. To us
Americans, viewed side by side with our own Constitution, it
seems to be defective chiefly in its protection of individual
and property rights, as we understand them, by not having
sufficient checks to prevent their invasion. Unfortunately the
Constitution is interpreted by the habits, usages, and predilec-
tions of old Spain, and its shortcomings must be attributed to
those ingrained ideas rather than to the instrument itself. But
it is a strong, liberal, and far-sighted document, equal to rank
with the fundamental law of any modem state.
The executive power under the Constitution rests in the
King, while the law-making power is vested in the Cortes, or
Parliament, and the King. The Cortes is composed of two
houses, the Senate and the Congress, equal in authority and
law-making initiative. The ministry or cabinet may be chosen
from either house, and the ministers may speak in debate in
either house, but may vote only in the house to which they
belong. The Constitution provides that the King is inviolable,
but his ministers are responsible, and all his decrees must be
countersigned by one of them. The Senate is composed of
360 Senators, divided into three classes: Senators in their
own rights that is, sons of the King, other than the Prince of
Asturias, sons of the successor to the throne, certain grandees
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I9IO.] SPAIN OF TO-DAY Soj
of Spain, Captains- General, Presidents of the Supreme Councils,
and all the Archbishops; Senators for life (vitalicios), nomi-
nated by the Crown, who, together with the preceding class,
cannot exceed i8o in number; the remainder are Senators
elected for ten years by the corporations of the State, that is,
the Universities, Cdmmunal and Provincial Assemblies, various
corporate churches, and certain commercial bodies. To be either
a vitaliciOf or elected Senator, the candidate must have already
been a President of Congress (Speaker), or a deputy who ha6
sat for three consecutive parliaments or eight independent ones,
former ministers of the Crown, bishops, grandees of Spain,
lieutenant-generals of the army or vice-admirals of the navy
who have served more than two years, ambassadors or minis*
ters who have served five years, directors of the various Span*>
ish National Academies, and certain others who have served in
various capacities. The lower house or Congress of deputies
is elected by universal suffrage, upon the basis of one deputy
for every 50,000 of population throughout the kingdom. The
qualification is that they must be Spanish and twenty- five years
of age, and they are elected for a term of five years. The
Cortes may be dissolved by the King at any time upon resig-
nation of the ministry, as in the English Parliament. Accord-
ing to the law of 1890 every male Spaniard, twenty- five years
of age, who has been a citizen of a municipality for two years,
has the right to vote. Neither deputies nor senators are paid
for their services, and cannot hold other office, except the cabi-
net ministry. There are at present 406 deputies in Congress.
Besides this central government, Spain has also local self-
government. Very often many of the Spanish troubles are
caused by the clash between the central government and the
local government Spain has forty-nine provinces, or, as we
may call them, states; and each one of these provinces has
its own individual parliament and local government. The
provincial parliament or legislature is called the Diputacion
Provincial^ the members of which are elected by constituencies.
These Diputaciones Provinciates meet in annual session, and the
local government is carried on by the Comision Provincial, a
committee elected by the legislature. Thus we see that goV^
emment by commission is quite usual in Spain, although it is
being heralded as a novelty in the government of cities in the
United States. Neither the national executive nor the Cortes
has the right to interfere in the established provincial or
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8o4 Spain of Today [Sept.,
municipal administration, except to annul such acts as lie out-
side the sphere of such administration, very much like cor
State and Federal jurisdiction. The municipal government is
provided for by a duly elected Ayuntamiento^ corresponding to
our aldermen or board of supervisors, which consists of from
five to thirty-nine regidores (supervisors) or ^oncejales (aldermen),
according to the size of the municipality, and by an Alcalde
(mayor) who in large places has one or two TenienUs Alcaldes
(vice-mayors). The entire municipal government, with power
of taxation, is vested in the Ayuntamientos. Half of their
members are elected every two years, and they in turn elect
the Alcalde from their own body. Thus it may be seen that
Spain has a pretty fair local self-government, one which would
be completely effective, were it not that pressure is frequently
brought to bear upon the local elections by the central gov-
ernment. Such things are not wholly unknown in the United
States.
Spain is chiefly an agricultural country and has no largely
populated cities and industrial centres. The total population
in I9QO was 9,087,821 males and 9,530,265 females, making a
total of 18,618,066. The estimated population on January i,
1909, was 19,712,285. The largest cities in Spain are Madrid
and Barcelona; the former with 539,835, and the latter with
533*100 inhabitants. Valencia follows with 213,530, and Seville
with 168,315. Two other cities, Malaga and Murcia, have over
100,000 inhabitants; but all the other cities in Spain were, in
1900, under that figure. It is in the cities of Spain that the
modern radical, socialistic, and revolutionary elements are to
be found, and not among the great mass of people in the
country.
The politics of Spain are hard to explain to the outsider.
One may live long in Spain before they are fully grasped.
They are somewhat on the group system; one or two ideas
in common for a particular purpose, rather than broad plat-
forms of action such as our great parties use. Still a few
general ideas may be given about them. First of all there is
the Conservative party, now out of power and filling the place
of the opposition in the Spanish Parliament. It stands for the
old order of things in general; the ''make haste slowly*'
principle. Its adherents are of various shades of opinions.
The majority of them are heart and soul for the present mon-
archy and for a Constitutional Spain. Others are Carlists and
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19 la] Spain of To-Day 805
II. hark back to the older rigime ; others still want to see no
:; change whatever^they are the ''stand- patters'' of the party.
n Others are strong clericals, and see in any change an attack
s: upon the vested rights of the Church. This party was in
£ power for eight years and accomplished much^mnch more
'I proportionately than its successor seems to be capable of do-
ing. It passed the laws of Electoral Reform, giving Spain
manhood suffrage; and it passed the laws for Local Govern-
ment, providing a larger measure of autonomy for the cities
and provinces of Spain than ever before. The next is the
Liberal party, which believes in bringing Spain up to the top
measure of constitutional monarchies in short order, no matter
what interests may suffer. The majority of its adherents are
!^ constitutional and devoted to the monarchy. They are too
"^ fond, however, of adopting foreign ideas and foreign experi*
ments in government, no matter whether they are suited to
^' the genius and temperament of the Spanish people or not.
They want the broadest measure of modern political invention,
^' whether Spain is ready for it or not. Then comes the Re-
^ publican party, which may be described as being in the same
^ relation (in the inverse order) to the Liberals as the Carlists
^ are to the Conservatives. They are anti-constitutional and
' anti-monarchical. They want a republic in Spain as soon as
^ possible, and unfortunately they have fixed on France as their
^ model, instead of taking, say, the United States or Switzer-
' land. Then follow the Radicals, who are the apostles of dis-
^ content, and whose members are of all shades of opinion,
^ theorists, socialists, and some even of the white glove, or phiU
^ osophical school of anarchy. They are the preachers of polit-
ical discontent; and are such energetic reformers that they
are prepared to tear down everything and build entirely anew.
( They are divided into various groups such as, RegionaU
ists. Independents, and the like.
The Church in Spain is the oldest institution which the
country has. Its charter and inherited rights go back beyond
the present Constitution, the present reigning house, or its
predecessor^ clear back even before Spain became a united
kingdom under the Catholic kings, when the Moslem was
driven from Spanish soil. Its history is the history of Spain,
and it is the one enduring monument which Spain has to tell
of its struggles and progress. In the mind of the Spaniard it
is almost impossible to disassociate the Church from Spain it-
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8o6 Spain of TOmDAY [Sept,
self; they are one and indissoluble. It is this viewpoint that
makes much of the present situation in Spain ineomprehen-
sible to the outsider. One might as well try to separate his
family identity from his personal identity; to the average
Spanish mind it is unthinkable. At present the Church is
composed of nine archbishoprics or provinces, with forty* seven
suffragan bishoprics or dioceses. The Archbishop of Toledo
is the Primate of all Spain, and Patriarch of the Indies. There
are in all Spain some 1 7,369 organized parishes, having 23,-
558 churches and 7,568 chapels, which are served by 33,303
priests. A detailed statement for each diocese has been givea
by me in America (July 33, 1910). As a whole the figures do
not show that Spain is abnormally overcrowded with priests^
although in some of the dioceses the dwindling of population
within the last century has left them supplied with more
churches and clergy than possibly they need at the present
day. On the other hand, many places in Spain show that the
Church is under-equipped with clergy. Nearly the entire
population is Catholic. There were in 1900 some 213,000
foreigners in Spain, whose religious affiliations were not counted,
some 7,500 Protestants, 4,500 Jews, and from 18,000 to 20,-
000 Rationalists, Indifferentists, and others. This is as near as
the census can inform us.
The Constitution requires the nation to support the clergy
and maintain the buildings and equipment of the Church for
public worship* This is especially regulated by the Concordat,
which will be mentioned later. This, it must be understood,
is no liberality on the part of the State, although the present
generation is trying to give it that aspect, but is merely a return
of part of the fruits from the estates and property of the
Church which were siezed by the State under various pretexts
during the past. It is an indemnity rather than a grace. The
estimate of expenditure in this regard for the year 1910 it
4ii337fOi3 pesetas, or about $8,267,000, which is about the
same as for the year 1909. This sum looks magnificent when
it is viewed as a whole, and no account is taken of its actual
application. Some persons reading hastily the figures as given
in the daily newspapers get an idea that the clergy receive the
whole of it But that is far from being the case. In the first
place the appropriation is used to run the Ministry of Wor-
shio: to pay the salaries of the minister, his assistants, and
*. clerks, employees, and statistical and administrative work.
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I9IO.] Spain of To^Day 807
In the second place the fabric of the cathedrals and churches
must be kept up out of this sum. Most of the cathedrals in
Spain are national monuments and are more or less in need
of repair. Those who have seen the Cathedral of Barcelona,
with the scaffolding around its towers, or the Cathedral of
Seville, with the extensive works in the courtyard extending
along the northern side, will understand this. When one con-
siders the number of beautiful cathedrals, churches, abbeys,
and church buildings in Spain, which are models of Gothic
architecture, and which are to be kept in good condition or
restored, one realizes the amount of expenditure required.
Then come the actual salaries of the clergy. They are certain-
ly not extravagant. The primate, the Archbishop of Toledo,
receives $7,500 annually; the archbishops of Seville and Val-
encia, $7,000 each; the other archbishops $6,500 each; two
bishops, Barcelona and Madrid, $5,400 each; four bishops,
Cadiz, Cartagena, Cordoba, and Malaga, $5,000 each ; twenty-
two bishops, $4,300 each; and the remaining bishops not
quite $4,000 each. Deans and archdeacons receive from $900
to $1,000 each; regular canons, $800, and beneficed canons
from $350 to $700; while parish priests in the cities receive
from $300 to $500, and those in the country from $150 up.
Assistant priests receive from $100 to $200 annually. Truly it
cannot be said to be a wildly extravagant rate of pay; and it
needs the usual stole fees, such as weddings, ceremonial bap-
tisms, and the like, to eke out their income. The specific ap-
propriations for the maintenance of worship and ordinary care
and cleanliness of the churches are as follows: each metro-
politan cathedral, $4,500; each suffragan cathedral, $3,500;
and each collegiate church, from $1,000 to $1,500; while
parish churches get an allowance proportioned to their im«
portance from a minimum of $50 up. Besides this, diocesan
seminaries receive an allowance of from $4,500 to $6,000 each
for the instruction and maintenance of candidates for the
priesthood. From these figures one can get a very fair idea
of how the Church expenditure in Spain is apportioned.
Besides the parochial, secular clergy just mentioned there
are several religious orders in Spain. The ordinary news-
papers, in reporting this fact, run them up into high figures,
which is the veriest nonsense. What they mean, when they
speak of religious orders, are religious houses or separate com-
munities, and even these numbers they exaggerate. In 1909
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8o8 Spain of To^Day [Sept,
there were 597 religious houses or communities of men, con-
taining I2J42 members, which were devoted as follows: 294
to education; 92 to training of missionaries; 97 to education
of priests; 62 to manual training for the young and the sale
of their products; and 52 to monastic and contemplative life.
There were 2,656 communities of women, having 42,596 mem-
bers, divided as follows: 910 for education; 1,029 'or hospital
work and charity; 717 for a contemplative life. Some of these
religious communities have taken up some sections of the most
desolate and wild lands in Catalonia and the north, lands which
had never been profitable or even cultivated, and erected mon-
asteries there after the manner of the Middle Ages or of our
energetic missionaries in the far West.
Education in Spain is not, of course, as far advanced as
it is in the United States, or in Germany, or France. In a
great measure this may be explained by the fact that the great
majority of the Spanish population is rural. All sorts of mis-
leading information about education and illiteracy in Spain
has ^been given in our daily and weekly press, as well as in
some leading magazines. Some of them have said that there
was 75 per cent of illiteracy in Spain; but those figures were
taken from the census of i860. Others have said that 68 per
cent of the people were illiterate; but that was taken from
the census of 1880. The trouble with these writers ^as that
they utilized the handiest encyclopedia they could find, no
matter what its date was, instead of obtaining the latest avail-
able figures. The census of 19 10 is not yet computed, but the
figures for 1900 gave 25,340 public schools with 1,617,314
pupils, and 6,181 private schools with 344,380 pupils, making
a total of 31,521 schools with 1,961,694 pupils. One-ninth of
a population of 18,500,000 is certainly not a bad showing. In
1900 the central government at Madrid spent $9,500,000 on
education, and the local governments about three to four times
as much more. In 19 10 the governmental budget for educa-
tion is 53,522,408 pesetas, or about $10,710,000. In 1900 the
illiterates of Spain amounted to less than 30 per cent, or to
be exact 2,603,753 males and 2,686,615 females, making a total
of Sf 290, 368 persons. I am informed that the Spanish age
at which illiterates are counted is nine years, and these illiter-
ates were for the most part persons from maturity to old age.
The pay of a school teacher is never magnificent in any coun-
try. The close* fisted, hard-headed Spanish peasant has old-
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I9I0.] SPAIN OF To-Day 809
fashioned notions about the necessity of reading and writing, and
will not tax himself to maintain schools, and still less to pay
large salaries to teachers, especially in the primary grades.
For this reason teaching in Spain is not an attractive profession,
and arouses no enthusiasm outside the large cities. The sub-
jects usually taught in the primary schools are: Christian
Doctrine, Spanish language, reading, writing, and grammar,
arithmetic, geography and history, drawing, singing, manual
training, and bodily exercises. In city schools the elementary
notions of geometry, physical science, chemistry, and physiology
are taught.
The teacher of the lowest primary grade in a country school
begins with the magnificent salary of 500 pesetas, or $100 a
year. He can be advanced by gradation of 200 pesetas, until
he receives 1,500 pesetas; after that the places are all subject
to competitive examination (oposicion). The highest places are
in Madrid and Barcelona, where the best paid teachers get
3,500 pesetas, or $500. Secondary education is provided by
what are called Institutos, analogous to our high schools. Chil-
dren must \ht at least eleven years of age and pass an en-
trance examination. These institutes have a five to six years*
course, and are expected to prepare for an elementary, profes-
sional, or a university course. Then come the normal schools,
the professional schools, and the nine universities. The number
of university students in 1907 was 16,500. Besides, the edu-
cation of women is also progressing. In 1907 twenty-two wo-
men students passed through the universities ; in the same year
1,076 women passed through the school of arts and industries ;
and in 1908 this number rose to 1,315. In the normal schools
in 1907 some 2,241 schoolmistresses graduated; in 1908 there
were 3,584 women on the list. These refer wholly to the gov-
ernmental public schools. Besides these, there are the private
schools, managed in part by religious congregations, and in
part by laymen (both Catholic and otherwise) concerning which
I have no adequate figures as to salaries and service.
Spain is also a nation of small holders of real property, and
has but comparatively few holders of large estates. Perhaps
to. this is due in a measure its poverty, for it is the small land-
owner rather than the manufacturer or trader who predominates.
Of the 3,426,083 recorded assessments to the real property tax,
there were 624,920 properties which paid a tax of from i to 10
reales (5 to 50 cents), 511,666 from 10 to 20 reales, 642,377
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8lo SPAIN OF TO' Day [Sept.,
from 20 to 40 realeSf 788^184 from 40 to 100 reales, 4161546
from 100 to 200 reales, 165,202 from 200 to 500 reales ($10
to $25); while the rest, to the number of 279,188, are larger
estates which pay from 500 to 10,000 reales, and a few upwards.
About 80 per cent of the soil is classed as productive. In
minerals Spain is very rich, being the largest producer of cop*
per in the world after the United States, while mercury, iron,
and zinc are largely produced, but the mines are said to be
inadequately worked. The railway communication comprises
9,025 miles of rail, nearly all single track, except near Madrid
and Barcelona.
II.— THE PRESENT SITUATION.
The present moment is agitated by reports of a threatened
break between Spain and the Holy See, and all sorts of rumors,
and even the veriest nonsense, have been printed about it. It
all arises from an attempt at a revision of the Concordat at
present existing between Spain and the Holy See, which is
complicated by the repeal of an existing law and the introduc-
tion of two new ones into the Cortes whilst negotiations are
pending. The present Congress, or lower house of the Cortes,
is composed of 229 Liberals, 106 Conservatives, 40 Republicans,
9 Carlists and 20 other members of the Integrist, Regionalist,
Independent, and Socialist groups, so that it can be seen that
the Liberals have a clear majority of 54 votes over all the other
parties combined. The Senate, however, leans more towards
the Conservative party. After all the seats had been filled in
the late election and by appointment, it stood 178 Ministerial-
ists, 117 Conservatives, 6 Carlists, 5 Republicans, 29 Indefinites,
and 17 Prelates, with nine others, Regionalists and Palatines.
The present Prime Minister of Spain, or Presidente del Consejo^
is Don Jos^ Canalejas y Mendez, probably the strongest Lib-
eral in Spain. He certainly is the strongest and most effective
public speaker and knows how to turn his sentences in a way
that even his enemies must admire. In Spain they use the
bull-rings on off-days in which to hold their political meetings,
and they serve the purpose excellently. At one of his latest
addresses to his followers Canalejas addressed them so forcibly
and stirred them up so thoroughly that at the conclusion of his
speech they tore up the seats and threw them into the ring.
While undertaking to enter into negotiations with the Holy
See for a revision of the Concordat, Sefior Canalejas during
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I9IO.] Spain of To-Day 8ii
the pendency of negotiations at Rome promulgated a Royal
Order, which completely changed the interpretation of the Con-
stitution in regard to non- Catholic bodies, and introduced into
the Cortes two measures, which are nick-named the 'Mock* out ^'
(candado) in the Spanish papers, looking towards the diminu-
tion or suppression of religious orders and houses in Spain.
The Holy See replied that that was not the way in which ne-
gotiations should be carried on, for one party to do whatever
he wanted, and then to say we will talk revision as to the rest.
A few words upon the Constitution and the Concordat may be
necessary to explain the situation.
There have been several Concordats between Spain and the
Holy See, the later ones superseding the others. The present
Concordat was entered into on March 16, 185 1, and a supple-
ment thereto was added on August 25, 1859. There have also
been a number of Constitutions adopted in Spain. The present
Constitution was adopted June 30, 1876, and its general provi-
sions have already been described. The portion of the Consti-
tution principally bearing on the present situation reads as
follows :
Article XI. The Apostolic Roman Catholic religion is the
religion of the State. The nation binds itself to maintain this
religion and its ministers.
No one shall be molested in Spanish territory on account
of his religious opinions, or for the exercise of his partic ular
form of worship, provided ,he show the respect due to Chri^
tian morality.
Ceremonies and public manifestations other than those of
the State religion, however, shall not be permitted.
The first and the last clauses of this article are the ones
which are creating such a stir just now. Spain is almost entirely
Catholic, and, as I have said, there are only about 7,500 Prot-
estants (including many foreigners) and some 4,500
Spain. They were an insignificant minority, and, in s
they were foreigners, Spaniards have never deemed tl
should enjoy privileges to which the Spanish native-be
entitled. And so they did not give them the privilege
the outward and visible signs of a church upon thei]
of worship, construing that to be a '' public manifestati<
hibited by the Constitution. Unfortunately, the doubi
tions of the Spanish Constitution are not construed,
us, by a judgment of the Supreme Court. They are int
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8 12 Spain of To-Day [Sept.,
by a decree framed by the Council of Ministers and signed
by the King, which has all the force of a law. On October
23y 18761 a Royal Order — for such a decree is so called — was
promulgated, which undertook to construe Article XI. of the
Constitution, as follows:
1. Prom this date every public manifestation of worship or
sects differing from the CaUiolic religion is prohibited outside
oi the house of worship or cemetery belonging to them.
2. The foregoing regulation comprises, under the meaning
of public manifestation, every act performed in the public
street, or on the exterior walls of the house of worship or
cemetery, which advertises or announces the ceremonies,
rites, usages, and customs of the dissenting sect, whether by
means of processions, placards, banners, emblems, advertise-
ments, or posters.
This law has been pn the books for thirty- four years, and
Spaniards have never, in any number, petitioned for its re-
moval or change. On the contrary, they have always wanted
it. There is no need here to go into the propriety or justice of
such a law. In the Southern States we have a '' Jim Crow "
law, which represents the local wishes of the inhabitants, even
if it is indefensible. The United States has a Chinese ex-
clusion law, which no one claims to be a miracle of justice.
And thus it is that this law exactly fitted the wishes of the
great majority of Spaniards, as against an infinitesimal mi-
nority who represented alien religions. We could no more ex-
pect the Spaniards to change their views on this, than we can
get our Southern fellow^citizens to abolish their ''Jim Crow''
and voting statutes. It is human nature, that is all ; and it must
be recognized.
But as this interpretation was made originally by Royal
Order, so, too, it could be revoked by Royal Order. This is
exactly what Canalejas has done; he has simply repealed and
annulled the former decree which has stood for so many years,
without putting anything in its place. One does not know to-
day whether a non- Catholic church may put up merely an an-
nouncement of its name, or even a cross and statues of the
saints, or may commence a campaign like the Methodist in-
stitution in Rome. That is what exasperates the Catholic
Spaniard; for the present Liberal Government has done this
propria motu^ without request from any large body of citizens
or any debate on the subject.
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I9I0.] Spain of To-Day 813
The other measures are bills submitted to the two houses
of the Cortes — the so-called '' lock-out" legislatioui using the
simile of the factory. One is said to propose the suppression
of the convents and monasteries which have entered Spain il-
legally ; the other is said to be a measure to enable the bishops
to suppress unnecessary religious houses within their dioceses.
A great deal of pure nonsense has been written or telegraphed
to the American press upon this phase of the matter. For in-
stance, it is said that the Concordat limits the number of male
religious orders to three, and there are now six hundred male
religious orders in Spain. This statement has been repeated
in numbers of papers here. I have already given the statistics
of the religious orders in Spain, and need only say that the
six hundred can only refer to religious houses or communities.
If the correspondent's fertile imagination holds out, he will soon
reckon each individual monk as a ''religious otder.''
There is no law in Spain, nor does the Concordat itself use
any terms, restricting the male religious orders to three. I
quote from the Concordat of 1851, which was ratified and put
into execution in Spain by the law of October 17, 1851:
Article XXIX. In order that the whole Peninsula may
have a sufficient number of ministers and evangelical laborers
for the prelates to avail themselves by giving missions in the
localities of their dioceses, helping die parish clergy, assist-
ing the sick, and for other works of charity and public utility,
the Government of her Majesty, which proposes to assist Col-
leges for Missions beyond the seas, will henceforth take
suitable steps to establish wherever necessary, after previous
consultation with the diocesans, religious houses and congre-
gations of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Philip Neri, and another
order among those approved by the Holy See, which also will
serve at the proper times as places of retreat for ecclesiastics,
in which to make their spiritual exercises, or for other pious
uses.
There is no restriction in this language, but on the con-
trary these three orders are made a part of the State Church.
This will be seen from a later article in the Concordat where
the State is bound to maintain them:
Article XXXV. The government of her Majesty will pro-
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8 14 Spain of To-day [Sept,
vide the necessary means for the maintenance of the religious
houses and congregations mentioned in Article XXIX.
This was really a short method of getting charitable and
eleemosynary work done at the least expense to the Stale.
There is no restriction upon religious orders in Spain, any
more than there is in the United States, and in both places
they have occupied somewhat the same stattts.\ Under the
Spanish Constitution it is provided that:
Article XIII. Bvery Spaniard has the right • • • to
form associations for any of the ends of human life.
This has been uniformly interpreted as the right to form
religious organizations of any kind. This right is expressly
recognized in the Associations (or, as we should say. Member-
ship Corporations) Law of June 30, 1887:
Article I. The right of association which is recognized
by Article XIII. of the Constitution may be exercised freely,
conformable to the provisions of this act. Under it associa-
tions may be formed for religious, political, scientific, artistic,
and benevolent purposes, or for recreation or other lawful
ends, which do not have profit or gain as their sole or princi-
pal object.
Article U. Prom the pro^slons of this law are excepted :
(i) Those associations of the Catholic religion authorized in
Spain by the Concordat. The other religious associations
shall be regulated by this law, but the non-Catholic ones must
be subject to the limitations prescribed by Article II. of the
Constitution. (2) Societies which are formed for mercantile
purposes. (3) The Institutes or corporations which exist or
act under special laws.
What the Liberal ministers mean, when they say '' illegal**
orders, is that many orders have not inscribed themselves, as
to their respective houses or communities, in the books of reg-
istry of the province where they are situated. But the statis-
tics which I have show that out of a total of 3.253 ^com-
munities, 2,831 have been duly registered. The Premier Can-
alejas also desires to shut out all foreign members of religious
orders or congregations from their rights of association, vpcn
the ground that the Constitution only provides that Spaniards
shall have such rights. It is very much analogous to our laws
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I9IO.] Spain of To-Day 815
proTiding that Asiatics shall not become naturalized citizens,
or that aliens cannot hold land in certain states.
The debates in both houses of the Cortes upon these last
proposals have been very warm. The one of which so much
is made in America — the so-called permission for non- Catholic
organizations to display the insignia of public worship— has
not caused so very much comment in Spain. In fact. Catholic
newspapers refer to it only to a very slight degree. It is re-
garded more as an affront to the Pope, as a desire to avoid a
real revision of the Concordat, and is treated as a cheap bid
for popularity. But in regard to the Spaniard's constitutional
right to form associations as he pleases, feelings run deep and
strong. The provision of the bill that orders may be sup-
preMed, their very interior affairs regulated by officious state
meddlers, has roused general indignation. Protests have been
pouring in by mail, telegraph, and special messenger from
every, part of Spain. Sometimes four to five columns of the
bare outline of the protests and the thousands of signatures
appear in the papers. Catholic sentiment throughout the en-
tire country is aroused, for this is recognized as the opening
gun of an assault upon the Church. Canalejas is a Catholic,
but his successor may not be, and so the Catholic world is
rousing itself.
And Catholic Spain is fairly well organized. At present
there are 255 Catholic associations or clubs, 47 Catholic labor
unions, 556 agricultural associations, 297 Raffeisen Mutual
Banks, 95 artisans* unions, 33 consumers' leagues, 92 indem-
nity associations, 33 diocesan councils of the different societies,
eight popular libraries, and three credit banks. The Catholic
press publishes 60 papers of all kinds. The units of the
organizations are the various parishes, which they try to make
a focus of religious and social life.
It has been asserted on the floor of the Cortes, and re-
peated over and over again in our press, that Spain is over-
run with religious orders, and that they pay no taxes. Of
course those that are authorized by the Concordat pay no
taxes, for they are part and parcel of the State Church. I
have not the statistics at hand to show what taxes are paid or
what exemptions are claimed, but if one will look at the
matter a moment from an American standpoint it will be seen
that ordinary civilized nations exact no taxes in similar cases.
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8l6 SPAIN OF TO-DAY [Sept.,
For inttaacei here in our own country schools, hospitals, libra-
ries, asylums, and the like, pay no taxes. Why, then, should
the religious orders in Spain, who conduct such institutions of
education, charity, or mercy, be required to submit to taxation ?
I have already given the statistics of the religious orders in
Spain, but the surprising part of the situation is that Spain
has many less fnembers of religious communities per popula-
tion, than many other Catholic countries or Catholic popula-
tions. Here are some^ of the figures for the year 1909 :
Country. Catholic Population. Individuals in Number per
Religious Orders, ten thousand.
Belgium, 7,276,461 37iQ05 52
United States, 14,235,451 65,702 46 .
England & Wales, 2,130,000 6,458 30
Germany, 22,109,644 64,174 29
Ireland, 3,308,661 9»i90 27
Spain, 19,712,285 54.738 27
In addition to this it was also pointed out that in 28 dio-
ceses the number of individuals belonging to religious com-
munities in each does not reach 100. In Minorca there are
only three; in Guadix 6, in Astorga 15, and in Siguenza 19.
Hence it cannot be said that Spain is overrun with religious
orders, or that its condition in that regard, as compared with
other countries, is remarkable.
The outcome of the parliamentary discussion of the bills
in relation to the orders and religious houses cannot be fore-
seen clearly. It may be said that they will pass Congress,
but in the Senate many of the ministerialists are not strong
Liberals, while the Conservatives have a large following and
can also make combinations with other groups.
The unfortunate affront to the Holy See will, of course,
not be allowed to stand in the way of the proper adjustment
of things. That was shown when the massing of the protest-
ing Catholic organizations was abandoned, rather than allow
it to be used as the entering wedge of Carlism. But the ele-
ments of the situation which I have given will enable the
reader to judge in some intelligent fashion the fragmentary
and often incoherent news that comes from Spain.
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EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT. AND SOUL
BY EDWARD A. PACE, Ph.D.
]NE of the encouraging features in modern educa-
tion is the endeavor to get back from details
and devices to underlying principles and laws.
While the attempt is not made by every teacher,
it is generally recognized that the best work can
be done only by those who understand the value of method,
not merely through its successful application, but also through
its relation to the deeper truths of psychology and even of
philosophy. Common sense, indeed, requires that any one
who undertakes to deal with the mind, as the teacher does,
should know something about the nature of mental life and
its processes. But the sense of responsibility is even more
imperative. Whoever realizes to what an extent the intel-
lectual and moral welfare of the pupil depends upon the sort
of education he receives, will surely not be satisfied with just
those odds and ends of method which suffice to make the
teacher a pedagogue in the literal, etymological sense of that
term. We expect more from the physician than a knowledge
of prescriptions, and more from our spiritual guides than what
the catechism, in its present form, can supply. It is not then
unreasonable to insist that the teacher shall acquire a knowl-
edge of those principles at least which determine the ends of
education and the means.
The immediate benefit, and perhaps the greatest, resulting
from such knowledge, is the preservation of the teacher's in^
dividuality against the ceaseless encroachments of machinery.
School systems, like organic systems, are sometimes ** regu-^
lated'' to death. The tendency to render education mechan-
ical eventually produces rust. And it is certainly anomalous
to demand that the teacher shall cultivate the pupil's individ-
uality when the teacher's own range of initiative is no wider
than the path of a monorail car. This narrowing often results,
not from neglect of method, but rather from a helpless attach-
ment to what method is supposed to require. The best of
methods may become a hard master ; and this is what usually
VOL. XCI.-*53
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8l8 EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT^ AND SOUL [Sept.,
happens to those who follow it in the letter with no insight
into its spirit. On such it takes a hold like that which the
hypnotizer gets upon his subject; and the more docile the
subject so much deeper is the hypnosis. The awakening
comes when the method, or rather the one who applies it,
fails of the desired result. The '' first aid '' remedy consists in
marking the pupil as slow or defective or in some other way
unqualified. But it is worth considering whether the method
itself might not be rendered more flexible if the teacher had
it thoroughly under control. There is quite a difference be-
tween the traveler whose acquaintance with a foreign language
is limited to the phrases set down in the first pages of his
guide-book, and the student who is familiar with the grammar
as well as with the ordinary forms of speech. In the same
way, a teacher who has found out, not only that a given
method is good, but also why it is good, has an advantage
over one who is content with knowing that it ''works beauti-
fully*' — so long as it works.
It must be admitted, of course that the search for prin-
ciples has its difficulties. To begin with, educational work
opens up problems that come within the province of psychology;
and psychology has not an answer ready-made for each and
every question that the teacher may ask. Or it may be that
there are too many answers, each of the various psychologies
offering a solution that bears its own particular stamp. But a
more serious difficulty often arises. However cautiously it
moves, psychology can hardly avoid contact with philosophy;
in fact, its anxiety to keep clear of philosophical problems
sometimes lets out its real, though clandestine, relations with
this or that philosophical system. And even when it proceeds
quite confidently, being well within its own lines, it frequently
suggests questions which it does not care to follow up. It
discourses readily enough about apperception, for instance, but
it is apt to fall silent* when requested f explain what it is
that apperceives ; and while it deals continually with states and
processes and activities — self-activity included^it may not be
prepared to say in what sort of being all these come to pass.
If under such circumstances the student is somewhat per-
plexed, the situation becomes clearer when he sees in the
background a doctrine which be cannot harmonize with his
beliefs or with certain philosophical truths which he regards as
fundamental, though he may not have scrutinized them with
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I9ia] EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT^ AND SOUL 819
the critical eye of an expert. When he sees, let as say, that
materialism is the root from which a given kind of psychology
springs, he is apt to look with suspicion on everything that
ramifies, in the shape of theory or law, from such a philo-
sophical stem. Now in some cases this suspicion is a safe-
guard; and the sooner it leads to a downright rejection of what
is erroneous, the better it is for the student himself and for
his work as an educator. But in other cases suspicion of this
sort mayi^^bef harmful — especially if it hinder the acceptance of
theories which are true in themselves, though they are pre-
sented as the outgrowth of principles that are false. Every
philosophical system that is alive to its own interests, quickly
claims as its rightful possession whatever is established by
scientific research. Materialism is usually beforehand in assert-
ing that its interpretation is the only rational one for each
new fact that is discovered and for each new theory that is
verified. And it is particularly keen in this respect when it
foresees that what is theoretical at the start will have far*
reaching practical applications. Thus it may happen that the
student is frightened into rejecting what might be useful, or
at any rate is confronted with an unpleasant alternative.
As a case in point, one may take the important principle
of mental development, which enters so lately into educa-
tional theory, and promises so much on the practical side.
No teacher, of course, can be indifferent to the fact that the
mind develops, or to the obvious inference that education must
be adapted to each of the stages through which the develop-
ment passes. The question, indeed, is not whether develop-
ment takes place, but how it shall be more thoroughly under-
stood—what are the factors, the processes in detail, the rela-
tions with organic growth. On the other hand, one is naturally
interested to know what it is that develops. When reference
is made to bodily growth, the thing that grows is plainly to
be seen: it is a plant, or an animal, or a human organism.
To say that vegetal growth proceeds by such and such laws
is an abstract statement that does not debar us from saying
it is a tree that grows. And so, after admitting that mental
development takes place, one is inclined to think it is a mind
that develops — the more so because every explanation of
mental development is based on analogies suggested by bodily
growth. The question, then, concerning the " what *' of mental
development is not irrelevant. It is not even purely specu-
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830 EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT, AND SOUL [Sept.,
lative, since the answer it calls forth must a£fect profoundly
one's entire view of life, of its purpose and value, and c^nst*
quently also the meaning of education.
Here again the materialist is prompt with his answer. What
develops is simply the brain. Under repeated stimulation,
through the organs of sense, the afferent nerves become
smoother pathways. The central structures increase in com-
plexity as new cells and fibres are brought into function, new
connections established, and a larger store of latent vestiges
accumulated. Association of ideas means the linking of cere-
bral elements or centres; memory, the aftermath of sensory
stimulation; emotion, the discharge over efferent paths. De-
liberate volition implies a momentary conflict between tenden-
cies to action; and this ceases as soon as the "hitch'' is re-
moved. Development, then, as a whole goes on by organizing
the several nerve processes in such a way that they are re-
duced, more or less rapidly, to the level of mechanical perform-
ance, of which reflex functions are the type. Naturally, too,
consciousness, as a by-product, becomes more complex, like
the effect of an orchestra to which new instruments are added,
giving a larger variety of tone combinations.
This view has its merits ; it at least recognizes the common-
sense notion that whenever development takes place there must
be a real something that develops. Furthermore, it is consist-
ent. As materialism holds that the brain secretes thought and
all other forms of consciousness, it cannot logically point to
anything else than the brain when it attempts to solve the prob-
lem of development. On the other hand, its answer does not
meet the question as to what lies back of mental development.
Once it assumes that there is no such real being as mind dis-
tinct from the organism, it may abound as it will in describing
cerebral development, but it has no right to use the word "men-
tal." At most it may say that different psychical processes
occur as the brain activity passes into different phases. Sy
gradually pouring water into a glass we can get various tones
as we strike the glass; but this does not mean that there is
a development in tonal quality; what changes is the level of
the water; the highest tone does not "grow" out of those
that are lower in pitch. Likewise, on the materialistic hypoth-
esis, the intellectual power of the adult is not a development
out of earlier mental activity, but the direct result of the pres-
ent condition of the brain; so that if the brain could reach
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I9IO.] EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT^ AND SOUL fill
' its maturity without producing any conscious effects at all, it
> would, in its very first production, as a fully developed organ,
bring forth the ripened fruits of intelligence. This, of course,
I would greatly simplify the work of education, and it would re-
\ duce the teacher's labors to the task of seeing that the child
was not wakened too soon.
It is not, however, on this score that materialism is usually
discredited. The argument against it strikes at its main con-
tention, i. e.t its assertion that consciousness is a product of
cerebral activity. Since this production is inconceivable, we
are obliged to admit that there is a mind. And when we fur-
ther inquire into the nature of this mind, we are informed by
many who reject materialism that the mind is the aggregate
of conscious states, not a permanent substantial being, but a
series composed of sensations, thoughts, volitions, etc., which
do not issue from the brain or from anything else, thought
happily, they run on parallel to the cerebral functions. When
a given change occurs in the brain, a particular conscious state
appears ; and, conversely, when a given conscious state appears,
a particular change occurs in the brain ; but there is no inter-
action ; the two series simply move along side by side. Thus,
it is claimed, we keep clear of materialism without being obliged
to postulate a soul or mental substance.
With the intrinsic merits of this parallelism we are not now
concerned. What we desire to know is how it accounts for
mental development. Evidently, it cannot, after abjuring ma-
terialism, fall back on increasing complexity of cerebral struc-
ture and function as the sole explanation; if the brain does
not produce the mind, neither can growth of the brain be al-
leged as the cause of mental growth. Closely as it may paral-
lel the organic development, the mind must have a develop-
ment of its own; and the point is — in what does that develop-
ment consist? or, rather, is any such development possible
within the limits which this theory prescribes for itself ?
The plainest implication in the concept of development is
that there must be a latent condition of some kind out of
which something emerges. Having learned by experience that
an oak grows up from an acorn, we are prepared to say of any
particular acorn that it has in itself a capacity of germination
which will pass into processes of growth as soon as the requi-
sites of soil and the rest are supplied. And we are equally
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822 EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND SOUL [Sept,
certain that no external icfluence will avail to initiate growth
if the acorn's vital capacity has been destroyed. On the same
principle, mental development presupposes a latency or poten-
tiality in the mind. However weak or imperfect, the germ
must be there at the outset ; otherwisct there can be no germ-
ination. But if the mind is only a series of states, it is rather
difficult to understand in [what the germinal capacity resides
before the series begins. The brain, let us suppose, has reached
a certain point in its own development, and as yet there is
no glimmer of consciousness. How, then, does the very first
mental process arise? We are not allowed by the theory to
say that it arises out of the brain, nor is it legitimate, accord-
ing to the same theory, to suppose that there is a soul which
might hold its capacities in latent form until the organism is
fitted to co-operate with it. We are thus at a loss to see how
the series, to which the name of mind is given, ever get started.
And yet, start it must — unless we accept the one alternative
left us and say that it is eternal, in which case the parallelism
disappears, since it will not be claimed that the brain also is
etemaL It would seem, therefore, that while the theory in
question is plausible if applied to the mind at any period
during development, it will not account for the initial stage;
and this failure is the more disastrous for the reason that if
the beginning of a series cannot be explained, the fact of its
continuation does not throw much light on the problem of de-
velopment.
The initial difficulty, however, is not the only one. Devel-
opment requires more than a succession of activities or pro-
cesses. Each of these must modify something that already
exists, and this modification must be so preserved that it may
in turn undergo change through subsequent function. In other
words, the effect of each process must be registered, and this
implies a permanent something to carry the record. I can
make in the air exactly the same movements that I make in
writing these words; but no trace will be left out of which
another person may read a connected sentence. And again, if
such movements, or the larger ones involved in physical cul-
ture, were executed without leaving a trace in the muscles,
bodily strength would be rather slow to develop. There would
be a series of muscular actions and these might become highly
complex; but the muscles themselves would gain nothing.
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I9ia] EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND SOUL 823
The application to mental development is obvious. Impressions
without number may arouse sensations, and these may be fol-
lowed by the most brilliant ideas or the most energetic voli-
tions; but if these are not retained in any form, it is hard to
see how the mind can develop.
The materialist would make short work of this difficulto;
the brain, of course, holds in its modified structure the after-
effects of each process, and thus provides for the reception of
new stimulation. Just because there is a permanent structure,
each impression helps to determine in advance the reception
that will be given to the next impression. Though the paral-
lelists cannot endorse this explanation as final, they profit by
what it suggests^ and maintain that conscious states, in addi«
tion to the cerebral traces, leave after them psychical traces or
dispositions. These remain latent, below the threshold of con-
sciousness, until they get the signal, from some later idea or
sensation, to reappear. So the necessary element of perma-
nence is supplied by these dispo8itions,^which are all the more
important as factors in mental development because they alone
persist while the several processes vanish.
It is hardly needful to say that the theory is correct in
teaching that psychical dispositions remain and that they in-
fluence all subsequent activity. But in what do they remain?
Where do they come in contact with dispositions previously
acquired ? If the mind is nothing more than a series of states,
then, at any moment, it is nothing more than the state^ or
group of states, which is actually in consciousness. The series
as such is no abiding reality, any more than the hours whose
sequence we call a day. Hence the dispositions, in order to
survive, must cling to the state that presently occurs and be
adroit enough, when it passes out, to take hold of its successor
— a remarkable amount of activity in dispositions that inhere
in no subject and at best are only potential.
From the purely psychological viewpoint, a good many
other weaknesses might be detected in this theory, such as its
failure to account for memory, recognition, comparison, and
the sense of personal identity. All these no doubt are in-
volved in mental development; ;but there is something which
is more essential and on which educational theory very prop-
erly lays great stress. Education, we are told, must not
treat the mind as though it were passive, and still less must
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834 EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT, AND SOUL [Sept,
it aim at securing passivity or establishiog a merely receptive
condition. On the contrary, its whole endeavor should be to
arouse, sustain, and by all means strengthen self-activity, so
that power and efficiency may be the result. And this cerr
tainly is correct — provided there is a ** self '* whose activity
Can be developed. Since, moreover, it must be a mental self,
we may rule out at once any pretensions that materialism puts
forward on this score, and call up parallelism for examination.
The problem it has to solve is this: given a series of mental
states that belong to no substantial mind, plus a collection of
psychical dispositions that do not '* dispose'' any permanent
subject, find a self, endow it with activity, and provide for an
increase of said activity. The first step is to explain how a
transient process takes on the character of selfhood, to show,
for instance, how in the child a sensation, resulting from an ex-
ternal impression, comes to have an inner subjective side, andt
in particular, how, amid the flux of sensations and other pro-
cesses, a centre of unity is established. Until this is made clear,
it is useless to ask how the consciousness of self arises; we
must have the self before we can be aware of it. It is also
forbidden, by the terms of the problem, to say that the idea
of self is elaborated in the course of development : this is true,
but to what does that idea refer? And finally, if it be said
that self-activity is merely an abbreviation which sums up the
innumerable transient processes, then, since these, in the nor-
mal mind, are constantly changing in quality, the self would
not be itself for two minutes at a time. The pupil would be
several thousand ** selves " in the course of a day, and the
teacher would have opportunity for a large and varied experi-
ence.
The plain truth of the matter is that there can be no
mental activity without a mental agent, and therefore no
mental development without a permanent substance of mind.
Whoever condemns materialism and yet seeks an ultimate ex-
planation of mental facts, must logically accept the soul as a
substantial reality and not merely as a procession of states.
On this basis it is intelligible that there should be an unfold-
ing of latent capacities, because there is something in which
the capacities inhere. It is further evident that with a per-
manent soul as the source of mental activity, provision is made
for the retention of the dispositions or effects which the traa-
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I9IOO EDUCATION^ DEVELOPMENT^ AND SOUL 815
sient processes leave. And self-actirity becomes a term full of
meaning when, and only when, a sonl is acknowledged as the
unifying principle in which all processes centre and to which
any of them may be consciously referred.
There is, consequently, no reason why one who appreciates
the value for education of genetic psychology, should be de-
terred from a study of the facts with which it deals or of the
laws which it formulates. To the materialist one may answer :
you describe a development but you cast out the mind; and
to the parallelist: you postulate so many minds that none has
a chance to develop. Now the fact is — the mind develops.
The interpretation of this fact cannot be given by any philos-
ophy that rejects the substantial soul.
One discouraging feature of modern education is the ten-
dency to invest certain words with a quasi-authoritative char-
acter, as though the simple utterance of them were sufficient
to dispose of the most serious problems. Of those who em-
ploy such terms, comparatively few take the trouble to ex-
amine into their real meaning. ** Development '' is a good il-
lustration. Pronounce this with due solemnity and you are
forthwith absolved from the obligation of finding answers for
a whole lot of bothersome questions. This or that character-
istic of mind is the product of development ; the mind requires
such and such education because it develops, and so on. But
what is development, and what does it logically imply ? Only
analysis can furnish the requisite information; and analysis is
not always a pleasant pursuit It may, however, be profitable,
especially where it leads to the habit of challenging theories
that flourish by manipulating '' values " made up chiefly of
words.
In the actual work of education reflection on its remoter
principles is not a daily necessity. The teacher is not called
on to philosophize at every step, or to have a dictionary of
philosophical terms constantly open on his desk. None the
less, education is the working out in practice of some one's
ideals, and therefore of some one's philosophy. It lies with the
teacher to decide whether he shall serve as an instrument for
the application of principles which, perhaps, he could not ac-
cept — or, by sifting the true from the false, become the master
of his method and the owner of himself.
Tki Catkolk UnivertUy ofAmerua. , . •
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flew ISoofcs.
Dr. Pfleiderer's book, Die Entwick^
DEVELOPMENT OP elung des Christenthums, first pub-
CHRISTIANITT. Ushed in Munich, March, 1907, has
lately been translated into Eng-
lish.* It was the third of a series of lecture courses given in
Berlin in 1905, 1906, 1907, professing, as the author says, "to
give a connected and condensed review of the whole of the
religious life of humanity, from its primitive beginnings to its
present stage of development " (p. 3). The lecturer admits that
he was " painfully conscious '' of the great difficulty of com-
pressing the immense mass of material into the narrow frame of
a few lectures without making the latter too superficial or un-
intelligible. The intelligent reader will grant that his fears
were perfectly justified. If this book were presented as a sci-
entific treatise on the development of Christianity to the faculty
of any Catholic university in Europe or America, the candi-
date for a degree would without question be rejected with the
command to rewrite every lecture.
In his introductory chapter Dr. Ffleiderer speaks like a dis-
appointed old man who sees the moderns deserting his camp
for the newer views of Ritschl and Harnack. He is still pathet-
ically faithful to the antiquated views of Baur, to whom he
continually refers his readers (pp. 4, 13, etc.), and from whom
he adopts his vague definition of Christianity : " the religion of
divine humanity — the elevation of man to a consciousness of
his spiritual unity with God, and freedom in God*' (p. 13).
Of course his is a Christianity without the divinity of Christ.
He styles the view of Christ held by the early Christians, " con-
ceived in the mythical form of a one-time and unique super-
natural miraculous figure," as a defect, a " veiling of the actual
truth '* (p. 25), and assures us that '' nothing was further from
Jesus* purpose than the founding of a new religion " (p. 20).
The Christianity of Jesus was a narrow, earthly, Jewish Kingdom
of God, freed from the fetters of Mosaism by the Apostle Paul
(p. 24). The personality and gospel of Jesus is an open ques-
tion, because each gospel writer gives " his own spirit, his own
•TkiDevilopmnUcj CMsHamiy. Bj Otto Pfleiderer, D.D. TranBlated by Danid A.
Huebscb, Ph.D. New York : B. W. Huebsch.
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I9IO.] NEW BOOKS 827
gospel, and his own ideal of Jesos, which he reads into the
gospels with pardonable self-deception'' (p. 17).
He defines development as " that becoming which moves ac-
cording to law and strives towards an end, in which everything
is fruit and seed at the same time, in which every phenomenon
is conditioned by what has preceded, and conditions what is
to follow** (p. 16). This formala, which is vague enough to
satisfy many a different viewpoint, precludes for Dr. Ffleiderer
the possibility of "any perfect thing at the beginning of a de-
velopment-series '* ; therefore, the original justice of Adam be-
comes an absurdity^ and the idea of a divine revelation ending
with Christ and the Apostles an unthinkable hypothesis.
It is rather strange to learn that the idea of development
was first introduced into the science of history by Herder, Hegel,
and Baur (p. 13); it is rather peculiar to find no mention of
Vincent of Lerins or of Cardinal Newman, when Dr. Ffleiderer
declares categorically that Catholicism does not even discuss the
problem (p. 10),
The first five lectures deal with the period from St. Paul
to St. Augustine. Without any attempt at proof, without the
slightest reference to the work of Catholic scholars on these
centuries, Professor Pfleiderer makes false and arbitrary state-
ments without number : v. g.^ ** the sacraments do not go back
as far as Jesus'' (p. 86); "the idea of baptism came from John
the Baptist and was made a sacrament by St. Paul " (p. 87) ;
"the last supper was originally a love-meal of the brother-
hood, developed by St. Paul into a sacrificial memorial in imi-
tation of the pagan customs of his day" (p. 89); "the office
of the bishops originated in the second century, and they were
in no sense successors of the Apostles" (p. 91); "the primi-
tive church was purely democratic" (p. 91); "the papacy de-
veloped out of the episcopacy, and was modeled on the political
and military organization of the Roman Empire " (p. 95) ; " St*
Peter was never Bishop of Rome" (p. 96); "Leo the Great
is the author of auricular confession" (p. 97); etc
In his lecture on the Germanic- Roman Church, he stigma-
tizes the conversion of Clovis as insincere, and the Christianity
of the Franks as "masked heathenism" (p. 120); he points
out Pope Zachary's scriptural sanction of Pepin's illegal suc-
cession to the throne (p. 121); he repeats the old calumny that
the false decretals were the principal weapon of the papacy in
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its straggle for rulership in Church and State (p. 125); he calls
St Gregory VII. ''a hard, proud, inconsiderate man, who in
his fight for celibacy " ruthlessly trod upon the holiest feelings
of men,'* and merits the hatred of every loyal German, be-
cause ''he lit the torch of civil war in our fatherland" (p.
130).
His treatment of the religious orders reads more like the
ravings of an A. P. A. lecturer in the early nineties than the
supposedly careful utterances of a university professor. While
praising St. Francis of Assisi as the most attractive saint in
the Catholic Church, he denies the fact of the stigmata, and
speaks of St. Francis being "worshipped after death as a wonder-
working savior." He sneers at the Franciscan vow of poverty,
''which did not hinder their building the most marvelous
monasteries, and hoarding the greatest treasures^ which they
called the Pope's by a formal fiction"; he declares their order
"the main representative of all Church evils, of superstition,
ol hierarchical greed, and of moral corruption" (pp. 166-167).
The Dominicans were simply crafty inquisitors who sold in-
dulgences and forgiveness for gold, and won the people over
to the Pope's side (p. 168). Even those devout mystics, the
Brothers of the Common Life, are condescendingly dismissed
as "not inimical but indifferent to the Church" (p. 170).
But the Jesuits merit his greatest scorn for their valiant
work in combating the Reformation. He speaks of them after
the manner of Eugene Sue. Like an English Protestant of the
Evangelical Alliance he sees a Jesuit behind every tree, and
divides them into Professed, Scholastics, and — "the third or
widest circle, the affiliated of minor observance, who remain in
the world, and merely obligate themselves to obey their supe-
riors" (p. 126).
Jesuit philosophy forbids one to talk about "principles,"
and Jesuit ethics is controlled by what is called nominally the
glorification of God, but which is really the glorification of
their own general (p. 218). Their chief fault is that they have
been great defenders of the Roman Papal Church, "which has
been rather a hindi^ance than an aid to the coming of the
Kingdom of God] on earth." They have carried over into the
Church " the consciencelessness i^sic.) of Machiavelian policy, by
calling the most immoral and most criminal acts good, if they
but seem useful for churchly domination." We are rather
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bored to meet the old-time calumny about "the end justifies
the means/* and the oft-refuted charges of lax morality, sophis-
tical dialectics, the immorality of probabilism, and the like (pp.
219-220). We naturally expect to hear that the Thirty Years'
War in Germany was due to Jesuit intrigue, but it was news
to us that Henry IV/s assassination resulted from his refusal
to exile the Jesuits (pp. 223-224). We would advise Professor
Pfleiderer to read Father Duhr's Geschichte der JesuiUn in den
Ldndem deutscher Zunge im XVI. Jahrhundert^ Father Astrain's
Historia de la Compania de Jesus en EspaOa^ Father Venturi's
Storia delta Compagnia di GesU in Italia^ and Father Fouqueray's
Lis Origines. He might then understand something of the
painstaking thoroughness of the men whom he stigmatizes as
merely thorough *' mediocrities " (p. 217).
The translation is very faulty throughout, both in the use
of words and in the construction of sentences. It bears the
earmarks of a foreign language on nearly every page. The
translator speaks of " disharmonies (p. 107), of '' the conscience-
lessness of Machiavelian policy'' (p. 219), of ''the apocalyptic
expectation^of the catastrophic coming of the rulership of God "
(p. 25). He confuses his tenses (p. 301), uses "one another'^
for "each other," and "one which" for "which," omits fre-
qnently the definite article (pp. 113, 302, 176, 188), etc.
Instead of being a serious contribution to the history of
dogma, Dr. Ffleiderer's book is merely an inaccurate, supetficial
history of the past nineteen centuries crowded within the narrow
compass of a rather dull series of lectures. They are vitiated
throughout by his rationalistic denial of the supernatural,, and
his ill-concealed prejudice against all things Catholic. We
do not wonder that even modern unbelieving thinkers have
passed him by to follow the more scholarly opponents of the
Christian positions.
A notable edition to the St. Nich-
FATHER DAMIEH. olas Series— which, by the way,
By May Quinlan. {g one of the most capable series
of Catholic books that has ever
been published — is . Damien of Molokai^^ by May Quinlan.
These volumes, although intended primarily for the younger
folks, will [please and instruct older readers as well. Miss
Quinlan has in Father Damien a fascinating subject. His
*Dami€n of Molohai, By Maj Quinlan. New York : Bcniiger Brothers.
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830 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
name is the modern synonym for heroism and self-sacrifice.
Though the task was the more difficult because the subject
has been treated so often. Miss Quinlan has given us a re-
markably fresh, attractive, and full portrait of the martyr of
Molokai. The book opens with a short dissertation on the
scourge of leprosy, from earliest times to the present day. An
account follows of the early days of Joseph Damien de Veuster.
At the age of eighteen he put on the religious habit at Louvain,
gave up his family name, as if he would show his entire con-
secration to the welfare of all human kind, and took that of
his patron, St. Damien. Thinking himself too ignorant to be
a priest, he worked at menial tasks as a lay brother. But the
lay brother took such interest in the Latin grammar read to
him by his own brother, Famphile, that the question of his or-
dination was reconsidered. During the novitiate, while Damien
''sat outside the gate whence all wisdom flows, straining his
ears to catch a whisper from within,'' it seemed as if he heard
a voice in the listening silence. It was a voice of marvelous
sweetness, so soft, so low, yet of such power that he thought
it filled all space, making the heavens to thrill again.
'' I came to cast fire on the earth,'' said the voice, '' and
what will I, but that it be enkindled."
His brother, Famphile, was about to be sent on missionary
labors to the Sandwich Islands. But the brother suddenly
became seriously ill. ''What if I went instead?" was the
immediate and generous suggestion of Damien, His offer was
accepted. He was ordained priest at the age of twenty-three,
and immediately joined " the ranks of those whose life-work
it is to seek and save that which was lost" Damien began
his labors on the island of Hawaii. But the scourge of leprosy
struck every island in the Archipelago.
There was no escape, "the victims of disease were swept
along like straws in the eddying stream. Homes were broken
up and families scattered; husbands were torn from wives;
children were wrested from their mothers' arms; young men
and maidens were struck down and forced to part. Neither
old nor young were spared; neither age, nor sex, nor condi-
tion. The blow fell alike on the innocent and the guilty.
Like a hurricane the scourge came down upon the island's,
and in its wake rose a sound of wailing. It was a cry which
struck terror into the heart, for it told of the loved ones who
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had been driven oat, to meet a fate that was worse than
death/'
Every leper was transported to Molokal, and one only
needs to read Miss Qainlan's chapters to realize that life there
was worse than death. The lazaretto became a by- word in
the ways of iniquity. The crying need of these suffering bodies
and souls moved Damien's heart. He begged to be sent to
Molokai and the Bishop acceded to his request And that
little wedge-shaped island of the Pacific, known before only
as a barren rock by the travelers that ply between Sydney and
San Francisco, was to become fertile and bring to full blossom
a flower that has added glory and the sweet odor of unselfish
devotion to the annals of human kind. Yet in Damien's time,
according to Stevenson, '' it was a pitiful place to visit and a
hell to dwell in.''
Damien arrived on a cattle boat. His religious zeal was
unbounded ; and, like every thoroughly religious man, his zeal
was directed by common sense. He spoke the word of super-
natural life to the soul dead in sin; he comforted the way-
worn spirit; he anointed the despairing heart with the oil of
gladness. Yet he realized that much in the way of man's
spiritual betterment depends upon his social, physical condi-
tions, and for the improvement of these Damien labored un-
ceasingly and successfully. ''In his intercourse with souls he
put into practice those words which surely ought to be writ
large over a desponding world: 'To have faith is to create;
to have hope i/i to call down blessing; to have love is to
work miracles.'"
After eleven years of service Damien, too, was stricken
with leprosy. In 1884 he wrote: ''I am glad there is now no
doubt about my sickness. I am a leper." But his work was
done. The welfare of Molokai was assured. There were now
five churches and two resident priests on the island, and his
last prayer : " If we only had the Sisters," had been answered
by the arrival of the Franciscan nuns. On April 15, 1889,
Father Damien died. And Father Tabb wrote that the angels
sang:
O God, the cleanest offering
Of tainted earth below.
Unblushing to Thy feet we bring —
' A leper white as snow I "
fi
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8ja NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
Miss Quinlan reprints R. L. Stevenson's '' An Open Letter ''
— that classic given to us by reason of the bigotry of Dr.
Hyde.
The volume is intensely interesting. The author never de-
parts from her theme, yet her reflections, enriched by literary
quotation, often touch and touch wisely t|ie deepest currents
of human life.
We have told the story at great length, because we fear
that there are many of t|ie rising generation who know it not.
We would like to see this volume one of the familiar, well-
loved books of Catholics, young and old.
This worthy companion volume*
LESSONS OF ETERNAL to the autobiography of Blessed
WISDOM. Henry Suso is published in
small, portable form. The les-
sons of divine wisdom, of which the holy author was the self-
named but divinely chosen servitor, are herein interpreted in
simple but exceedingly penetrating lanj[uage. We know not
how to describe the charm of this saint's style, to use a word
too low for so high a spiritual gift as his mode of expres-
sion. The little volume is a poem in loftiness of idealism, and
yet a catechism of the every-day spiritual life of all really
generous-hearted Christians. Meantime its tone is plaintive,
though anything but gloomy. It is the song of a poetical
nature under the entrancement of Calvary. For the whole ef-
fect of it is to make one love to suffer in union with Jesus
Crucified. The strange witchery of the love of Christ is to
make men fond of sorrow and of pain, for His sake and out
of love for the race He died to save. Hardly any saint knew
better than Henry Suso how to fix this fascination in human
speech.
The familiar form of colloquy is chosen so that Wisdom
Incarnate and His devoted servitor are found trading thoughts.
On the ope side are inquiries and doubts and protestationsi and
on the other the choicest treasures of love and of truth. Nor
should the reader fancy that he will be lifted into the unreal.
No ; but rather the invisible things of God will be largely and
grandly shaped into perceptible truth, nay into tremendously
^LUat B0ok tf EUmal^ Wisdom, Bj Blessed Henry Suso. To which is added the
c^ebTtLied Paradii t/ tAi JHi^rim, Bj Walter Hilton: London'; TheAngelus Publishing
Company ; *New York : Benziger Brothers.
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influential realism. And tliis will be found mainly, indeed, in
the inner region of his motives, but without failing to specify
pointedly the practical details of a life of love of Grod and of
man.
It is a book from which to choose the unforgettable max-
ims of a devout life.
It is the habit of the historian,
ELIZABETH DE FRANCE, and somewhat naturally, to focus
By Mrs. Maxwell Scott. interest upon Austria's fated child,
Marie Antoinette, in retelling the
tragic story of the household of the French Court during the
Revolution. Did the historian not possess a certain quality of
hero worship, combined with individual taste, the fairest types
that have figured on the great stage of human events would
continue to the end of time to fill minor parts in the drama
and the essentials of the drama — ^those elemental forces which
subtly form the cosmic whole in history, would be lost.
In her recent book, Madame Eligabeth de Franpe^^ the
Honorable Mrs. Maxwell Scott, of Abbotsford, has reawakened
interest in and love for the revered daughter of Maria Theresa,
but she has also animated the enthusiasm of her readers for
Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., who forswore all else in life
that she might, with loyal Catholic fortitude and womanly
steadfastness, remain close to the royal person of her brother
and share in the vicissitudes of his complex reign.
So wise, so sane, so nobly poised was Madame Elizabeth
in the many crises through which she was forced to pass, that
Mrs. Scott's deductions lead the reader to feel the Revolution
might have been averted had she held the reins of govern-
ment She was gentle yet strong^; a diplomatist, yet guileless ;
a statesman in her reasoning and a Carmelite in her interior
sanctity. From her utterances alone the reader might find a
rule of life to fit the exigencies of the time. A more promi-
nent place than it now occupies in history should be given
Madame Elizabeth's conversation with Barnave, on the mem-
orable return from Varennes. One sentence alone furnishes a
text for the day: *'You forget that progress must go slowly
* Madmmi BiiMobeih de France-'i*f64'tyg4. By Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott, of Abbotsford.
With handsome colored illustrations. London: Edward Arnold.
VOL. XCl.— S3
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«34 NEW BOOKS [Sept,
and that in striving to arrive quickly, one runs the risk of
losing one's way/'
Should the women of the present seek from the not-too-far
distant past a type for emulation, Mrs. Scott's tenderly intimate
history of Elizabeth de France furnishes all the lessons worthy
of imitation in this very modern, intellectually and morally up-
turned, but not hopeless, twentieth century.
There is a sense of values not possessed by all writers of
biographies or memoirs, and the absence of delicacy that ruth-
lessly turns one's pen into an entering wedge to lay bare the
more sacred places in the private life of the individual, often
places the reader in the embarrassing attitude of seeming to
peer through his neighbor's key-hole* Mrs. Scott has the rare
gift of telling with reverential accuracy the most intimate hap-
penings in the life of her saintly heroine, without in any sense
shocking the reader's appreciation of eternal fitness; and while
she does not minimize the greatness of others in seeking to em-
phasize the purity, fortitude, faith, and rare intellect of the
''St. Genevieve of the Tuileries," as Elizabeth was affection-
ately called, the reader knows with revivified faith that saint-
liness is attainable, since the Reign of Terror carried this
daughter of the Church, this off-spring of the ill-fated Capets,
te the guillotine itself, with never an apparent temptation to
turn aside for the world or self.
The book is timely, and France of to-day should take to
heart those words of Elizabeth de France uttered on Christmas
night, 1792, when Chaumette forbade midnight Mass and ''the
Mass was sung as usual." " It is good for the people to know,''
said Madame Elizabeth, " that those who pretend to make them
free, desire liberty neither for conscience nor for prayer."
It must be very difficult to write
JOAN OF ARC. the life of a saint : the words and
actions of the saints are so simple,
direct, and plain that modem biographers have been under no
little temptation to embroider, to sentimentalize, and to exag-
gerate their lives unduly. It must, indeed, be candidly acknowl-
edged that many of the lives of the saints which have been
re-written during the nineteenth century, especially with a
view to edification, have been marked by defects on the side
of littleness, thinness, far-offness, and unreality. There was
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too moch painting of the lilies, too moch bedraping of the
pillars of the church, too much suppression of that true and
tremendous humanity of the saints through which alone their
sanctity could shine forth in the dark places of the earth.
The saints were real men and women from the very beginning^
and just in proportion as they became more saintly so in that
same proportion did they become more really men and women,
more actually, strongly, perfectly, and tenderly human. Who
can think of St Peter, St. John, St. Jerome, St Augustine,
St. Benedict, St Catherine of Siena, St Teresa, or the Blessed
Thomas More, without thinking at the same time of all that is
most strong and gracious, most gentle and heroic in the records
of holiness ?
The little book, in which Father Bernard Vaughan has
sketched for us the life story of the Blessed Joan of. Arc,*
aptly confirms this truth. Her story, as. here given, does most
eloquently teach ''our Catholic maidens and women of every
degree, how to do whatever Grod puts into their hands to do,
and yet keep untouched and bright all the glory of their woman-
hood." Her own simple words, uttered in times of difficulty,
trial, misunderstanding, and more especially those spoken at
her final trial, are the most convincing of all. When warned
by her captors not to make any attempt to escape, she re-
plied: ''I do not accept the warning, so that if I do escape,
let no one accuse me of having broken my word." When asked
with flippant irreverence whether it was right to have made
an attack on Paris on a saint's day, she answered: ''Pass on
to something else I " Or again, take her warning to her ac-
cuser : " You call yourself my judge ; beware what you do, for
truly I am sent by God, and you are putting yourself in great
danger." And when questioned as to whether she was in a
state of grace or not, she replied : " If I am not, may God put
me in it If I am, may God keep me there." Or lastly, how
magnificent was her retort on those who asked her whether
St Catherine and St Margaret bated the English: "They love
what God loves, and hate what He hates."
The book is illustrated by reproductions from the Broms*
grove Guild of Artists, which are excellent, and with colored
plates by M. Bussiere, which are crudely sentimental.
• Lift Lessens frwm BUssidJ^an of Arc, By Father Bernard Vaughan. S.J. London :
George Allen ft Sons.
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8s6 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
Is it reading something into the
THE BALL AND THE CROSS, story, or does the '' pugnacious ''
By G. K. Chesterton. ** G. K. C." combat Father Hugh
Benson's theory in The Lord of the
World, when he writes The Ball and the Cross t^ In both
these books — the former having appeared possibly two years
before the latter — the authors leave their readers much to ex-
tract from a wealth of symbolism that typifies Truth and its
antipodes.
In The Lord of the World Father Benson was taken to task
by some of his critics for suggesting the ultimate annihilation
of the Church through the workings of humanitarianism, as
typified by the great and all-pervading hero« '' Felsenburgh/'
who hovered above the homes and sentiments of men in his
far-sailing air-ship. But Father Benson never forgets the thing
that the gates of hell cannot do to the Church, and his seer-
like warning, if seemingly hopeless, was a legible hand- writing
on the wall to those who would combat insinuating modern in-
fluences against faith and morals.
In The Ball and the Cross, however, Mr. Chesterton leaves
no doubt, if the critic follows bis symbolism to the end. He
too uses a flying machine as his material locomotion for the
initial conveyance of an idea, and at its helm he places the
scientific Professor Lucifer, with an antiquated monk from the
Balkans as his guest. Throughout the fantastic maze of Mr.
Chesterton's kaleidoscopic reasoning one ever distinguishes the
unchanging color of orthodoxy, illumined by a sense of humor,
and Mr. Chesterton never forgets that true humor is funda-
mentally, essentially reverent. Who but a genius can make his
reader reverently chuckle with risible delight while pouring
over arguments concerning Eternal Truth; and who but Mr.
Chesterton has done this with such success in his day ? The
delicious irony with which he makes Professor Lucifer run into
the ball and the cross on St. Paul's in London, when he proudly
thinks he is discovering a new planet, significantly illustrates
the invariable barrier to the intellectual wings of the angel of
pride, and Mr. Chesterton artistically allows the antiquated
monk to point the moral.
The Ball and the Cross finally becomes the romance of two
men — an honest Highland Catholic and an honest London athe-
• T)u BaUtmdtki Crou. By Q. K. Chesterton. New York : John Lane Company.
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ist — who, as the extremes of affirmation and negation, battle
to the end of the story with triumphant conclusions. The in-
itial provocation for battle between the two men is a paragraph
against the Mother of God, found in the atheists' paper by the
simple Catholic Highlander, '' who could not, if he would, con-
ceive a doubt."
When a book is very well worth the reading, it is salutary
for the reviewer to tempt occasionally the reading public with
a sample of the writer's wares, and though it is harder to dis*
criminate with '' G. K. C." than any other of his kind (is there
any other?) those who may, or may not, read Thi Ball and
the Cross must not overlook the defense before an English Court
of Justice, of an unlettered Catholic Highlander, who challenged
an atheist to combat because of irreverent language against
the Virgin Mother*
If he had said of my mother what he said of the Mother of
God, there is not a club of clean men in Europe that would
deny my right to call him out. If he had said it of my wife,
you English would yourselves have pardoned me for beating
him like a dog in the market place. Your worship, I have
no mother ; I have no wife. I have only that which the poor
have equally with the rich ; which the lonely have equally
with the man of many friends. To me this whole strange
world is homely, because in the heart of it there is home ; to
me this cruel world is kindly, because higher than the heal!
vens there is something more human than humanity. If a
man must not fight for this, may he fight for anything ? I
would fight for my friend, but if I lost my |friend, I should
still be there. I would fight for my country, but if I lost my
country, I should still exist. But if what that devil dreams
were true, I should not be — I should burst like a bubble and
be gone. I could not live in that imbecile universe. Shall I
not fight for my own existence ?
The climax of the book is splendidly reached toward its
close, when the Catholic hero and the atheist are imprisoned
in cells B and C of a lunatic asylum, by the opinionated ser-
vants of modern thought. By remaining ''a mortal month
alone with God " the hero finds a means of escape by discov-
ering the inmate of cell A (oh, thou great Alpha I) an ancient
man white with eld, '' whose face seemed like a scripture older
than the gods, and whose eyes, bright, blue, were startled like
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838 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
those of a baby. They looked as if they had only been fitted
an instant before in his head." Oh, thoo eternal freshness of
Truth I
We can still remember the indig-
THE BARRIER. nation of a Catholic woman who
By Rene Bazin. administered a stern rebuke to a
priest for daring to recommend
such a novel as VIsoUe {The Nun)^ of Ren^ Bazin. And yet,
while the dramatic finale of that story might be rather strong
food for a convent girl of fourteen, no French bishop's pas-
toral, no series of lectures, no American meeting of protest,
brought before the world so clearly and so eloquently the
tyranny of the French pseu do- democracy in its cruel, unre-
lenting persecution of the helpless nuns of France.
Bazin's latest novel La Barriire, is also a novel with a
purpose. It is in reality an apology of the Catholic Church,
not so much detailing the reasons of belief, as setting forth the
e£fects of Catholicism on the mind and heart of an intelligent
outsider, and the absolute moral disaster that follows the apos*
tasy of the Catholic born. It might be styled a moral tragedy
in three acts:
Act I. — England. Scene: The home of a stem, old-school
Anglican nobleman, with a bitter hatred of Romanism, and a
strong political attachment to the National Church.
* Act II. — France. Scene: The home of a modern nouviau
riche indifferentist, with its cynical unbelief, its hopeless world-
liness, and its inevitable immorality.
Act III. — Italy. Scene: Rome, with its living voice of
primitive antiquity, and its compelling dogma of the Real Pres-
ence, effecting the conversion of the hero, and witnessing his
perfect self-surrender for conscience sake.
Reginald Breynolds, an Indian army officer, is first attracted
toward the Church by a strange meeting in the Indian jungle
with an ascetic Catholic missionary, living a life of absolute
self-denial to atone for a life of wickedness in Europe.
On his return to his father's house in England the claims
of Catholicism seem ever to haunt him, especially the Euchar-
istic Christ, abiding with His people. Most dramatic is the
scene at table when the father asks all assembled to drink a
toast to England's National Church. Reginald, although not a
Catholic, has utterly rejected the State Church his father so
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reveres, and, true to conscience, refuses tbe toast, only to be
disinherited and driven forth after a very stormy interview.
The second part gives us a striking picture of the homes
of two cousins, the Limerels: the one Catholic to the core,
devout, self- recollected, believing; tbe other of the modern
French anti-clerical type, worldly, external, and irreligious.
Felicien Limerel proposes to his ccusin Marie, but is rejected
on account of his unbelief, his sweetheart telling him in char-
acteristic fashion: ''I wish to be the mother of a holy race/'
Like Pierre Loti kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemani, and
disappointed because such an environment left him unmoved,
Felicien goes to the sanctuary of Montmartre to spend a night
before the Blessed Sacrament, in the vain hope of winning
back the faith of his fathers. He then goes straightway to
Marie to inform her of the failure of his demand for a miracle.
Afterwards be bitterly upbraids his parents, for their neglect of
his religious training. This is one of the strongest passages
in the whole novel, which brings out clearly the paramount
importance of the home in tbe upbuilding of character, and in
the safeguarding of that most precious of treasures, the Cajfcho-
lie faith.
Reginald, giving up home, kindred, worldly prospects, and
finally his love for the '' pearl of great price,'' is a character
that wins one by its quiet dignity, strength, and unswerving
loyalty to conscience. Marie Limerel, giving up her lover from
conviction despite all the promptings of affection, sets an ex-
ample that may prove more effective to girls in like position
than a strong sermon on the evils of mixed marriages.
Interspersed throughout the book are many beautiful de-
scriptions in Bazin's best style of an English summer resort,
a French drawing-room, a parish church on the outskirts of
Paris, the sanctuary of Montmartre, the cancer hospital of the
women of Calvary, the hills and churches of Rome.
Some one has criticized the writer's portraits of Reginald
and Marie as devoid of human interest, because they are so
hopelessly perfect, and so uniformly actuated by the most
ideal motives. Perhaps the critic never in his experience
came across such souls, but every Catholic pastor has many
Maries in his flock, and converts like Reginald have come
over to us by the hundreds from alien folds. We hope soon
to welcome The Barrur in its English dress, but we feel cer-
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840 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
tain that only a writer of Bazln's literary finish can give us
the fall charm of the original.
When Love Calls Men to Arms^^
WHEN LOVE CALLS HEN TO the new story by Stephen Chal-
ARMS. mers, is supposedly ''an auto-
By Chalmers. biography of love and adventure,
truthfully set down by Rorie Mac-
lean, Laird of Kilellan, in the seventeenth century, and here
rewritten from the original MS. into clearer English. '' Love
and adventure there surely are in good plenty, bloodshed and
hairbreadth escapes, romantic flights and quick quarrels between
hot-blooded Highland' clans. Rorie tells his story well; he
describes his love-troubles and his '' braw-fights " with a
confiding honesty and a quite unconscious humor worthy,
at times, of Blackmore's John Ridd. The book is interesting
reading, and deserves a better title. The character of Bor-
deaux, the gentlemanly, poet-quoting vagabond, is well drawn.
'' The notion that eight or ten alder-
CITT GOVERNMENT. men, whose energies are sorely
taxed by their own business, can
administer the affairs and expenditures of a city, involving
vast amounts of money, by holding stated meetings in the
evenings once in two weeks, and the like special evening
meetings spasmodically and without system, is absurd and
puerile in itself. We have outgrown this method, and it ought
to be cast aside like a wornout garment."
Those who wish to know the experience of certain cities
of moderate size which have cast this old system aside for the
commission plan, should read Mr. Hamilton's Dethronement of
the City Boss.f To many persons the word commission con-
notes an appointive office and they have been suspicious of
the idea as undermining republican principles. Such persons
need only read Mr. Hamilton's book to have such fears dissi-
pated.
In reality we see, from this interesting and popular exposi-
tion of the Des Moines plan, that the commissioners are much
more directly subject to the voters than in any old-fashioned
• Whin Lave CaUi Mtm to Arms, By Stephen Chalmers. Boston : Small, Maynard
ft Co.
t Tk4 DithroHimint of the City Boss. By John J. HamUton. New York: Funk ft
Wagnalls Company,
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monicipality. A mayor and four commissioners form a legis-
lative and executive council transacting all the business of the
community and making all appointments. But, upon a pro-
test of twenty- five per cent of the electors, this administrative
board must either repeal an objectionable ordinance or sub-
mit it to the people. Likewise upon a similar petition an
ordinance must be passed or referred to the voters. Also
upon a twenty-five per cent petition any one of the council
may be called upon to face a special election at any time
during his term. These provisions are known respectively as
the referendum, initiative, and recall.
Mr. Hamilton does not confine himself to a bare outline of
the Des Moines plan. He shows very carefully how and why
this should eliminate corruption, and proves his point by the
actual experience of several typical cities.
For the first time the German.
THB GOSSAMER THREAD. American child is introduced and
By Seibert. makes her literary d^but in the
story of The Gossmpter Thread^^ by
Venita Seibert. The heroine is little Velleda, gray-eyed, wist-
ful, and imaginative, who understands about the Different World-
'* One is very proud to know the Real World, . . . but in
secret one stretches forth longing arms toward that other
World, which is, where?" The two worlds, truth and illusion,
conflict pathetically for Velleda, beginning with the sad Wein-
nacht's Abend, when she discovers that the St Nicholas who
brings the Christmas toys is only Onkel dressed up in a long
white beard and a cotton-sprinkled overcoat* Realities are
very puzzling to Velleda, and not least puzzling is the thing
called fashion. After a bitter experience in purchasing faeelless
shoes, long her heart's desire, only to find that heels have
*' come in again," Velleda arrives at a decision. '' Fashion," she
says firmly, *'is something that you want very bad, but when
you get it, it's something else." In the last chapter of the
story Velleda has already left the Fairy Ring of Childhood,
and sets forth bravely, but with wistful eyes, for the City of
Grownup, clasping under her arm the volume of Th$ English
PoetSf which is to be the key to unlock the Different World,
The book is an exceptional piece of child-portraiture, suggest-
ing both Emmy Lou and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
* Tki Gossamer Tknad. B7 Venita Seibert. Boston : Small, Maynaid ft Co.
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841 NEW BOOKS [Sept,
Little Brother O'Dreams^ is not
LITTLE BROTHER really a story at all, but a little
O'DRBAMS. prose-poem, a mountain idyl. It
By Eastman. jells of a lonely, dreamy child,
living on the mountain- side with
a tired, sad mother, who took good care of him, but ** didn't
understand.'* He had called himself ''Little Brother.'' '''I
like that name,' he said, 'because it makes me feel as if
there were more of us. It isn't a lonesome name; it's a nice
all- together sort of name I'" But he soon found book friends
and out-of-door friends. ''The trees loved him, and the
flowers, and the sky; and the little people of the woods, the
birds and squirrels, didn't mind his poor pale face and his
queerly cobbled clothes." And, best of all, he could make
his poems. Strange, quaint fancies formed into little poems in
his head, and sang themselves to him. Little Brother's great
longing was for a Little Sister; the story of how be found
her, and of the wonder she brought into his life, is told with
a pretty simplicity that cannot fall to charm. The style is
graceful, almost poetic.
In a booklet entitled Three Historic Pageants^ by Dudley
Baxter, we find articles of much interest. The first is entitled :
"The Last 'Sacre' at Rheims"— that which terminated with
Charles the Tenth in 1825. In " A Canonization at St. Peter's"
we have a description of the canonization, by Pope Leo XIII.,
of St. Pierre Fourier, and St Antonio Maria Zaccaria. "The
Last Coronation at Westminster" describes the ceremony at-
tending the coronation of King Edward VII. and Queen Alex-
andra.
We desire to call particular attention to a valuable book-
let, written especially for Catholics, and having for its subject
Th^ Catholic Paper. The articles are particularly timely, and we
hope with the author, the Rev. J. T. Roche, LL.D., that they
will be instrumental in arousing Catholics, as a whole, to a
deeper interest in those things which concern the Catholic
press. The booklet should be widely distributed throughout the
land. It may be obtained from the Catholic Register, Toronto,
Canada.
•UtiU BnUUr CtDnams^ By Elaine Goodale Eastman. Boston and New York:
Hooghton MiflBin Company.
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leio.] ^Tejv Books 843
An interesting record of the ways and means by which the
Holy Spirit leads the author, a Protestant lawyer, to an ac-
ceptance of the Faith, is given to us in a pamphlet of about
80 pages entitled My Road to the True Churchy by Frank
Johnston. It is published by the International' Catholic Truth
Society, at 10 cents per copy.
The papers that make up the booklet entitled Towards the
Altar, by the Rev. J. M. Lehen (B. Herder: St Louis), were
written and published with a view to fostering vocations for
the priesthood. They are gathered from many sources, and we
hope that they may be instrumental in e£fecting their very
worthy purpose. The publication sells at 15 cents per copy;
$1*35 per dozen.
A book of practical commercial value, arranged especially
for all Spanish-speaking countries, has recently been published
by the Underwood Typewriter Company, New York. It is
entitled Mitodo Prhctico para Aprender h Eseribir por el Taco,
compiled by J. Martinez, E.M. Briefly explained, it is a
practical method for learning typewriting in the easiest and
shortest way, that is by the sense of touch.
Another book has been added to the already numerous as-
sortment claiming to describe the religion of the future. To
Charles F. Dole, The Coming Religion* is not a religion at all,
but a sort ef universal sense of duty to humanity. His ideas
are somewhat vague, but one gathers that ** reasonableness '* is
to be gained in the new cult by rejecting authority, miracles,
etc.
In a very small and handy volume (price 35 cents net)
Benziger Brothers have published a translation of Prayers to
the Sacred Heart, composed by Blessed Margaret Mary, and
selected from the authorized Vie et Oeuvres, published by the
Sisters of her own monastery of the Visitation at Paray-le-
Monial.
We have lately received the Franciscan Almanac for the
year 191 !# the annual publication of the Franciscan Fathers,
The Monastery, Paterson, N. J.
* Tki C^mit^ RiUii^m. By Charles F. Dole. Boston : Small, MaTnard ft Co.
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J^oteidtt ipetiobicals.
Thi Tabht (9 July) : '' The Catholic Church and Divorce/' a
verbatim report of Mgr. Moyes* exposition of Catholic
doctrine on divorce given before the Royal Commission
on Divorce. An explanation of the '' Branch Theory "
and wherein it is defective. *' Church and State in
Spain/' how the anti* clerical outbreak in Spain came
about, and how the Concordat was interpreted.
(16 July): ''The Depopulation of France/' The num-
ber of births in France is rapidly gowing smaller. In'
1909 the number of births did not exceed the number
of deaths by more than 13,000.— —The Osservatcre Ro^
mano publishes an official note defining the attitude of
the Holy See in relation to the questions now ai issue
with the Spanish Grovernment
(23 July): A Bill will be introduced to provide for the
giving of instruction in public elementary schools on
hygiene. ''At the present time 120,000 children die
every year beforcr reaching the age of twelve months.''
—-The date of the next Consistory may be in Novem-
ber next Father Cortie, S.J.f writes on "The Pass-
ing of the Comet"
(30 July): The Bill providing for an amendment of the
Royal Accession Declaration passed the second reading
by a majority of 326.— —Little has developed during
the week relative to the "Spanish Question."— -A
supplement gives an account of the Leeds Catholic
Congress.
T/u Month (July): "The Life of Cardinal Vaughan/' by the
Rev. Sydney F. Smith is a review of Mr. Snead- Cox's
biography of the late Cardinal. Father Smith's numer-
ous quotations give a vivid picture of the great prelate*
His opinion of the book, despite certain adverse criticisms
which he makes, is very favorable.— C. M. Antony
describes " The Last National Embassy to Rome." This
article is based upon some ^try ancient manuscripts and
includes numerous passages from the same describing
incidents of the journey.—— Rev. Joseph Keating writes
^.Google i
I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 845
on ''Some Obstacles to Peace/' While favoring uni-
versal peace, he thinks the reasons of many of its ad-
vocates unsound.
The Expository Times (Aug.): Synopsis of the latest informa-
tion regarding the importance of the Hittites. The seat
of their greatest power is thought to have been Cappa*
docia.-^— Dr. Sanday's Life of Christy for the ''Inter-
national Theological Library/' is reviewed. Review of
Principal Skinner's Genesis and Prof. Curtis' Chronicles
for "the International Critical Commentary."— ^Pro-
fessor Barton writes on Hilprecht's "Deluge-Tablet" |
The Church Quarterly Review (July) : " Education in Australia/'
by A. G. B. West, tells what a new country has accom-
plished in this field in a few years. Considerable in-
formation is given concerning methods and courses in
the grammar, secondary, and university systems. There
is no religious instruction in the State schools of Aus-
tralia. ^Very Rev. T. B. Strong, Rev. W. H. Frere,
Rev. A. S. Tait, and Rev. Herbert Kelly write on "The
Training and Examination of Candidates for Orders."
Hitherto the Anglican Church has required practically
no specific training for its ministers. Ways and means
of thoroughly and uniformly preparing the clergy for
their work are suggested. "Pope Gregory VII. and
the Hildebrandine Ideal/' by Rev. J. P. Whitney, D.C.L.
"Hildebrand reveals himself to us not as one who
would force a given system upon us to-day, but as one
who wrought into living fact a needed, although surely
a passing, phase in the growth of Christian society."
The struggle against lay investiture did not begin with
Gregory, and he was not an ambitious ecclesiastic de-
voted to a subjugation of the imperial power.
Dublin Review (July) : Wilfrid Ward in reviewing the biography
of Cardinal Vaughan by Mr. Snead-Cox draws a graphic
picture of the great prelate, who was dogmatic, ener-
getic, uncompromising, yet withal open-minded.———
"Pascal and Port Royal," by Mrs. Reginald Balfour,
briefly sketches Pascal's life and the history of Port
Royal, and the political and religious elements con-
tributing to the controversy.— ^Francis Thompson's Life
of St. Ignatius Loyola is reviewed by Canon Barry.—
I
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846 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Sept.,
Rev. Hugh Pope writes on the "Origin of the Douajr
Bible." In ''John Stnart Mill and the Mandate of the
People/' by Wilfrid Ward, are expressed the views of
James and John Stuart Mill on democracy. Despite its
development since 1865, the younger Mill's hope for
independence and increased individualism has not yet
been realized. "Unemployment and Education/' by
Mrs. Crawford, shows that the evils of our inadequate
educational equipment are accentuated by various fea-
tures of our national life— a lack of organized appren-
ticeship and parental control, and a spirit of independence
that is often abused. The present prosperous condi-
tions in Switzerland are due to a clear recognition that
individualism must be limited.
Irish Theological Quarterly (July): Rev. W. T. Sheppard, O.S.B.,
contributes an article on the '' Kenosis According to St.
Mark"; it is a refutation of the theories of Dr. Weston
and Rev. J. M. Thompson. The Gospel of St Mark
being an incomplete document, it cannot be argued that
because it records no manifestation of Messiahship be-
fore the Baptism, therefore none occurred. It is im»
possible from the Gospels to fix any point in the life
of our Lord at which the Messianic consciousness began
to dawn. " The Seed Growing Secretly," by Rev. H.
Pope, is an interpretation, after St. Augustine, of Mark
iv. 26-29. Rev. J. Henagan details the unjust and
baneful effects of the Penal Laws during the reign of
Queen Anne. Never before had the Irish been so
doggedly persecuted.— ^-The Rev. H. Keane, S.J., gives
an exhaustive review of T. R. Glover's book, 7h$ Con^
flict of Religions in the Roman Empire^ and draws atten-
tion to its lack of originality and scientific method.
The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (July): Mr. Dawson's article,
'' St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Confessor," is a short
biography of St Gregory.—** A Great Reformer — Fra
Girolamo Savonarola," by Rev. S. M. Hogan, O.P. The
article presents Savonarola's work of religious, ethical,
and social reform.
Le Correspondant (10 July): H. de Boissieu writes of the
*' Universal Exposition of Brussels," describing many of
the foreign exhibits. '* One is impressed by its gaiety
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I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 847
and by the manifest confidence for the future of the
country/'— —'' French Art in the Middle Ages and Re-
ligious Iconography/' by Louis Brehier, gives us a
risumi of an appreciation written upon the awarding of
the Gobert prize to Emile Male for his works on Re-
ligious Art. The article treats the subject historically.
'<The Military Elite/' by H. de Matharel, deals
with the education of military officers, comparing the
systems of the Continental countries. He believes the
officers to be the elite of a nation and would have them
free of all vice and pedantry.
Rivue du CUrge Franpais (i July): Under the title ''The
Teaching Church " H. Ligeard gives a sketch of '' the
Doctrines of the Theologians from the Eighth Century
to the Vatican Council." P. Godet begins a bio-
graphical account of Rosmini. In this part he describes
the philosopher as a model priest and at the same time a
sincere patriot, inviolably devoted to the Holy See and
likewise to the cause of Italian independence.— —Re-
viewing the "Social Movement/' Ch. Calippe discusses
''The Ecclesiastical Circles of Social Study and Cardi-
nal Mercier"; "The Lessons in Social Study by P.
Schwalm " ; " In Austria ; the work of Dr. Lueger."
(15 July): Under the title "The Discipline of the Sac-
raments/' A. Villien gives a brief sketch of some usages
relative to Baptism.— —A. de Poulpiquet, O.P., discusses
"Dogma, the Principle of Unity in the Church and of
Individual Religious Life." His thesis is that dogma,
so far from being the source of disunion and disagree-
ment among men, fulfills all the conditions of unity.—
J. Hurabielle gives an historical sketch of " The Church
in Chili." According to the author the Church and
morality have flourished there almost from the begin*
ning.— — E. Lenoble reviews a life of Su Thanas
AquinaSf by A. D. Sertillanges.*^Mgr. Bouquet con*
tributes an article on "Servants and Laborers on the
Farm."
Revue Binidictine (July): D. De Druyne catalogues various
African documents bearing on the Latin versions of the
Bible. These should form a basis for the systematic
study of the Vulgate, and will greatly aid the textual
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848 Foreign periodicals [Sept,
critic in classifying the various manuscripts of that ver-
sion. '* A Roman Commentary of the Fifth Century ''
is the title of an article by D. G. Morin. This com-
mentary on St Mark has been attributed to St Jerome,
but evidently is the work of a Roman monk.— —J. de
Ghellincki SJ., tejls of the wide diffusion of the works
of Gandulphe de Bologne during the Middle Ages, and
points out their influence on scholars, especially Peter
Lombard.
Annates de PhilosophU ChriHenne (July): ''Descartes and His
Method/' by Ch. Dunan, is a chapter from a book
about to appear under the title, The Two Idealisms.
Aristotelian philosophy, according to the author, was
based upon the fundamental principle that one cannot
think without phantasms {sans images)^ while it was the
object of Descartes to think without phantasms by what
he called '' clear and distinct " ideas. Descartes' liiathe-
matical ideas, his explanation of sensation, and his
famous ''Cogito, ergo sum'' are considered.-^— A.
Boissard, in ''The Contract to Work and Social Ethics,
considers how the necessity under which laborers are
to work in order to live influences the wages they get.
The author ^holds that employers should not take ad-
vantage of this position of the workmen to contract
with them in opposition to the legitimate demands of
life.
La Revue Apologitique (July): "A Recasting of Values," by
L. De Ridder, C.SS.R. The author discusses whether
or not our dogmatic formulas express only a religious
experience, as formulas of physics express laboratory^
experience. '* Scientific Apologetics and Certitude
in Geology," by R. de Sinety, S.J. " St. Clement
Maria Hoffbauer," by Dr. Martin Spahn, is a sketch of
the times and character of the saint and his influence
upon the development of the Catholic Church in Ger-
many. "Social Truths and Democratic Errors," by
A. Favi&re, states that complete equality and sovereignty
of the multitude cannot be sustained in the face of the
dogma of original sin. Charity belongs properly to
Catholicism and needs the rock of the Church to make
it stable and efficient
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I9IO.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 849:
Revue Pratique d' Apologitique (i July): ''The Origin of the
Dogma of the Trinity/' by Adhemar d'Ale% is a
risumi of a book of that title by J. Lebreton Beau-
chesne. ''Mystical Acts in Apologetics/' by Aug.
Poulain. Are ecstasies^ raptures, and the like sound basis
for apologetical arguments? Yes; even though these
phenomena are common to all religions, and especially
prominent in the fakirs of India.
(15 July): "The Apologetical Use of Miracles/' by
Andr^ Dubois, gives a critical exposition concerning the
validity of miracles. "The Formation of the Theo-
logical Notion of Person/' by L. Labauche, is an his-
torical sketch of the development of the present mean-
ing of the word. The author gives briefly the views
of the councils and individual Fathers.— -" The Biblical
Commission on Implicit Quotations/' by H. Les^tre.
Rivue des Sciences Philosophiques et Thiologiques (July): "The
Will in Faith/' by A. de Poulpiquet, O.P. The necessity
for the intervention of the will in faith is based upon
the intrinsic lack of evidence in the object. Hence the
will recognizing the authority of the person speaking,
and the inherent goodness of faith, directs the intellect
to that phase of the object which appears . true.— —J.
Zeiller shows the connection between the political
theories of Aristotle and St. Thomas. The greatest
weakness in both is the excessive power given to the
" tyrant," who is just as likely to turn out bad as good.
Siimmen aus Maria^Laach (July): "The Diversity in Modern
Philosophy," by K. Kempf, S.J. With Emmanuel Kant
as 'a basis, our modern philosophical writers are doing
their utmost to do away with Scholasticism as an ob-
struction to modern advancement. The author gives
briefly some of the more noted views held by anti Scho-
lastic writers. He admits. that there are some diversities
in Scholastic Philosophy, still none that undermine the
principles of Christianity. "The Ciusade against the
Duel," by M. Reichman, S. J., is a summary of statements
made by various Protestant theologians and pastors
against this " Honorable Murder." All, whether Chris-
tian, Jew, or Turk, are of one mind in condemning the
duel. " Authority and Freedom," by P. Lippert, S. J.,
VOL XCI.^54
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8SO FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Sept.,
gives briefl/ the contents of a book of that title by Fn
W. Foerster, who solves the great problem of harmonizing
authority and freedom. Authority is the great '' Mys-
tery *^ of Catholicity. The author treats his subject from
a concrete psychological point of view. ''Religious
Education in Colleges/' by St von Dunin-Borchowski,
S.J.| is an exhortation on all trainers of our youth to
consider the necessity of religion in the education of the
youth. The author shows how impossible it is to follow
the natural law without the knowledge of God.
Biblische Zeitschrift (III.) : Professor J. Hehn comments upon
Hilprecht's '' New Babylonian Deluge- Tablets/' The bib-
lical conclusions of Hilprecht seem to be going too far,
but the suggested age and the proposed restoration of
the lacunae may be safely accepted. ^To ** II. Mace. i.
19/' Dr. L. Shade remarks that between a concept and
its expression exists not only an intrinsic but a conven-
tional relationship, and only the conventional use of a
word decides whether or not it is justifiable in any given
case. When II. Mace. i. 19 speaks of a captivity in
'' Persia/' it may be taken for granted that the Jews
of that time used this term also for '' Babylonia/' which
was then a part of Persia. There need be no historical
error in the account. Dr. Joseph Slaby writes on
''Sin, Its Punishment and Remission in Old Assyro-
Babylonia." The vocabulary and the inscriptions of
Babylon show the existence of an elaborate concept of
sin against God, not only of sins of deed and word, but
also of thought, which proves that those nations confessed
a positive religion. Dr. A. Steinmann advances a new
reason why Northern* Galatia was the home of those
Christians to whom the epistle to the Galatians was ad-
dressed.
La Civilth Cattolica (16 July): Under the title "Controverted
Points Concerning the Question of Pope Liberius," F.
Savio, S.J., treats of .the metrical inscription engraved
near his tomb in the catacombs of Priscilla, which some
attribute to him. " The Roman Forum According to
the Latest Excavations," by P. Sinthern, S.J. Two dia-
grams accompany this article. Two recent works, The
Historicity of the First Three Chaptjtrs of Genesis^ by P.
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ipio.] FOREIGN Periodicals 851
M^chineaui S J., and Bishop Bonomelli's The Lay School^
Suicide^ the Family^ and Divorce^ are reviewed at length
in this number.
RazSn y Fe (July) : L. Murillo, in the first of a series of arti-
cles on ''The Synoptic Problem/' states the conclusion
of some modern critics that the Gospel of St. Mark de-
pends upon those of St. Luke and St Matthew, and
that none of them*] represents the first history of Christ
The positive and negative adverse testimony of the Fa-
thers to this position is examined.— P. Villada, gives
the provisions of ''The Royal Order Against Religious
Associations.'' This is thought to be an attempt by Sr.
Canalejas to distract public astention from questions of
taxes, etc., with which he cannot successfully cope.
Espanay Amirica (i July) : " Lombrosian Philosophy," by P. A,
Gago, outlines the famous theory of Lombroso that crim-
inals are born such and show by certain physical char-
acteristics the fact that they are or will become criminal.
P. B. Ibeas considers " Charity in Spain " according
to a governmental report of December 30, 1909. Ninety-
five per cent of the charitable institutions had a religious
origin, and yet " clericalism " is the enemy of the State 1
In " Bonds of Union between Spain and Latin Amer-
ica," P. Fabo points to the common language, history,
and ideals of Spain and her former colonies. But the
strongest reason for some sort of union is " the insatia-
ble piracy of the White House " : witness " the annexa-
. tion of California and Texas; the infamous blow to
Porto Rico; the humiliating tutorship over Cuba; the
stealing of the Philippines; . • • the barefaced tramp-
ling under foot of the rights of Colombia in the Panama
Canal affair."
(15 July): P. M. Coco maintains, in "Pro Patria," that
since religion is the foundatian of the State it is the
duty of a good government to preserve the deposit of
faith intact by all means, "even coercion." Therefore
Sr. Canalejas, in fostering heretical sects and opposing
the Catholic Church, is an enemy of his country.
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IRecent Bvente*
Several events that have recently
France. taken place throw light upon the
state of things, and indicate that
all is not well In the France of to* day. The Prefect cf Police
a few months ago said that ** Paris is a place of refuge for too
many bandits, and for those the laws are too tender/' For a
long time the administration of the law has been even more
tender, for the sentence of death even in the rare cases in
which it was inflicted by the Courts has been, until quite re-
cently, Invariably commuted by the President. In January last
a man named Liabeuf, in circumstances which manifested open
contempt for the law, murdered one policeman and wounded
three others. The case was so clear that the death sentence
was passed by the Court, and the President refused to inter-
vene, notwithstanding an active campaign conducted by Social-
ists and humanitarians In favor of a reprieve. So great, how-
ever, is the power of the sympathizers with crime, that not
merely the police, but a force of cavalry were required to keep
order when the execution took place, and the crowd which had
gathered together (for executions still take place in public in
France) greeted the ministers cf law with cries of: ''Assassins,
assassins I '' There is no doubt that a rescue would have been
attempted, had not the force been overwhelmingly strorg. Tbe
Greneral Confederation of Labor issued a manifesto calling upon
the working classes to retort by blows to all the blows which
they themselves receive. '' In the midst of the bandits of a re-
public of hypocrites, spies, and murderers let us use every means
at our disposal for our own defense.'' Whatever may be said
about liberty and equality, it cannot be said that brotherly
love is a marked characteristic of the working classes of France,
so far as the General Confederation of Labor can be looked
upon as their representative.
This moral disfigurement of Paris finds a counterpart in
its physical disfigurement. For many years the Place de
rOp^ra, the Place de Havre, the Rue Roy ale, and other
thoroughfares, have been so obstructed by tirorks carried on by
the contractors for underground railways and by street repairers
that it is said that in no other city in Europe, outside of
Russia or Turkey, would such proceedings have been tolerated.
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 853
The streets are not kept even clean, pedestrians are splashed
with dirty water from the puddles that are left. So great is
the change effected in the Paris which was a few years ago
the most beautiful of cities. Strikes are partly responsible for
this state of things, and these in their turn are attributed
to the change that has come over the spirit both of the
workingmen and of the municipal authorities. The former are
more anxious to secure what they look upon as their rights
than to do their duty. Two of the present scavengers do not
do as much work as one of the old kind did. The Municipal
Council, in order to humor the men, changed the old system
some time ago, and, according to its President, made a mistake
in so doing. ''There is nothing for it,'' he said, ''but to go
back to the old methods.'' The Municipality has passed a
resolution to expedite the works and for the revision of plans.
How effectual this will be depends upon the good-will of those
who have hitherto stood in the way of progress.
In even higher circles there are signs that forces are at
work which, unless controlled, will throw obstacles in the way
of orderly progress. In the Rochette affair the Chamber of
Deputies gave to M. Briand's governmient the vote of confi-
dence which it demanded by a majority of 395 to 85, but
proceeded immediately afterwards, notwithstanding the Pre-*
mier's opposition, to appoint a Commission to investigate the
whole affair. M. Jaur^s, the most bitter opponent in the
Chamber of M. Briand, is the Chairman of this Commission,
which proceeded, according to the worst tradition of the
Revolution, to arrogate to itself the right of a judicial tri-
bunal, and this for the sake of discrediting political opponents*
Leading magistrates and officials have been summoned before
it and vigorously cross-examined. An even worse feature of
the case is that the whole of the procedure seems to indicate
that the distinction between the executive and the judicial
power is not yet fully recognized in France, and that conse-
quently the country may be at any moment imperilled by the
confusion of powers. Political passion may, on account of this
confusion, destroy the confidence in the law and its adminis-
tration, upon which all stability depends, by importing into the
courts the passions of the politician.
M. Rochette, whose wrong- doing has been the occasion of
these proceedings, is an enterprising individual, who for some
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854 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
years has been engaged in making a fortune for himself by
promoting frandulent companies. Upon the government in
France falls the duty of prosecuting malefactors of this
kind. For some time it had had a well-grounded suspicion,
and more than a suspicion, that M. Rochette was guilty. It
had not been able, however, to bring him into court for want
of a person willing to bring a definite plaint, in legal form,
for having been himself defrauded. At length the government
was moved to action by hearing that M. Rochette was on the
point of leaving the country. Accordingly*through M. Lupine,
the Chief of the Police, measures were taken to find some one
willing to take the necessary first step. The fact that the in-
dividual who was induced to bring the complaint was not him-
self worthy of great respect, and that police officials seem to
have speculated in stocks on account of their knowledge of
the action that was being taken, led the Collective Socialists^
with M. Jaur&s at their head, to take action in the hope of
scoring a point against the government. It does not seem
likely that they will succeed, for M. Rochette has been con-
demned in the Court of First Instance, and the Commission
has adjourned, much to the delight of the best disposed of the
citizens of the Republic. The whole goes to show how wil-
ling politicians in France are to quarrel, and how little they
have at heart the good of ..the country — that it is personal
advancement and personal interests, and not principles, that
are the dominating motives.
This, in fact, has been the characteristic evil of the Third
Republic, and of its Parliament, and it is in order to find a
remedy that M. Briand is striving for Electoral Reform. To
find a remedy — that is the object that inspires and directs the
whole spirit of his policy. He has declared it to be his inten-
tion to work, not for the good of any particular party, but
for the best interests of the country as a whole. He will no
longer let the government be a tool for the use of any group,
or bloc of groups, for their own exclusive advantage. In this
he is more or less openly opposed by the strongest group both
in the Senate and in the House of Deputies, as well as by
Extremists like M. Combes in the Senate, and M. Jaur&s in the
Chamber. Strange to say the Senate is the more Radical of
the two Houses, especially since the recent election of the Lower
House ; nor are the departmental elections, that have just taken
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 855
place, likely to alter the character of the Upper House. It i^
upon these that the composition of the Senate, to a large ex-
tent, depends. These elections have resulted in a gain of 13
seats for the Radicals and the Socialist- Radicals, and of 18
seats for the Collect! vists. Those commonly called Reaction-
aries, and the Conservative Republicans, lost heavily in the
elections, thereby indicating, if it stood in any need of indica-
tion, that the Republic is becoming ever more deeply rooted
in France. The only question now is what kind of a Republic
it is going to be— ^extremely Socialistic and anti* Catholic, such
as M. Combes and M. Jaur&s would make it, or, such as is M.
Briand's avowed aim, one which will give a full measure of
justice and fairness to all French citizens, even though they
are Catholics or Royalists. The success of the Collective So-
cialists at the recent elections is said to be due to the fact that
the peasants in many districts are being encouraged to hope
that the soil of France is to be divided among them. Their
action is in striking contrast with that of the electors of Paris
who, at a recent by-election, rejected so well-known a man as
M. de Pressens^ because he was a CoUectivist.
Before the adjournment of Parliament the government took
steps to redeem its promises by introducing the Electoral Re-
form Bill and the Bill for regulating the duties and securing
the rights of Civil Servants. By the former it is proposed to
make the change from scrutin d^arrondissentint to scrutin de liste^
of which so much has already been said, and to make arrange-
ments for the partial renewal of the Chamber every two years,
the term of each member being extended to six years. By the
latter, measures are proposed to protect Civil Servants from
arbitrary action and favoritism, but this is to be secured to
them on the condition that they renounce the right to strike,
an express prohibition being included in the Bill. The right
of association within their own respective branches of the service
is accorded to all except to the Police, on the condition that
certain formalities are complied with»
No change has taken place, so far as is visible, in the rela-
tions of France to her neighbors. The escape of a political
prisoner from a British ship ^ in the territorial waters of
France has given rise to a discussion between France and
Great Britain, as to whether or not he ought to have been
handed over to the French authorities, rather than to the
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S56 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
British. M. Jaur^s and the Socialists are the promotors of the
claims of France and of the agitation, such as it is, that has
arisen. But, in whatever way it may be settled, it is not
likely to diminish the warmth of the entente cotdiale between
the two countries. Nothing seems to have been done with
reference to Morocco, and nothing seems likely to be done. It
is still one of the darkest places on the face of the earth~an
abode of cruelty and misery. The Sultan has been charged,
upon good authority, with having inflicted upon a woman
brutal tortures of an indescribable nature, for the purpose of
fordng her to reveal her husband's treasures; and, even if in
this particular case there has been some exaggeration, it is
only one of many instances in which most cruel treatment has
been accorded to his subjects. That this method of govern-
ment should be still possible, even under absolutist rule, is not,
however, the fault of France. If she had been permitted to
have her way a few years ago, such things would no longer
be possible. This is the era of the domination of merely ma-
terialistic ideas.
The political world in Grermany
Germany. has been taking a holiday. The
Emperor has been cruising and
preaching. The new Ministers have been learning to fulfill
the tasks that have been imposed upon them. The new For*
eign Minister has paid a visit to Count Aebrenthal; whether
to learn or to teach has not been disclosed. The eighth Dread-
nought battleship has been launched, the fourth of the second
batch. A Vice-President of the Reichstag has resigned, in
order to show his conviction that it is no longer possible
for the Conservatives to co-operate with the Liberals, and
that so great a gulf exists between the Right and the Left
that no one can bridge it. The Ministerial changes seem to
indicate that the new Chancellor, nothwithstanding his failure
to settle the Prussian Franchise question, is going to be allowed
to have a further trial with colleagues more of his own way
of thinking. It is, we believe, a generally recognized fact,
that there is a dearth of suitable candidates for the office of
Chancellor, and that the Empire and its Emperor must be satis-
fied with what they can get.
The attempt to govern without close association with any
party — that is, no longer to try, like Prince Biilow, to form or
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I9IO,] RECENT EVENTS 857
make use of a bloc'^s to be continued. Prince BQIow, when
he left office, predicted that a Socialist flood was at hand.
Their success at the by-elections which have recently been
held seems to fulfill his prophecy. A General Election is to
be held next year, and there are those who say that there is
a good prospect that the Socialists will then win twice as
many seats as they lost in 1907. Hopes are entertained that
thereby parliamentary government may show itself to be a
failure. At the present time it is the Catholic Centre that
holds the balance of power.
Certain utterances of Mr. Asquith in his speech on the
British Naval Programme have led to the revival of the dis*
cussion about the possibility of an understanding between
Germany and Great Britain. It is even said that it, in a certain
sense, already exists. It may be safely said that a better feel-
ing is in the air. It is time for something to be done; for
the long-continued tension, and the burdens which it involves,
cannot be long borne. It costs every man, woman, and child
in Great Britain five dollars a year to maintain the navy at its
present strength. The only thing that renders this expense
necessary is the fear of Germany.
With reference to the conclusion of the agreement between
Russia and Japan the German Press expresses indifference,
although there are some writers who look upon it as involving
danger both to Germany and the United States. The talk
about the admission of Turkey into the Triple Alliance serves
only to show the selfishness which dominates in politics; for
if any influence was exerted to keep Turkey under the rule
of Abdul Hamid, that influence was exerted by Germany and
Austria.
How little, even in those days of the wide diffusion of in-
formation, one nation knows about the condition of life in
other nations^ is shown by the assertions repeatedly made
during the course of the elections which took place last Janu-
ary in Great Britain. It was then publicly asserted over and
over again that the German people were as a rule reduced to
such a state of extreme wretchedness as to be forced to live
upon black bread and offal or carrion. The scientific spirit of
the day, combined with political animosity, led to expeditions
of investigation being sent to explore Germany in order to
learn the truth. These expeditions found that the German
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858 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
people had, in many respects, a better way of liviog than the
English themselves enjoyed; that, so far as they could see, there
was practically no drunkenness. They were greatly impressed
by the beneficial activity of the State and of the local author-
ities in many directions; by the system of insurance against
sickness, accident, and old age ; by the provisions for relieving
and preventing distress; by the welfare schemes provided by
employers; by the absence of squalid misery; by the domestic
efficiency of the women and the cleanliness and good order
of the children. They found, in fact, that they had more to
learn than to teach, and are now living in the hope that
their own government may introduce legislation similar to
that of Germany.
The sudden prorogation of the
Austria-Hungary* Austrian Reichsrath was due to
obstruction in the Budget Commis-
sion carried on by the Slavs. The whole circumstances are an
illustration of the distracted state produced by the conflicts
between the various nationalities. In this case we have com-
binations and permutations of Germans, Slavs, Poles, and Italians.
The government is mainly German, and would have been in a
minority if all the Slavs had been united in opposition, but the
Poles have hitherto, for somewhat sordid reasons, supported the
government. The Italians have been promised a university; the
Poles, however, would not continue to ^ive the government
the support necessary to enable it to keep its promise on ac-
count of the discontent which they felt for not having obtained
certain pecuniary advantages for which they had hoped. The
Slovenes thereupon claimed an equal right to a University with
the Italians, and, when this right was not recognized, were
supported by the other Slavs and took obstructive measures.
Abandoned by the Poles, and attacked by the Slavs, the gov-
ernment could not proceed, and, without warning, adjourned
Parliament.
^ In Hungary, on the other hand, wonderful to relate, there
is a prospect of peace, and of an acceptance on the part of
Hungarians of an arrangement more agreeable to Austrian ideals
than for many years past could have been hoped for. The
greatest victory that has ever been won in support of the ex-
isting Compromise is as surprising as it is complete. A Com<-
mon Army and a Common Bank seem assured, thus indicating
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19 lO.] RECENT EVENTS 859
he will of the people for close union, and the discomfiture^ if
not the disappearance, of the movement for independence that
seemed, only a short time ago, assured of victory. The new
Prime Minister, Count Khuen Hedervary, is declared, even
by opponents, to be a statesman with wonderful gifts of modera-
tion and foresight. M. Kossuth's organ cannot, indeed, bring
itself to give such unstinted praise, but yet it is filled with
astonishment at his clever strokes of policy. Difficult problems,
however, await solution — the suffrage question and an increase
of taxation in payment of the Bosnia- Herzegovina annexation.
As to the former, the Premier says that he holds very liberal
views, and hopes to find a compromise which will settle the
matter, giving universal suffrage, and at the same time preserv-
ing the rightful influence of the more intelligent elements of
society, and of the predominance of the Magyars. This is, in-
deed, a hard thing to do. Hungary, the Count affirms, is the
strongest support of the Triple Alliance — an affirmation which
has caused great displeasure in some Austrian quarters.
For a long time rumors were cur-
Rttssla. rent that it was only a matter of
time when war would break out
again between Russia and Japan, that the two countries were
preparing for the renewal of the conflict, and that its imme-
diate cause would be a collision of interests as to their respec-
tive railways in Manchuria. All these apprehensions have
been set at rest by the conclusion of an agreement by which
the contracting parties extend to one another their friendly
co-operation, with a view to the improvement of their respec-
tive railway lines in Manchuria, and promise to abstain from
all competition prejudicial to the realization of this object.
Each of the contracting parties undertakes to respect and
maintain the status quo now existent in Manchuria, and in the
event of its being threatened in any way, they will enter into
communication with one another, with a view to coming to an
understanding for its maintenance. This agreement is to be
welcomed, since it strengthens the prospect of peace in the
Far' East, and, on the condition that the two Powers are loyal
to their engagements with other nations for the preservation
of the open door.
It is, however, almost a direct rebuff to this country, for
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86o RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
it is the most distinct refusal to assent to Mr. Knox's proposal
for the internationalization of these railways that could be
given. China, also, must look upon it as a blow to the at-
tempts which she has been making to regain complete sa*
premacy in her own province. Whether Russia, now that
anxiety has been removed as to a conflict with Japan, will be
m^re active in the Near East, or more ready to repay Germany
for the treatment she received in the recent complications with
Austria, is a matter about which no conclusion can be formed.
There are those who say that the army of Russia is in such
a condition as to render it necessary at all costs to avoid
everything leading to war, and that, consequently, no fear of
mischievous activity in European politics need be felt And if
there is to be an internal contest with Finland, as seems likely,
there is still smaller likelihood of external conflict The Persian
situation must be taken into account. Confidence in Russia's
loyalty to her agreement with England is felt or expressed by
official circles in that country. But there' are not wanting those
who maintain that Northern Persia is being quietly absorbed by
Russia. This might be done without it being necessary to im-
pute anything directly to the discredit of the Russian govern-
ment; for it is a well-known habit of her agents in the distance
to act on their own authority and trust to the recognition of
the fait accompli. The fact that no troops at all, or only a few,
have been withdrawn from the place occupied in Persia, lends
support to this view.
In the Ottoman dominions not a
Turkey. few events of some importance
have to be mentioned. The Cretan
question has, in one respect, been settled and in another left
unsettled. The Powers presented an ultimatum to the Cretan
Executive requiring it to allow the Mohammedan deputies and
officials to enjoy their rights without taking the oath to the
King of the Hellenes, and threatening in the; event of refusal
to land forces and to seize the customs. The Cretan gov*
ernment had to yield to force majeuti^ but the hearts of the
Cretans have not been changed, and they are only looking
forward to a suitable opportunity to bring about that union
with Greece to which they aspire. On the other hand, Turkey
seeks a definite solution for good and all, so that the ques*
tion may never again be raised ; but this the protecting Powers
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I9IO.] RECENT EVENTS 86l
cannot, from the nature of the case, grant. What Turkey
really wants is a war with Greece, but she dares not venture
upon such an enterprise, for the whole of Europe would com-
bine against her.
As was surmised at the time, the rising in Albania was not
completely suppressed, and there has been a renewal of the
fighting. It is asserted, whether on good grounds or not we
cannot say, that the complete submission of the Albanians
has at length been secured. Complaints have been made by
Bulgaria of the treatment of the Bulgarian subjects of Turkey
dwelling in Macedonia. The determination of the government
to disarm the Albanians, which caused their uprising, is one
which extends equally to the Bulgarians, and in fact to all
Turkish subjects, and seems to be a wise one. If no arms could
have been borne by any of the races in the Balkans, the dis-
trict would not have been the scene of the innumerable mur-
derous outrages that have taken place for so long; and if the
Turks can succeed in their disarmament proposal for all alikei
it is a long step towards the improvement which is so much
needed; provided always that it is only the first step, and
that all the other promises which have been made are fulfilled.
The second celebration of the Revolution, which deprived
the Sultan of absolute power, has been celebrated with great
rejoicing, and with good reason for joy. Yet much remains to
be done. This is recognized by the Turks themselves. While
the constitutional rigime has acquired a certain power and soli-
darity, there is still a want of union of the various elements
of the population. In fact a plot has been discovered to over*
throw the existing government and a deputy has been arrested
for complicity in it. A year ago a Committee of Fundamental
Reforms was formed in Paris and branches were established in
various places in the Turkish dominion. Its object was to stir
up public opinion in favor of a return to the old state of things.
There does not seem to be any great probability of its success,
for discontent is, on good authority, said to be non-existent
except among those who have suffered by the change and the
few who have been disappointed in personal hopes. The
strengthening of the army and even of the navy is perhaps at
the moment the chief preoccupation of the government, as is
shown by the large sums voted by Parliament for the former and
the endeavors made to purchase two battleships from Germany.
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With Our Readers
A NOTEWORTHY article by Father Benson appears in the
August Atlantic Monthly. Its title, '* Catholicism and the
Future," attracts at once the notice of every thinking man, and
arouses the enthusiasm of every Catholic. Father Benson is hopeful
and optimistic, apd states in clear, thoughtful language the reasons
for his hope. The tide is surely turning towards Catholicism ; and
the arm-chair philosophers, who, for the most part, have dealt with
a priori assumptions rather than with facts, have but hastened its
turning.
Father Benson points out the significant portents foretelling
another victory for Catholicism. His paper is a trumpet-call to
Catholics. No one can read it unmoved. Beholding the possibili-
ties of the near future, one is straitened to put forth every energy
when energy will bear such fruit ; to go forth, in as far as he can,
into the halls of learning, the schools, the congresses, into the high*
ways and byways of everyday life, and show forth the truth of the
Catholic faith, by preaching, by example, by conversation, by the
distribution of the printed word. Our harvest is world-wide and the
fields are white for the gathering. As Father Benson shows, the
world, almost in spite of itself, is preparing to welcome Catholicism.
The Catholic Church holds the truth and the blessings that the
human soul craves. It is eternally important that all of us should
be up and doing — we upon whom this inheritance rests — in order
that nothing of the glory of future Catholicism be lost because of
our ignorance or our indifference.
WB earnestly hope that the coming National Conference of Catho-
lic charities will receive the active support of every charitable
organization and every charity worker throughout the United
States. The work contemplated by the Conference will not inter-
fere with or cross in any way the work and aims of any existing
charity organization — but will unite all, aid all, by the interchange
of the knowledge which experience brings, and raise to a still
higher point of eflSciency the Catholic charity work of the United
States. The Conference will open at the Catholic University,
Washington, D. C, on September 25, and close on the 28th. As
officially published the aims of the Conference are :
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19 10.] WITH OUR READERS 863
(i) To bring about exchange of views aijiong experienced
Catholic men and women who are active in the work of charity.
(2) To collect and publish information concerning organization,
problems, and results in Catholic charity.
(3) To bring to expression a general policy toward distinctive
modem questions in relief and prevention and towards methods and
tendencies in them.
(4) To encourage further development of a literature in which
the religious and social ideals of charity shall find dignified expres-
sion.
• ♦ . •
THE series of papers on **The Holy Land,'' which Robert
Hichens is contributing to the Century^ and which will end
in the September issue, are unusually brilliant pieces of descrip-
tive work. The Century presents them with many photographs and
with paintings in color by Jules Gu6rin. In the August Century
Hichens writes of the holy places in Jerusalem. We select the fol-
lowing extract :
** I heard, when I was about to penetrate into the low and dark
grotto in which our Lord is said to have been imprisoned and kept
for a time by the order of Pilate, a soft and strangely, innocently
sweet voice singing. I stood for some minutes listening, wondering
whether the singer was a child. Then I went on softly. In a small
and low cavern, containing a tiny wooden altar, I found an old
Russian peasant woman. She had set a votive candle upon the
altar. This was her only light. Dressed in a sort of tunic of some
coarse and dark stuff, with a short skirt and thick woolen leggins,
she was kneeling on the hard ground, holding a small book in her
wrinkled hands and singing. Now and then the tears rolled down
her cheeks. When I came in she did not look at me. I stayed for
some time with her in the cavern. I do not think she knew I
was there. Her soul was with Christ, imprisoned, maltreated, for
the sake of all the poor peasants of Russia, of all the poor peasants
of all lands. And the innocent tenderness of her heart, the gratis
tude, the sorrow, the faith of her soul, sent such an indescribable
sweetness, almost as of virginal youth, into her voice, that I shall
not forget it. The votive candle on the tiny wooden altar burned
low. I lelt her singing alone, yet surely with one hearer."
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Marriage, By Rev. John Charnock, S.J.^
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SEPTEMBER 1910
THE
ONIV. OF MICH,
Aira 991910
itholie rid
Ohristology and OriticiBm W. T. C. Skeppard, OS.B,, B.A.
Patricia, the Problem Esther W. Neill
In Garra and Tirawley, County Mayo Wilfrid St. Oswald
Social Work in Switsserland Virginia M. Crawford
stolen Fortunes Marie Manning
Problems in Charity William /• Kerby, Ph.D.
Spain of To-Day Andrew /. Shipman
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