Full text of "The Catholic world"

THE 



CATHOLIC WORLD. 

AP 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 




GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 



PUBLISHED BY THE PAULIST FATHERS. 



VOL,. XCIII. 
APRIL, 1911, TO SEPTEMBER, 1911. 



NEW YORK : 
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 

120 WEST 6oth STREET. 



1911, 



CONTENTS. 



Britain, What! Happened In. Hilaire 

Belloc, . . . . .64, 185 

Butler, Sir William. Sebastian Meynell, 351 

Catholic Church, The, in Norway. /. 

F. Scho field, 721 

Catholic Poet, A (Emily Hickey). 

Katharine Tynan, .... 328 

Catholic Schools, Efforts to Regain 

Support of , ..... 361 
Stare Support of Parish Schools, 498 
The Founding of New York's 
First Parish School. . . . 596 
Attempted Settlements of the 
School Question, .... 729 
Michael Henry Lucey, Ph.D., 

Catholic Social Platform, The. F. W. 

Grafton; 797 

Catholicism and Nationality.//. P. 

Russell-, 577 

Church, The, and European Civiliza- 
tion. Htlatre Belloc, 64,184,433,621 

City of the Arno, The. Katherine 

Bregy, ...... 463 

Dante, The Symbolism of. William 

Turner, S. T.D., .... 145 

Dark Ages, The.- Hilaire Belloc, . 433 

East and West. L. March Phillipps, . ' 88 

Escaped Nun, The. Katharine Tynan, 610 

Events, Recent, 128, 272, 417, 557, 705, 845 

Fogazzaro, Antonio. Anita MacMahon, 516 

Foreign Periodicals, 

120, 263, 409, 550, 698, 839 

George, Henry, and Private Property. 

John A. Ryan, ; ' . ~ . 289, 483 

Gladstone, William Ewart, The Human 

Side of. S. T. Swift, ... 52 

Hawthorne and Transcendentalism. 

Mary V. Hillmann, . . .199 

Hickey, Emily (A Catholic Poet). 

Katharine Tynan, .... 328 

His Outstretched Hand. Walter 

Elliott, C.S.P., . . . .234 

History of English Literature for Cath- 
olic Schools, A New. John /. 
Burke, C.S.P., . . , . 646 

Ibsen, Henrick. Edward Curran, . 767 

Irish Industrial Revival Movement, 
The. Bertram C. A. Windle, M. 
D.,F.RS. 225 

Middle Ages, The. Hilaire Belloc, . 620 

Missions, The Old, of California. 

Edith Sessions Tupper, . . . 380 



Mixed Marriages, The Agreement Prior 

to. fames M. Dohan,A.M., L.L.D., 667 

Mixed Marriages, The Agreement Prior 

to. Charles O'Sullivan, . . 341 

Mosques and Caravanserai. L. March 

Phillipps, 3 01 

Mystery of Perseverance, The. Walter 

Elliott, C.S.P., . . . -474 
Mystery of Suffering, The. Walter 

Elliott, C.S. P., , . . .752 
Newman's Devotion to Our Lady. 

William. Henry S her an. . . 174 

Ordination, An, in Rome Eileen 

Butler, s 493 

Parish Schools. see under " Catholic 

Schools." 
Polish Poets, Two, in Rome. Monica 

Gardner, . . . ... 17 

Portugal, Separation of Church and 

State in .Francis McCullagh, . 371 
Postulant, The First, .... 42 
Private Ownership of Land, Ethical 

Arguments of Henry George 

Against. John A. Ryan, S. T.D., 483 
Private Property, Henry George and. 

John A. Ryan, S.T.D., . . 289 
Private Property, The Indictment of. 

William /. Kerby, Ph.D., . . 30 
Radical and Conservative Fault-Find- 

ing. William /. Kerby, Ph.D., . 213 
Real Romance of Life, The. Thomas 

/. Gerrard, . . . . . i 
Ryan, The Late Archbishop. James P. 

Turner, . ' V ' ; . . . . 76 
School Question, Attempted Settle- 
ments of the. 

See under " Catholic Schools." 
Sir Calidore. E mily Hickey, . . 632 
Sir William Butler. Sebastian Meynell, 351 
St. Clare and Holy Poverty. Charlotte 

Sal/our, 77 8 

Spirit of the Bush, The. M. F. Quinlan, 807 
Thackeray./^. M. B., . . . -443 
Transcendentalism, Hawthorne and. 

Mary V. Hillmann, . . . .199 
Unforgotten Shrines. Laura M.<Jack- 

son, ....... 761 

What Happened in Britain. Hilaire 

Belloc, .... 64, 185 

With Our Readers, 137, 283, 425, 567, 716, 857 



STORIES. 



Devil's Money. Alice Dease, . 657 
Father Gaffrey's Adventure, Richard 

A. O'Brien, S./., . . . .510 
Lilium Auratum. Louise Imogen 

Guiney, 310 

The Colors. Ruth Quigley, . . 788 



The Maestro 's Story. Thomas B. Reilly, 455 
The Soul of Julius Bittel. Helena T. 

Goessmann, . . . . .742 
The Patriots. Helen Haines, . . 587 
What the Garden Brought to Bloom 

Katharine Tynan, .... 160 



CONTENTS. 



in 



POETRY. 



A Request. Sir William} Butler, 

G.C.B., 389 

A Wet Meadow. Caroline D, Swan, . 595 

Carmelo's Midnight Mass. Charlotte 

Morton, 630 

ChaunTing Mysteries. R. M. Burton, 63 



Flowers of Paradise, Katharine Tynan, 472 
Ichabod : Ichabod \-Cornelius Clifford, 766 
The Old Churchyard. Louise Imogen 

Guiney, 41 

The Maid. Katherine Bregy, . . 183 
The Tidal Call. John Jerome Rooney, 482 



NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



A Captain of Raleigh's, . . . 247 

A Conversion and a Vocation, . . 696 
A Guide to Reading in Social Ethics 

and Allied Subjects, . v . . . 260 

A Life's Ambition, .... 695 

A Little Girl from Back East, . . 696 

Allez a Lui, . .... 115 

A Manual of Church History, . . 252 

A Manual of English Church History, . 815 

American Corporations, . . . 397 

Andros of Ephesus, .... no 

An Excerpt from Reliquiae Baxterianae, 403 
A Papal Envoy During the Reign of 

Terror, 398 

Apres Le Concordat, .... 261 

A Priest and His Boys, . *..,';..'- . 100 

Are Our Prayers Heard ? . . . 117 

A Roman Diary, . . ... 242 

Art et Pornographic, .... 408 

As Gold in the Furnace, . . . 258 
A Sheaf of Stories, . . . .115 
A Short Course in Catholic Doctrine 

for non-Catholics Intending Marriage 

with Catholics, . 404 

A Soldier of Valley Forge, . . . 696 

A Texas Blue Bonnet, .... 118 
At Home with God, . . . .108 

Books by Catholic Authors, . . 547 

Bossuet Et Les Protestants, ... . 262 
Bright Ideas for Entertaining, . .116 

Buchez (1796-1865), .... 697 
Character Glimpses of the Most Rev. 

William Henry Elder, D.D., . . 405 

Chinese Lanterns, ..... 259 

Christ and the Gospel, .... 107 

Christ in the Church, .... 529 

Christ's Social Remedies, . . . 695 

Church Symbolism, .... 401 
Classic Myths in English Literature and 

in Art, 116 

Civisme et Catholicisme, . . . 408 

Devotions for Holy Communion, . . 406 

Discours Eucharistique, . . . 697 

Donald Kenny, ..... 116 
Down at Stein's Pass, and Down at 

Cross Timbers, ..... 258 

Early Steps in the Fold, . . . 101 

Education : How Old the New, . . 102 
Education in the United States Since 

the Civil War, 100 

Essai sur la Foi, 119 

Every woman, 400 

Exposition de la Doctrine de 1'Eglise 

Catholique, ...... 697 

Father Damien, ..... 548 



Father Tim, 

Feasts for the Faithful, . 

Fenelon. Etudes Historiques, 

First National Catholic Congress 

Leeds, .... 
France Under the Republic, 
Freddy Carr's Adventures, 



405 
404 
835 

392 
832 
697 



FreeWill, 257 

French Secondary Schools, . . 117 

Geoffrey Chaucer, . . . . : . . 697 

George Thorne, .... 691 

Gerard, Our Little Belgian Cousin, 258 
Gettysburg ; The Pivotal Battle of th 

Civil War, ..... 543 
Guida Degli Stati Uniti Per L'Immi 

grante Italiano, .... 113 
Habitations A Bon Marche et Caisses 

d'Epargne, 697 

Heart Songs, 260 

Her Journey's End, .... 837 

Hero Haunted, ..... 694 
Historia de la Educacion y La Peda- 

gogia, 838 

Historic Nuns, 405 

Historic de L'Eglise, . . . .408 

History of Dogmas 249 

Home Life in Ireland, .... 818 

Home Rule, . . . . . . 195 

Homestead, ...... 544 

Idola Fori, ...... 253 

Individualism, 813 

Izamal, 249 

Jacquetta, . ... . . .536 

Jesus All Great, . . . -117 

Jesus Christ, Sa Vie, Son" Temps. 

Lecons d'Ecriture Sainte, . . . 262 

Jeunesse et Piete, 407 

John Murray's Landfall, . . . 545 
La Bonte et Ses Trois Principaux Ad- 

versaires, ... . . . 261 

La Cite Future 837 

La Comunion De Los Ninos Inocentes, 838 
La Comunion Frecuete Y Diaria Y La 

Primera Comuni6n, .... 838 
La Crise Organique De L'Eglise en 

France, 838 

La Familia de Santa Teresa en America, 838 
L'Amed'un Grand Catholique; Esprit de 

Foi de Louis Veiullot d'Apres sa Cor- 

respondance. L'Homme Public, . 697 

Lands of the Southern Cross, . . 828 

La Philosophic Minerale, . . . 549 

L'Apologetique, 549 

La Psychologie Dramatique du Mystere 

de la Passion a Oberammergau, . . 549 

La Reforme de la Pronunciation Latine, 261 

La Religion de L'Ancienne Egypte, . 118 

L' Art d'Arriver au Vrai, . . . 407 
L'Art de Tromper, D'Intimider et de 

Corrompre L'Electeur, . . . 834 

La Valeur Sociale De L'Evangile, . 407 

La Venerable Marie de L'Incarnation, 549 
La Verite du Catholicisme, . . .119 

Le Ange Gardien, / 407 

Leaves from My Diary, .... 680 
Le Clerge Gallo-Romain d la Fin du 

IVe SiScle .69? 

Lectures on Greek Poetry, ... 254 

Le Dogme, 408 



iv 



CONTENTS. 



Le Fleau Romantique, . . . . . 693 

Le Martyrologe, 48 

Le Mystere de la Redemption, . . 549 

Leonard de Vinci, 549 

Le Positivisme Chretien, . . 47 

Les Evangiles Synoptiques, . . . 54^ 

Les Jeunes Filles Francises, . . 408 

Les Miracles de N. S., Jesus Christ, . 697 
Les Soeurs Bronte, . . . -545 

Letters of John Mason Neale, D.D., . 822 

L'Evangile et le Temps Present, . 47 

L'Habitation Ouvriere et a Bon Marche, 261 
Lights and Shadows of Life on the 

Pacific Coast, 47 

Little Blossoms of Love, Kindness and 

Obedience, IO 4 

Marriage and Parenthood, . . . 53 8 

Mass in A, 695 

Mass in B 695 

Meditations on the Blessed Virgin, . 695 

Melchior of Boston, .... m 

Memorabilia, 40 

Mezzogiorno, 104 

Mind and Voice, 260 

Modernism, . 825 

Mementoes of the English Martyrs and 

Confessors for Every Day in the Year, 404 
More Short Readings for Mary's Chil- 
dren, 697 

Nicolas Caussin, 836 

None Other Gods, no 

Our Lord's Last Will and Testament, . 407 

Pascal, 833 

Pat, 115 

Plans d'Instruction pour le Diocese de 

Nevers, 407 

Preachers and Teachers, . . . 248 
Principios Fundamentales del Derecho 

Penal, 838 

Protestant Modernism, . . . . 252 
Psychic Phenomena, Science and Im- 
mortality, *..... 837 

Robert Kimberly, 106 

Rosemary, or Life and Death, . . 258 

Rough Rider to President, . . . 693 
Round the World, . ... .116 
Round the Year with the Stars, . .258 

Sacratissimi Cordis Jesu, . . . 838 

Saint Leger, 837 

Sermons and Lectures, .... 688 

Sermons of St. Bernard, . . . 251 
Siena and Southern Tuscany, . .113 

Socialism, ...... 395 

Spiritual Considerations, . . . 549 

Spiritual Instruction on Religious Life, 549 

St. Charles Borromeo, .... 528 

St. Pie V., 549 

Sursum Corda. Haut Les Coeurs, . 407 

Suzel et sa Marraine 408 

Tales of the Tenements, . . .112 

The Agnus Dei, ..... 695 

The Apologies of Justin Martyr, . . 543 
The Assyro-Babylonian Religion, . .118 
The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic 

Church, 825 

The Big League, 691 

The Broad Highway, . . . .112 

The Centurian, n 7 

The Child Labor Problem of New 

Jersey 689 

The Child Prepared for First Commu- 
nion, 4 oc 

The Children's Charter, . . . S4 8 

The Comic Spirit of George Meredith, 831 

The Contemplative Life, . . . 528 

The Dawn of Modern England, . . 813 



The Doorkeeper and Other Poems, . 391 

The Dweller on the Threshold, . . 535 

The Education of a Music Lover, 539 

The Fate of Henry of Navarre, . . 536 

The Friar Saints, . . ' . . . 547 
The Fundamental Principles of the 

Spiritual Life 826 

The Garden of the Sun, . . . 836 

The Golden Lad, 695 

The Golden Web, 405 

The Groundwork of Christian Perfec- 
tion, 117 

The Hidden Signatures of Francesco 

Colonna and Francis Bacon, . . 259 

The Intellectuals, . 390 

The Isle of Columbcille, . . . 695 

The Jews 689 

The Job Secretary, .... 531 

The Jukes, 541 

The Ladies' Battle, . . . .685 

The Lands of the Tamed Turk, . 406 

The Lectionary, 829 

The Life of Blessed John Eudes, . . 109 

The Life of Blessed John Eudes, . 832 

The Life of Blessed John Ruysbroeck, 688 
The Life of Cardinal Gibbons, . .'696 

The Life of Richard Wagner, . . 820 

The Life of Robert Browning, . . 397 

The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, . . 531 

The Life of St. Bridget of Sweden, . 406 

The Life of St. Leonard, . . . 404 

The Life St. Thomas Aquinas, . . 547 

The Little Past, 406 

The Maid of Orleans, . . . . 247 

The Making of Jim O'Neill, . . 695 

The Meaning of Social Science, . . 396 

The Mission of Pain, . . . . 692 

The Mystery of the Priest's Parlour, . 691 

The Origin of the Pentateuch, . . 540 

The Other Wife, . 259 

The O'Shaughnessy Girls, . . . 257 

The Oxford Book of Italian Verse, . 399 

The Passing of the American, . . 686 

The Patrician, 393 

The Philosophy of Music, . . . 819 
The Plain Gold Ring, . . . .114 

The Process of Abstraction, . . . 533 

The Purple East, 541 

The Raccolta, 549 

The Roof of the Jungle, . . . 116 

The Second Spring, . . . . ( 826 

The Social Value of the Gospel, . . 8n 
The Solution of the Child Laor 

Problem, ...... 542 

The Standard of Living Among the In- 
dustrial Population of America, . 395 
The Spirit of Power, .... 251 

The Steel Workers, . . . .544 

The Thirteenth, the Greatest of Cen- 
turies, 682 

The Toll of the Arctic Seas, . . .685 

The Trail of the Tenderfoot, . . 260 
The Training of Children and of Girls 

in Their Teens, . . . . . 812 

The Unfading Light, .... 104 
The West in the East, . . . .683 
The Worker and the State, . . .535 

Twenty Years at Hull-House, . . 542 
The Year Book of the Catholic Settle- 
ment Association of Brooklyn, New 

York 116 

Union With Jesus, .... 406 

Wandering Ghosts, .... 259 

War or Peace, ..... 256 
What the Old Clock Saw, . . .404 

Who are the Jesuits ? . . 824 




THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. APRIL, 1911. No. 553. 

THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE. 

BY THOMAS J. GERRARD. 

JHE biography of the late Cardinal Vaughan has 
been described as "high romance." The world 
had seen only his exterior life, and at best had 
under-judged him, seeing in him but a hard- 
working priest of somewhat narrow outlook. 
But this book has to a large extent revealed his interior life. 
And it is precisely the interior life, the romance of his soul 
in relationship to God, which has taken the world by surprise 
and compelled an admiration and sympathy, where previously 
criticism, indifference, or antipathy prevailed. 

The lesson is well worth emphasizing, for the whole ten- 
dency of the time spirit is to obscure it. 

As representative embodiments of this time spirit we may 
take two extremes Leo Tolstoi and Friedrich Nietzsche. 
Starting from the same fallacy in thought, and putting their 
principles into action, they described arcs of conduct opposite 
to each other at every point. They eventually met again, 
united in the same fallacy with which they started, and which 
each had worked out to its own logical and practical absurdity. 
The mistake which both men made was that they failed to 
take into account man's real destiny and the right method of 
attaining it. The absurdity arrived at was dark chaos of 
thought and ghastly failure of life. 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL XCIII. I 



2 THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

Tolstoi had lived the animal life to satiety. He was a man 
of strong will, strong passions, and even strong intellect. But 
his faculties were not well ordered in relationship to each 
other. Consequently when he had lived out his lower life, 
when the weariness of it all came upon him, he knew not 
where to turn for rest and refreshment. From the Orthodox 
Eastern Church, in which he had been brought up, he had 
learnt something of the lite of Christ, more, however, of its 
outward enactment than of its inward meaning. The Eastern 
Church is notoriously the example of all history of arrested 
development. When cut off from the true vine, the branches 
ceased to be quickened by the sap of life. 

Tolstoi was not too slow to recognize this. He proposed, 
therefore, to interpret anew the facts which he had learned. 
With a conceit which makes one shudder he affected to go to 
the Greek text of the Gospels there to re-discover the Christ 
who had been buried in false ecclesiastical tradition. 

Unfortunately he took with him all his jaded experiences. 
Unfortunately, therefore, he took with him a Christ which he 
had already determined to find. So in the Greek Gospels he 
saw the reflection of his own worn-out arid soul. He was so 
sick of a life of debauchery, impurity, and crime, that he wanted 
simply to rid himself of the will to live and to think and to 
do. Suicide was too small a thing for him, for he was a man 
of big things. So quite naturally he probed his way to that 
fascinating, mental drug, the nothingness of the Buddhist 
Nirvana. He could not have had a more fitting emblem of 
his world-idea than that, the only religious one, which adorned 
his room as he lay dead, namely, a bust of Buddha. 

The great idea which he took from the life ofj Christ was 
the policy of non-resistance. There were, indeed, many things 
in the life of Christ which seemed to justify his leading theme. 
Christ did tell His disciples to sell all and follow Him. The 
rich should hardly enter into the kingdom of God. Father, 
mother, wife, children, yea, and one's own life must be left in 
order to be Christ's disciple. Hand must be cut off and eye 
plucked out for the Gospel's sake. " If any man will come 
after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and 
follow Me." 

Yet what a difference between this asceticism and that of 
Buddha! Both Christ and Buddha preached a doctrine of re- 



i9i i.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 3 

nunciation, but each with a different motive. Christ taught 
renunciation of a lower life in order that the limited powers 
of the soul might be free for a higher life. What He took 
away, He would restore a hundredfold. Buddha taught the 
renunciation of all life, because, as he said, life was bad in 
itself and the source of all misery. Animal life, intellectual 
life, moral life, all were the cause of pain. There was only 
one heaven to be sought for, the Nirvana of eternal uncon- 
sciousness. 

Tolstoi with his left hand laid hold on some of the external 
incidents in the life of Christ, and with his right hand laid 
hold on the internal motive of Buddha. 

Fortunately or unfortunately he had a wife and family who 
laid both hands on his landed property and his literary copy- 
rights. They prevented him from renouncing the stewardship 
of his possessions to the extent of rendering himself a burden 
to the community. They at any rate were practical enough to 
distrust a theory which was based neither on authority nor on 
experience. He tried as a last resource to run away from this 
hindrance to the realization of his ideal. His intention, how- 
ever, was not to go into the steppes of Russia and live all by 
himself, but rather to the community life of an Orthodox 
monastery. But death overtook him on the way and deprived 
him of this small measure of imagined consolation. His body 
was carried back to his ancestral home, where it was laid out, 
as we have said, under the shadow and blessing of the Lord 
Buddha. 

From Leo Tolstoi the pendulum swings to Friedrich Nietz- 
sche. Tolstoi rejected authority for the sake of no life ; 
Nietzsche rejected authority for the sake of licentious life. 
Kant had muddled the sources of thought by his distinction 
between the appearance of a thing and the thing in itself. 
The mind could know nothing, he declared, of things in 
themselves, but only of their appearances. Schopenhauer saw 
the moral chaos which must follow from such a doctrine, and 
so did not hesitate to proclaim the blank pessimism with 
which the moral life became enshrouded. The world was 
hopelessly bad. Schopenhauer too leaned towards Buddhism 
as a remedy for the evil. The " will to live " was the cause 
of all pain. The only way to be rid of it was to be rid of 
life, to plunge one's self into pessimism of utter negation. 



4 THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

Nietzsche followed Schopenhauer for a time. But he was 
keen enough to see that there was no chance of such selfless 
ideals making any impression on Western civilization. So 
Nietzsche broke away from Schopenhauer. He failed, how- 
ever to see that there is such a thing as noble selfishness, a 
selfishness which sacrifices one's lower interests for the sake 
of the higher, a selfishness which sacrifices the lonely self in 
order to find a richer self in being a member of a social body. 

Blind to this higher life Nietzsche had no course open to 
him but to declare for absolute brutal selfishness. Let us 
simply follow our instincts and do just as we like. Let us 
only exert the will to power and by this activity shall we 
emerge out of man into superman. It is only weakness which 
shows pity on the feeble and suffering. Let all weak things 
be crushed. Let only the strong prevail. 

Thus did Nietzsche herald himself as " the great Immor- 
alist." 

"Beyond good and evil." Without defining strictly what 
he meant by this aphorism, he said that only slaves were fit 
for law. If man must attain to superman he must not be 
bound down by any law, not even by the law of reason. 
Metaphysic was but a device for the enslavement of morals. 
Religion was but a hindrance to the development of the su- 
perman. 

Nietzsche ended his days in a lunatic asylum. Whether 
his philosophy was a result of his lunacy or his lunacy a re- 
sult of his philosophy, we need not stay to inquire. Which- 
ever alternative we choose, the lesson is the same. Tamper 
with the foundations of thought, and then, no matter which 
way we take, the end thereof is the madhouse. If there can 
be pure subjectivism in thought, why not also in conduct ? If 
there is only relative truth, why not only relative goodness? 
Yes, why not ? So whatever else the superman is or is not, 
he is this, a law unto himself, a man who acts upon impulse 
and without a reason. He is exactly such a man as a benign 
government to-day takes care of in a padded room. 

Nevertheless both Tolstoi and Nietzsche have made an im- 
pression on their age. The one has been called the most 
prominent figure in Europe in our time, the other, the great- 
est European event since Goethe. There must be some rea- 
son for such notoriety. Literary ability counts for something. 



.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 5 

The fact, too, that each had a revolutionary programme at- 
tracted much attention. But these things are in themselves 
not sufficient to account for the influence of the two philoso- 
phers. The soil upon which their teaching fell must have 
been wanting in something. 

The truth is that the Western world is getting tired of the 
emasculated Christianity of the Reformation, and satiated with 
the quest for material pleasure which has been its offspring. 
Nay even in the Eastern world there is a movement towards 
a system of thought in which activity and life is the goal of 
existence rather than sleep and death. East and West alike 
are beginning to realize that man does not live by bread 
alone, and that the life which is true life is the life of spirit. 
In all the turmoil man wants a contented peace. But true 
peace is tranquillity with order; whereas the peace which 
Nietzsche and Tolstoi have proposed is the peace of disorder. 
Both have tried to do away with law, the one by universal 
resistance, the other by universal non-resistance. The romance 
which was intended for tragedy has become comedy. Ex- 
tremes have met and kissed each other. 

In contrast to Nietzsche and Tolstoi we may set the figure 
of St. Thomas Aquinas. He, too, felt the need which they felt, 
namely, that of rising above the sordid life of a fallen nature. 
He felt the triviality of worldly ideals. Neither the "will to 
sleep," nor the " will to live " nor the " will to power " were 
enough for him. They were not, therefore, bad and to be re- 
jected. They were to be used as stepping stones to the high- 
er life of the spirit, the will to know and to love God. In 
this he sought and found a lasting happiness. 

St. Thomas, although a monk, had a wide experience of 
the world. He had imperial blood in his veins to begin with. 
As a boy he had known the quiet life of the cloister in the 
monastery of Monte Cassino. Thence he had been driven by 
the troops of the Emperor to Naples, where he enjoyed five 
years of university life. A year in gaol afforded him leisure 
to acquaint himself thoroughly with the works of Aristotle. 
From Naples he went to Cologne where he studied as a pupil 
of Albert the Great. Here, too, he was brought into touch 
with the Rhineland mystics. When Albert the Great was 
transferred to Paris he took Thomas with him. Paris was 
famous as a school of extreme rational speculation. Thomas 



6 TS* REAL ROMANCE OP LIFE [April, 

faced the rigors of this, first as pupil and afterwards as pro- 
fessor. Nor did he escape the trial of ecclesiastical censorship. 
We know too that whilst at Paris he paid a visit to London 
and was present at a chapter of the Order, held at Holborn. 
He had the chance of becoming Abbot of the greatest monas- 
tery in the Church and had the honor of being named for an 
archbishopric. Both kings and Popes chose him for their 
counsellor. 

Although possessed of a wide experience of the world, his 
experience of himself was something wider and deeper. He 
was an expert in prayer and study. His knowledge of the 
subjective and the objective worlds was extremely well bal- 
anced. His wisdom was nourished proportionately from with- 
out and from within. No wonder his genius found a sympathy 
with the genius of Aristotle. The two minds alike had an 
overwhelming trust in the philosophy of common sense. 

The first fact of this common sense philosophy was the 
unity of the human person. St. Thomas did not regard pure 
reason as an entity shut up in a box by itself ; nor will as 
something organically distinct and having only a mechanical 
communication with the reason ; nor sensation as something 
which was a mere hindrance to thought and volition. He 
regarded these faculties as powers of the one whole man. It 
was the man who thought, willed and felt, and the faculties 
by which he did these things were but powers of one organic 
being. The man was not the intellect, the intellect was not 
the will, the will was not the man. But intellect, will and 
feeling in organic dependence on one another, each acting ac- 
cording to its own nature as part of the nature of the whole 
man. On this point St. Thomas anticipated the findings of 
modern biology. 

Consequently the difficulties which have been raised by 
Kant could not possibly be difficulties to him. He did not 
attempt to examine the facts of experience with pure reason 
alone. He went to them with his whole personality. Approach- 
ing them in this way he could not but be convinced of the 
difference between himself and the outside world. The sub- 
ject was entirely distinct from the object. This was the primary 
announcement of his own personality. He would not conde- 
scend to prove it, because it was as certain to him as his own 
existence. 



.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 7 

Being convinced of the reality of the outer world he argued 
from that to the existence of God. He knew that he himself 
was alive and in movement. He knew that there was move- 
ment in the world. That movement could come only from 
One who was immovable. 

Taking his stand on the three facts, himself, the world and 
God, he could take an optimistic view of life. He was on 
bed-rock and he could look the future in the face joyously. 
With his mind he could be certain about truth, and in the 
contemplation of truth was to be found happiness. Since 
everything had been created by God, everything was good. 
All being is good, and the more being a thing has in it, the 
better it is. Better to be a tree than a stone ; better a brute 
than a tree; better a man than a brute. And so too in the 
life of man, the vegetative life is good, the circulation of the 
blood and the digestion of food; the animal life is better, 
seeing, hearing and feeling ; the intellectual, moral and aesthetic 
life, all which we regard as mere psychic life, is still better; 
but the highest of all is the spirit life, that life in which all 
the other vital functions and faculties are subordinated and 
directed to the enrichment of the spirit living in communion 
with God. St. Thomas was opposed tooth and nail to all 
philosophy which tended to limit life as something evil in it- 
self. He was opposed tooth and nail to all philosophy which 
made the enjoyment of natural life, even in its highest forms 
of knowledge and love, the goal of human happiness and the 
fulness of human life. 

In order, however, to get beyond the joy of natural truth 
and natural goodness he had need of other text-books than 
those of Aristotle. He had recourse chiefly to the writings 
of St. John and St. Paul. With the aid of these he was able 
to carry his principle to a higher plain. If happiness is the 
joy and contentment at the sight of truth, then the keenest 
zest of life must be the happiness of seeing the unveiled sub- 
stance of God. 

St. John had had a deep experience of life. He had seen 
the effect of heresy in limiting life by generating a false asceti- 
cism. Through the medium of the historic Christ he had 
caught the fire of eternal love which had kindled his life into 
one contemplative glow. From the fulness of this experience 
and in his extreme old age he wrote the Fourth Gospel. 



s THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

The historic Christ was the very Incarnation of Him who 
is pre-eminently Spirit, for God is a spirit, and they that adore 
Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth; of Him Who is 
pre-eminently Light, for "that God is light, and in Him there 
is no darkness"; of Him Who is pre-eminently Love, since 
"he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is charity." 

Contrasted to the Incarnation of Spirit, Light, and Love 
is the world of darkness, the effect of which is to shut out 
love. Just as love and knowledge mutually help each other, 
so ignorance and hatred do likewise. " He that hateth his 
brother is in the darkness and walketh in darkness and know- 
eth not whither he goeth." But the Light shineth in the 
darkness even though the darkness comprehend it not. The 
historic Christ is an effulgence of the Light in Whom we all 
have life. "And of His fulness we all have received, grace 
for grace." 

The theme runs through all St. John's writings. It is vis- 
ualized for us in three magnificent episodes. The first is the 
midnight scene with Nicodemus. The distracted old man had 
heard of the new life and could not understand how it could 
be. Yet it was to be as real as if a man had actually entered 
once more into his mother's womb and been born again. The 
second is the scene in the synagogue by the lake side at 
Capharnaum. Christ's hearers were perhaps more bewildered 
than Nicodemus had been. Yet such a tremendous truth needed 
strong expression. So they must bear to be told : " Except you 
eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you shall 
not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh 
My Blood hath everlasting life." The third scene is that in 
the upper room when Christ preached from the familiar sym- 
bol of the vine: "I am the true vine; and My Father is the 
husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He 
will take away : and every one that beareth fruit, He will purge 
it, that it may bring forth more fruit. I am the vine, you are 
the branches. Without Me you can do nothing." 

In the last episode there is not only a declaration of the 
higher spirit life, and of its oneness in Christ and the Chris- 
tian, but also of the necessity of sacrificing the poorer Hie for 
the sake of the richer. 

The organic unity of the spirit life is more explicitly stated 
by St. Paul. With him Christ and the Church together make 



i9i i.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 9 

one mystical person. The note of personality carries with it 
the most forcible expression of organic unity. The life of 
Christ is continued and diffused by the Church. 

St. Paul, too, is most explicit in showing the oneness of 
this life before and behind the veil, in time and in eternity. 
Christ lived a triple life the first pre-existent in the spirit 
world, the second in humiliation on earth, the third in glori- 
fication once more in the spirit world. "Who being in the 
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. 
Bat emptied Himself taking the form of a servant. . . . 
He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to 
the death of the cross. For which cause God hath exalted 
Him . . . that every tongue should confess that the Lord 
Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father." 

And all this was in order that men might enjoy a higher 
life. We are reconciled in some mystic way by His death; 
but, being reconciled we are saved by His life. " And as in 
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." The 
new life is simply the charity of God manifesting itself through 
man. The sin was organic, the remedy must be organic. As 
the Godhead had a pleroma or complement in Christ, so Christ 
has a pleroma or complement in the Church. She is His body, 
the plenitude of Him Who (thus) completes Himself, an All in 
all. The Head without the members were just as much a mon- 
strosity as the members without the Head. Through this or- 
ganic unity the individual promotes his own spiritual growth 
and power. Thus, and only thus, is the spiritual ideal realized, 
no nebulous giant nor yet a mere expert in mental gymnastics, 
but the perfect man of the measure of the age of the fulness 
of Christ. 

From Aristotle St. Thomas learnt that all virtues were 
united in prudence. But from St. John and St. Paul he learnt 
that prudence must be transcended by charity. Knowledge 
was transcended by faith and hope, and all were united in 
charity, the bond of perfection. Here, then, was the main stream 
of life to which all tributaries flowed, the stream of love which 
flowed both from and to the great Love Uncreate. To feel the 
thrill of that love was the supreme joy of life. 

So highly romantic is this love that it ennobles and enriches 
all the creature-loves and even all the self-loves which are 
subordinate to it. It is at once, therefore, the principle of 



io THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

the most perfect individualism and the most perfect altruism. 
In sacrificing ourselves for the higher claims of the spirit we 
are but economizing our potentialities of enjoyment, saving 
ourselves for a richer form of spirit life; and conversely, in 
serving ourselves rightly, we are ministering to the highest 
claims of the Spirit. 

We require no little courage, however, to make such a tre- 
mendous experiment of life. Indeed, it were a foolhardy ven- 
ture did we not have a firm groundwork to start from and a 
sure and certain goal to aim at. St. Thomas provides the one 
with his philosophy and the other with his theology. His 
philosophy shows the certainty of three gigantic and distinct 
facts self, the world, and God. His theology shows the super- 
natural vision and love of the spirit life, an enigmatic vision 
and imperfect love whilst on the way, but a clear vision and 
a perfect love in the fatherland. This is the key to the riddle 
of life and the mystery of Redemption. " I am come that they 
may have life, and have it more abundantly." 

The sacrifice of a smaller and a poorer love for a larger 
and a greater one, that is the principle which both Tolstoi and 
Nietzsche were blindly groping for and which both pathetically 
missed. In Tolstoi, life is suppressed without a sufficient de- 
velopment of the higher life. The end to be obtained was not 
clearly understood. In Nietzsche, life is unconsciously sup- 
pressed because animal force is developed at the expense of 
psychic force, or psychic at the expense of spiritual. Hence 
we can understand why the reading of Anna Karenina is so 
wearisome and why one closes the Kreutzer Sonata before one 
has finished it. Passion is regarded in its material aspect, made 
an end in itself, and consequently is never carried to the higher 
planes of the spirit. Hence arises Tolstoi's repetition of the 
Manichean heresy of "forbidding to marry, and commanding 
to abstain from meats," as if these things were bad in them- 
selves. Hence, too, springs Nietzsche's worship of the primary 
animal impulse. "To whom chastity is difficult," he says, "it 
is to be dissuaded: lest it become the road to hell to filth 
and lust of the soul." Whether the brute instinct should lead 
to continence, to marriage, or to sin, all was equally good, if 
only the instinct were followed. That such an experiment of 
life should end in disillusion and misery, if not in madness 
and hopeless death, would seem to be demanded by the piti* 



1 9i i.] THE REAL ROMANCE OP LIFE n 

less logic of facts. There may have been a semblance of ro- 
mance in it at the beginning, but the end could be nothing 
else but a prosaic, loveless disgust. 

For really high romance we must turn to the saints of the 
Catholic Church. The Catholic saint is the only intelligible 
superman, if by superman we mean a being who has con- 
quered the moral weaknesses of human nature. The Catholic 
saint is the one who obtains the richest return of life for the 
renunciations which he makes. And why ? It is because he 
is an expert in sanctity, because he is a genius in love, hav- 
ing proved to himself that love cannot be satisfied by the 
Relative and Transitory, but only by the Absolute and Eter- 
nal. 

Nor is this higher love altogether dependent on the quality 
of the saint's intellectual or physical perfection ; nor yet on 
his social environment. For we have great saints from every 
stage of intellectual ability, from every rank of society. St. 
Thomas himself towers as one of the intellectual giants of all 
time. His intelligence however was always ministrant to his 
love. He chastised his body to bring it into subjection, to 
make it a fit instrument for his understanding and devotion ; 
not however to such an extent as to weaken his intellectual 
power. The Blessed Cure d'Ars on the other hand was no- 
toriously stupid in his theological studies. His great love 
however seemed to bear with it an extraordinary power of 
discernment in spiritual things, an instinctive intellectual habit 
by which he could guide souls in the intricate ways of the 
higher love. 

It has been charged against the Catholic saint that he is 
but an exotic from the forcing house of the cloister. The 
cloister truly has been the home where many a rare spiritual 
plant has been nurtured, a soul distinguished rather for spir- 
itual gracefulness than for spiritual robustness. The garden 
of God does not limit itself to the culture of huge cedar 
trees. It is a garden of grace, and grace implies delicacy 
as well as strength of form. So we have our St. Benedict, 
our St. Teresa, our St. Aloysius, our St. Bruno, our Vener- 
able Bede. 

But the world as well as the cloister claims a large share 
of moral genius. There may be a beggar like Benedict Joseph 
Labre. We may admire his sanctity without admiring the 



12 THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

means he took to attain it. His motive was right. At any 
rate he serves the function of showing that this spirit life can 
flourish in the lowest dregs of society. On the other hand 
there is a St. Louis, King of France. Nietzsche asks for the 
warrior, and merely the warrior. In St. Louis however we 
see the warrior and the statesman raised to the plane of heroic 
sanctity. Both his fighting and his statesmanship were kept 
subordinate to his love of God. "Who am I," he would say 
when meeting an opposing army against which he seemed to 
have small hope of victory, " who am I but a wretched man, 
whose life belongs to God. He hath a sovereign right to dis- 
pose of it as pleaseth Him. Whether we are conquerors or 
martyrs we shall glorify Him, either by the success of our 
arms, or by the sacrifice of our lives." And when he entered 
the conquered city, he did so, not with the pomp of a con- 
queror, but walking barefoot with his queen. If other warrior 
saints are wanted we need only mention St. Edmund King, 
St. Eustace, St. Ferdinand of Castile, St. Oswald King, and 
St. Sebastian. 

Sometimes we do read of a certain mawkishness in the 
saints' lives, which looks like a flaw both in the robustness 
and in the gracefulness of the perfection of the spirit life. 
And oftentimes do we see the same mawkishness in the lives 
of pious Christians and devout Catholics. It is the presence 
of this softness which gives an advantage and an excuse for 
such a philosophy as that of Nietzsche in our day. With re- 
gard to the saints, the canonized saints of the Catholic Church, 
we may conclude at once that the supposed weakness is not 
theirs but that of their biographers. This is the day of re- 
interpreting the saints' lives. The Bollandist students are the 
pioneers of the useful work. Father Delehaye in his "Leg- 
ends of the Saints " has provided us with a grammar of inter- 
pretation. Thus we can read in the life of St. Thomas that 
when he was a baby he found a piece of paper on which was 
written the Angelic Salutation and that he stuck to it when 
his nurse tried to take it away; that he cried for it when his 
mother took it from him; and that when she gave it to him 
he put it into his mouth and swallowed it. But we need not 
see in the episode a sign of his future devotion to the Mother 
of God. That is the suggestion of his biographer. What St. 
Thomas did was just what any normal healthy child would 



i9i i.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 13 

have done. Similarly we can redeem much of the life of St. 
Aloysius from the hands of his biographers. We ought all to 
read the article entitled "Puerilia V."* by the Rev. Cyril 
Martindale, SJ. Then we shall understand how the saint has 
helped so many thousands to live clean lives, and how we 
could not see it before. 

Still, in spite of their biographers, the saints have made 
their mark on the world. Take one example, St. Francis of 
Assisi. Compare him with those whom George Bernard Shaw 
calls "our few accidental Supermen/' Goethe, Shakespeare, 
Shelley, Cromwell, Napoleon, Caesar. To whom should we 
turn to learn the grammar of happiness ? To whom should 
we look for the value of life and all its joys ? Surely to him 
who would save the life of a worm notwithstanding his wide 
experience of all life, natural as well as spiritual. Just listen 
to his joy at all creation, a joy which comes to him only 
because he can relate all creation to the Creator. 

Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures, 

Especially to my worshipful brother sun, 

The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou 

brightness give; 

And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great; 
Of Thee, most High, signification gives. 


Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth. 
The which sustains and keeps 
And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers 

bright. 

Praised be my Lord for those who for Thy love forgive 

And weakness bear and tribulation. 

Blessed those who shall in peace endure, 

For by Thee, most high, shall they be crowned. 

It is St. Francis* all-embracing, joyous love which even 
now is drawing the love of the world towards him. It was 
his universal sympathy which could inspire Dante for had 
there been no St. Francis there had been no Dante. But this 
sympathy was vast, tender and strong only because it had 

* The Month. August, 1910. 



i4 THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April, 

God for its final motive. Hear the saint's prayer to obtain 
divine love: "I beseech Thee, O Lord, that the fiery and 
sweet strength of Thy love may absorb my soul from all 
things that are under heaven, that I may die for love of Thy 
love as Thou didst deign to die for love of my love." 

While insisting on spiritual love as the real groundwork of 
the joy of life, its substance and essence, we must also insist 
on spiritual vision as a means of obtaining the highest degree 
of joy of life. There have been countless souls who have 
loved God and yet have not attained to that abundant joy in 
God, at least in this world, which they might have done had 
they had the full light of Catholic truth. 

A good example of this class is John Bunyan. He stands 
about half way between Tolstoi and St. Thomas. He believed 
in and taught of " Grace Abounding," and his " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress" has been a source of spirit life for thousands. There was 
never any doubt as to his rectitude of will. Moved by grace 
he struggled on from the City of Destruction to the Land of 
Promise. Yet, what needless hindrances, and disappointments 
and sadness did he suffer through imperfect knowledge of the 
truth ! He felt, for instance, that he had not faith to work 
miracles, and concluded therefore that he had not justifying 
faith. He wanted a text to support him, such as "none ever 
hoped in God and was confounded," but that was only in the 
Apochrypha, not in the Protestant bible. He was worried with 
the most commonplace scruples and had no authority to help 
him to deal with them. He thought he had given an inward 
consent to the thought of selling his Master, and he had no 
one to explain to him the theology of full knowledge, full 
control and full consent. " I could not now tell how to speak 
my words for fear I should misplace them. Oh, how gingerly 
did I then go in all I did or said." His perseverance through 
the darkness won for him a strong consolation at the last. 
" Weep not for me, " were his last words, " but for yourselves. 
I go to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who doubtless 
through the mediation of His Son, will receive me, though a 
sinner, when we shall ere long meet, to sing the new song 
and be happy forever." 

As far as we can judge he had all the subjective disposi- 
tions which would go to make up a saint. But he lacked the 
objective light which was needed to bring his dispositions to 



i9i i.] THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE 15 

full maturity and fruitfulness, He was without that sunshine 
which makes the saint's life so buoyant and so joyous. And 
so he remains for all time the embodiment of Puritan prose 
and sadness. 

Once again, then, we turn to the Catholic ideal. It is the 
story of love between God and the human soul. Renuncia- 
tion is practised for the sake of a higher fruition. In sacri- 
fice of this kind there is experienced the real lasting zest of 
life; and the greater the sacrifice, so much the keener is the 
joy of possession. 

Moreover, the Catholic ideal provides that this higher joy 
may be reached either through marriage or through virginity. 
In the Catholic ideal the contract of marriage is raised to the 
dignity of a sacrament. The mutual love between husband, and 
wife and child is no mere carnal bond binding the family to 
the home on earth, but rather a triple cord of the invisible 
spirit binding the family to the spirit world. In the Catholic 
ideal the vow of virginity cuts away the joys of family life' 
sacrifices the honor and glory of bringing children into the 
world and educating them for the kingdom of heaven. But 
for what reason ? Only in order that the spirit may be more 
free to foster the spirit life in itself and in others. What the 
virgin sacrifices in the joy and glory of bodily generation, 
she gains a hundredfold in the joy and glory of spiritual 
generation. 

Hsnee we find that the finest of the world's literature turns 
on the mystery of virginity. It is the young girl and the 
young man led by a virgin love who are the characters of 
our noblest fiction. Decadent novels treat rather of the mar- 
ried, the widowed and the divorced. But even in the pursuit 
of the virgin love which blossoms into marriage, our great 
fiction only bears witness implicitly to the need of making 
passion ever ministrant to the spirit. Thus John Ayscough 
can tell us that Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights " is the one 
real lover of literature. Catherine was not his ideal, his ob- 
ject, his desire. Yet no one could believe in Heathcliff and 
not believe in something greater. He is a passion of worship, 
not a profession of it. Any decent person would go mad 
rather than believe that such adoration had no object. It 
could not be for nothing, it must have been deserved some- 
where ; nowhere here, but none the less somewhere out of 



1 6 THE REAL ROMANCE OF LIFE [April. 

poor HeathclifFs sight, perhaps out of Emily Bronte's, though 
perhaps not." 

If we want to see the explicit relationship of passion to 
the spirit world we must turn to the annals of saintship. 
Fortunately the deeds of the saints speak for themselves. We 
can go to the quaint simple narrations of Butler and learn 
sufficient of the facts of the saints' lives and through the facts 
catch something of their spirit. But there is an enormous 
debt due to the saints that their stories should be told worth- 
ily. However, a beginning has been made. Francis Thomp- 
son has given us a setting for St. Ignatius and John Ayscough 
has revealed to us San Celestino. We want many more love 
stories of this kind. When the saints are better known, when 
they are presented truthfully and gracefully, then will be seen 
who are the real supermen. They are those who have been 
enlightened by Catholic vision and inspired by Catholic love. 
They are the lasting apologetic for the Catholic theory of life, 
for they have verified in their own experience the truth that a 
man is a distinct personality in himself, that he is related to 
God as a creature to a Creator, that he has been made for 
God and can rest only in God. 




TWO POLISH POETS IN ROME. 

BY MONICA M. GARDNER. 

|O Rome, that " city of the soul," to which " the 
orphans of the heart must turn," in Byron's 
famous phrase, came the great romantic Polish 
poets during the most tragic years of their na- 
tion's history, the first half, namely, of the nine- 
teenth century. They came, bereaved, outcasts, and wanderers 
on the face of the earth, their eyes ever turned with yearning 
love and sorrow to their suffering native land, but with a 
never dying hope to the freed country of their dreams. Rome 
revolutionized the spiritual life of Adam Mickiewicz, that Ti- 
tanic figure of Slavonic literature, who lives before our vision 
like the great Jeremias of the Sistine, sitting sunk in grief at 
the contemplation of his people's desolation. The Coliseum 
gave Poland the noble message of Irydion which the young 
Zygmunt Krasinski dreamed in its ruins. Here, too, came the 
sweet mystic singer of the Ukraine, Bohdan Zaleski, .into 
whose lyre has passed the mysterious music, the wild beauty, 
of the steppes. Wandering over the flower- strewn, lark-haunted 
Campagna that perhaps transported his heart to the lost plains 
of his boyhood, he foretold the national resurrection, and ut- 
tered the prophecy mournfully ironical in the light of latter- 
day events that Poland's sorrows would be as fables of the 
past in the ears of the grand-children of his generation. 

Rome was the chief landmark in the history of Adam 
Mickiewicz's spiritual pilgrimage on this earth. The leader of 
the great romantic movement in Polish literature, the supreme 
singer of the forests and marshes of Lithuania, was banished 
from his country in 1824 at the age of twenty- six. He saw 
the dearest companions of his youth, the sharers of his own 
generous ideals, dragged off to the mines or sent into life-lorjg 
exile. He himself lived tor five years a sort of prisoner at 
large in Russia, watched, spied, suspected. Like a lion in the 
toils, the young poet in the heart of his enemy's country 
wrote his Konrad Wallenrod, that fiery warning to the oppres- 

VOL. XCIII. 2 



i8 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

sor, that he who is ground down by persecution will be driven 
to defend himself with the dangerous cunning of the fox. 

Mickiewicz had left Lithuania with the faith of his child- 
hood already weakened. The influences that surrounded him 
during his life in Russia his friendship with the Russian free- 
thinkers, his intimacies in the frivolous salons of Odessa were 
not of a nature to make for his spiritual welfare. In Peters- 
burg, he met the Polish painter, Oleszkiewicz. This gentle 
mystic the original ol the priest who saves Konrad's soul in 
Mickiewicz's Ancestors \n the very capital of Tsardom spoke 
to the young exile of forgiveness for his country's enemies. 
His words prepared the way for that radiant faith and love 
which were to illuminate the path that Mickiewicz then trod 
in darkness and bitterness of heart, albeit with an undaunted 
courage. " Like Jacob you will struggle against the angel," 
said Oleszkiewicz to the youth whom he loved like a son, 
" but in vain. You are a chosen vessel, and sooner or later 
grace will fill you, and through you will flow on others. " 

And it was in the Eternal City that Mickiewicz's long 
spiritual travail came to its rest; there that the light rose 
upon his soul in whose glory he was to walk until it went 
down in the tragedy of his life. At first, Mickiewicz seems 
to have been but little impressed by the religious aspect of 
Rome. Then a change took place; and, shutting himself up 
in his room, he pondered upon the things of the soul. 

In the meanwhile, human influences had come to play their 
part with those of Christian Rome in winning Mickiewicz back 
to God. Among his dearest friends in the Eternal City were 
two Polish girls, Marcellina Lempicka and Henryka Ankwicz. 
These two girls fasted and prayed for Adam's soul; and each 
of them lives, a fair faint haloed vision, in Mickiewicz's 
poems. When, in the Ancestors, the demons are about to 
take possession of Konrad's soul, a voice cries out bidding 
them yield their prey, for prayers are pleading for the sinner. 
In a later scene, Eva (Henryka), praying for the prisoner, is 
wafted into a heavenly vision by choirs of angels whose ca- 
dences of flower-strewn, light-laden music are among the most 
artistic of Mickiewicz's work. The poet originally intended 
the Ancestors to be his own spiritual autobiography; and 
these episodes are his tribute to the prayers to which he 
owed so much. 



i9i i.] Two POLISH POETS IN ROME 19 

For Marcellina, he broke a somewhat long poetic silence. 
He went with the Ankwicz family for a short tour through 
the Campagna cities. In the shrine of old-world, picturesque 
Genazzano, Adam heard Mass fervently on his knees ; and, as 
the party went over the convent afterwards, he spoke with 
such burning eloquence on religious themes that tears rose to 
Marcellina's eyes. Mickiewicz saw her tears ; and he put the 
poem, dedicated to her and which he composed as they trav- 
eled homewards over the Campagna, into her hand after they 
had re-entered Rome. 

This poem was inspired by Adam having seen Marcellina 
receiving Communion and, apart from its high literary merit, 
it proves how far the poet had traveled on his spiritual jour- 
ney since he had set his face to Rome. 

"To-day," so he begins, "Christ at His table hath wel- 
comed thee. To-day many an angel envieth thee. Thou cast- 
est down thine eyes where Godhead shines. Oh, holy and 
humble soul, how dost thou pierce my heart with thy humil- 
ity ! When we, cold sinners, lay our wearied heads to rest, 
thou kneelest before the Lamb of God, and only dawn hushes 
thy praying lips." 

Then the poet, who all his life dwelt much in the world of 
spirits, paints the exquisite dreams unfolded before Marcel- 
lina's vision by the angel guardian of her slumbers. 

" I would count as nought," he concludes, " the joy of all 
my days if even for but one night my dreams could be like 
thine." 

In spite of the profound impression made by the Eternal 
City upon Mickiewicz's soul and his intimate knowledge of 
her every stone, he has, unlike Krasinski, left scarcely any 
record of Rome in his poetry. But, besides the verses just 
mentioned, the history of two other famous pieces of his po- 
etical work is so closely linked with his sojourn in Rome that 
we cannot overlook them here. 

The greater part of Mickiewicz's poem To the Polish 
Mother was written on those wonderful shores washed by the 
Mediterranean between Genoa and Pisa during a journey that 
he took there with one intimate friend. That image, fre- 
quently met with in Italian art of the Blessed Virgin giving 
her Divine Child a little cross to play with, is said to be one 
of the motives for the tragic lines that the great Polish poet 



20 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

consecrated to the sorrows of the mothers of his race. He 
finished the poem in Rome; and it appeared in but too timely 
a moment only two days before the night of November 29, 
1830, when Warsaw rose. 

No more terrible reproach than that contained in these 
lines by Poland's greatest poet could well be uttered to the 
conqueror who has striven to ruin morally the unhappy nation 
subject to his rule. The poem to the Polish mother is the 
Pole's arraignment at the bar of Divine justice of those who 
have outraged all that is noble, all that is sacred, all that is 
beloved to his soul. The poet's words seem to run red with 
the anguish from which he tore them. The page is wet with 
tears of blood. Yet such were the only auguries that Mickie- 
wicz could find it in his heart to hold out before his nation 
as she rose in the gallant, forlorn hope of 1830. Subsequent 
history has given them the bitterest of justifications. 

Mickiewicz was one of the very few Poles in Rome who 
watched the rising with despair in his soul. He who, in later 
life, hoped ever, each time to be more cruelly disillusioned, 
was on this one occasion only too clear-sighted. Sadness 
overwhelmed him. In his grief he turned to religion as his 
only comfort ; and he left Rome a fervent and a practising 
Catholic. 

While Mickiewicz had been wrestling in the Eternal City 
with the problems of the soul, that very self-questioning in- 
spired him with the desire of writing a great mystical drama 
in which the spiritual struggle of man should be unfolded in 
the form of a Christian Prometheus. He never carried out 
his plan as it first stood, but it merged into the Ancestors. 
Not only does the wonderful third part of that great but un- 
finished play represent to a large extent a sort of poetic his- 
tory of Mickiewicz's inner life ; but his Konrad, in whom the 
poet has put so much of his own self, lives through all time 
as the Polish Prometheus who, bearing the sorrows of a whole 
nation in his one heart, sinks beneath their weight. Mickie- 
wicz wrote it in Dresden after he had left Rome. In that 
night in which his poetic inspiration and his passionate grief 
for his country touched their highest summit in Konrad's Im- 
provization, the struggle of the poet's soul with the demons 
of darkness and despair is laid bare with a power that nearly 
robbed the author of his life. He said himself that he thought 



i9i i.] Two POLISH POETS IN ROME 21 

he would have died whilst he wrote. All that night his voice 
was heard murmuring in his room, followed by the sound of 
a fall. The next morning he was found lying, like his own 
Konrad, unconscious on the floor. 

Henceforth for many years his soul, riven by sorrow but 
unshaken thereby, dwelt in the Empyrean of heavenly love. 

Through heavy personal troubles and harassing daily cares, 
he toiled unsparingly, devotedly, for his fellowmen. His life 
and genius were given to his nation and to the Polish exiles 
in Paris. In that chaos of misfortune, represented by the 
Polish emigration, where every shade of misery, every type of 
human being, were to be found all living in an abnormal state 
of daily expectation of what never came, Mickiewicz taught 
that only by each individual's striving to a higher life, by 
each unit's continual hourly war against self, could Poland's 
redemption be wrought. Through his influence many wander- 
ers returned to God. With others inspired by him, he founded 
the religious Order of the Resurrection with the object of 
laboring for Poland's moral welfare. All Poland looked to him 
as her great spiritual chief and as the Moses whom God had 
chosen to lead her children to the Promised Land. " Adam," 
" Our Adam," so do the Polish letters of that day fondly 
style the man, the beauty of whose character and whose ex- 
quisite simplicity of soul, wedded to his brilliant genius, cap- 
tivated every heart. 

Yet the name of Adam Mickiewicz lives indeed as that of 
the greatest poet of Poland and one of the noblest figures in 
her history, but likewise as one whose life and inspiration 
were wrecked in spiritual tragedy. 

The tale of how Mickiewicz was lost to the Church for 
years, and the voice of his splendid genius silenced forever, is 
a dramatic one. After a long struggle with poverty, his wife 
went mad, and the unhappy husband was obliged to take her 
to an asylum. On the evening that he returned from this 
sad errand, the gray-haired man, his hair whitened, not from 
age, for he was only forty-three, but with the sorrows of life, 
sat, bowed down with grief, alone in his house. A Lithuanian, 
a stranger, the mystic Andrew Towianski, entered the room. 
He announced that he could cure Celina Mickiewicz. He spoke 
glowing words of a new light that through his agency was to 
rise upon mankind; a promise that struck home to the poet's 



22 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

weary heart, yearning for a better world, distracted by his 
nation's sufferings. 

Mickiewicz describes the long hours of indecision that he 
spent after this interview as a fearful night of spiritual wrest- 
ling. They led him into darkness. Towianski cured Celina, 
apparently by a sort of magnetism, and from that time all 
Adam's noble gifts, the whole strength of his great soul and 
of his loving heart were spent upon winning others into the 
paths of the bewildering, delusive, neurotic mysticism where 
he himself was lost. The ravages that the doctrines of Towian- 
ski wrought upon the minds and bodies of his votaries may 
be gauged from the fact that the master exacted from his 
followers a species of perpetual ecstasy. Perhaps the most 
pathetic feature of this sad history is that it is impossible to 
doubt that Adam acted throughout from the highest motives 
and sincere good faith. He genuinely believed that Towianski 
was called by God and that it behooved his disciples to gather 
all men into his fold. 

With what a passion of grief those whose dearest hopes 
for their country and their faith rested on Mickiewicz beheld 
his fall we know from the cry of anguish stamped on the let- 
ters and writings of the time. " For the love of God," one of 
Mickiewicz's former fellow-prisoners wrote to him, "for the 
love of God do not swerve from our Mother Church by even 
one step, though you should see the salvation of Poland but 
three steps off." Bohdan Zaleski, Mickiewicz's devoted friend, 
went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for Adam's soul. 
There, he tells how he wept and prayed; how, prostrating 
himself in one of the shrines, he could only between his tears 
implore the divine mercy. The poet, Witwicki, forced for 
conscience sake into the terrible position of being at open war 
with the man whom he loved, carried his breaking heart to 
Rome, where he entered the Order of the Resurrection, and 
there died. He rests his sorrows over beneath the shadow 
of San Lorenzo, in that most exquisite of cemeteries, engirdled 
with the haunting silence and the mournful unearthly beauty 
of the Roman Campagna. 

Years passed ; and then Catholic hearts were filled with 
hope at hearing that Mickiewicz had betaken himself to Rome 
to seek an audience with Pius IX. The poet who had gone 
forth from the Eternal City, in the full strength of his manhood 



i9i i.J Two POLISH POETS IN ROME 23 

and genius, to give his nation her two greatest poems and to 
labor for God's kingdom on this earth, re-entered her walls a 
white-haired, weary man, familiar with grief, his worn face in- 
delibly marked with the traces of the terrible spiritual ordeal 
through which he had passed; but with the beauty of his 
moral character still shining forth, unimpaired.* 

The Fathers of the Resurrection were not at that time 
1847 in their present college beneath the Pincio, but down 
at San Claudio. They had been the chief opponents of Tow- 
ianski, and had struggled for Adam's soul. Difficult as their 
mutual relations had consequently become, the old love be- 
tween Mickiewicz and his friends of happier days had never 
died. Mickiewicz took up his quarters in that house in the 
narrow Via del Pozzetto hard by San Claudio, where the mural 
tablet recording his presence may still be seen. He hastened 
to San Claudio. Going into the recreation room, where all the 
Fathers were assembled, he went up to Father Jelowicki whom, 
calling him a Pharisee, he had once turned out of his house, 
and embraced him, humbly beseeching his pardon. 

His next step was to obtain a private audience with Pius 
IX. It has been told that when he entered the Holy Father's 
presence, he said : " Behold the prodigal son," to which the 
gentle pontiff replied: "The most beloved son." But what 
really passed between them has never been known. That it 
was of a very painful description seems certain from the fact 
that the poet returned from the audience in great distress of 
mind, and that Pope Pius IX. spoke of him afterwards with 
sorrowful compassion as " that poor man." 

After this audience, Adam returned to confession and sub- 
mitted his writings f and those of his master to the judgment 
of the Holy See. It is characteristic of that greatness of soul 
that had never left Mickiewicz, even in those devious paths 
through which he had wandered, that it was to Father Jelowicki 
that he made his general confession. But Mickiewicz's exact 
spiritual standpoint at this time of his life is not very clear. 
It is true that his allegiance to Towianski had been considera- 
bly waning for some time before he set out for Rome; but 
although Catholics took for granted that the object of his 
journey was to make a formal abjuration of his errors, the 

* Adam Mickiewicz. Dr. J. Kallenbach. Cracow. 1897. 
t The course of lectures given by Mickiewicz at the College de France. 



24 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

Towianists believed that he intended to win Pius IX. to their 
point of view. The truth seems to lie between the two, namely, 
that although Mickiewicz came to Rome ardently desiring to 
be reconciled to the Holy See, he still clung to the hope that 
the doctrines that had become his life could be found compati- 
ble with the teaching of the Catholic Church.* 

Bit when he left the Eternal City, leading thence the nu- 
cleus of a Polish legion to fight against Austria that he had 
labored to form in Rome, his soul was still dwelling in its 
prison house, he was still cherishing his delusion that Towian- 
ski's creed was not opposed to the eternal truths of the Catho- 
lic Church. It is mournful to reflect that had the methods of 
Jelowicki and of his colleague, Hube, more resembled those of 
their Divine Master in dealing with a wandering sheep, Mic- 
kiewicz might then, at that moment when all pointed to its 
feasibility, have been gathered back to the bosom of the Church. 
Bat Jelowicki, whom Pius IX. was wont to describe as a " good 
priest but a hot head " seems, for all his excellent qualities, to 
have treated that tortured soul, as Dr. Kallenbach observes, 
with a sort of military roughness and with the same want of 
tenderness and tact displayed by Hube. One thing is, how- 
ever certain: that before his death Mickiewicz had returned 
to the Catholic Church, and that when, his last days sacrificed 
to the nation for whom all his life had been one long devo- 
tion, he passed from the world that had treated him so hardly, 
he died with a priest by his side and in full communion with 
the Holy See. 

At the time that Mickiewicz was winning his way to the 
light in the Rome of 1830, there came to the Eternal City a 
young Pole who out of the fires of his own suffering was to 
herald to his nation, in deathless song, a radiant, mystic dawn 
of hope and love. Zygmunt Krasinski was then little more 
than a boy in years, but suffering had already irretrievably 
seared his youth. His father, who had covered himself with 
glory in the Napoleonic Polish legions, had since outraged the 
traditions of his distinguished house by giving himself to the 
Russian Government. The whole life of his only son was there- 
by blasted. The sensitive, nervous, highly gifted boy left Po- 
land, where his position had become too painful for him to 

* Count Tarnowski. Gygmunt Krasinski. Cracow. 1892. 



i9i i.] Two POLISH POEIS IN ROME 25 

remain. Knowing that his father's name was hated and de- 
spised by every Pole, with his own heart torn with passionate 
love for the nation whom he might not serve in any public 
way, he wandered abroad from place to place, under the eye 
of the Russian Government. His steps led him to Rome. She 
won his soul as no other city on this earth. She taught him 
that first lesson of a nation's redemption through love which 
he immortalized in hydion and to which he dedicated his life ; 
and it was Rome that in his closing years spoke to him of the 
hope that irradiates those beautiful lines, entitled Roma. 

The Coliseum was the spot in Rome that chiefly fired the 
imagination of the youth who was not only a poet but the son 
of a persecuted and fallen nation. Here, in what in the early 
thirties must have been the most poetical of ruins, young 
Krasinski wandered and dreamed in the moonlight. 

He wrote to Henry Reeve, the friend and confidant of his 
early youth, the following passage which we give here because 
it is, so to speak, the prelude to the famous scene in Irydioni 

The moon appeared at that moment on the walls of the 
Coliseum as though she rose from a mass of ivy that fell in 
festoons from the summit of the building. Columns, arcades, 
porticoes, the seats of the Caesars, of the senators, of the peo- 
ple, appeared, pale, and in ruins. The arena was open to the 
sky. In the middle rose a cross of black wood. To me this 
cross is worth the Cathedral of Milan and St. Peter's. That 
cross was persecuted in this place when the Coliseum repre- 
sented all the power of those who had built it. And to-day 
it stands erect where it was trampled under foot, and the 
haughty Coliseum which proudly beheld its humiliation is 
now crumbling to dust around it. But there is no look about 
it as if it were priding itself on its triumph. Silently it 
stretches its black arms to the two sides of the building, 
and seems to cast a shadow of peace and benediction over 
the earth where the persecutors and the persecuted sleep. 

He who does not believe in Christ let him go to the Coli- 
seum on a fine night ; and if he does not fall upon his knees 
before the symbol ol faith, that man, I say, has neither soul 
nor heart.* 

And as Krasinski gazed upon the sign of his salvation tri- 

* Correspondance de Sigismond Krasinski et de Henry Reeve. Paris. 1902. 



26 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

umphant, and upon the desolation of a conquering empire's 
pride, the figures that passed before his eyes took shape, six 
years later, in the hour of his nation's need. In 1836 the 
date in which Irydion was published Poland was devastated 
by the terrible Russian persecution following the rising of 
1830. Krasinski, trembling for his nation's moral peril, beset 
as she was by that temptation of a conquered people to defend 
herself by the weapons of revenge, wrote Irydion. 

Let it be remembered that Krasinski was not sounding the 
trumpet-call to a battle that he had never fought. He himself 
had botne the heat and anguish of the struggle. The poet 
who lives in his nation's annals as one who taught that the 
fruit of anger is death and that only by love and moral beauty 
shall a people rise from bondage the heart of that poet had 
in his early youth been devoured by a passion of hatred. 
Young and prosperous Reeve wrote and rebuked him for this 
dark spot in his character. This 'was in 1831, when the rising 
was being stamped out in blood and when all joy was banished 
from the heart of every Pole. Krasinski answered Reeve in 
words that are the most eloquent illustration of the conditions 
under which Irydion, a few years later, was written by a Pole 
and read by Poles: 

You, a free man, a man born free, you do not undeistand 
the feelings of a man whose ancestors were as free as you, but 
who himself is an oppressed slave. You have never seen a 
young and beautiful woman, weeping with scalding tears the 
loss of her honor, torn from her by the brutality of a con- 
queror. You have never heard the chains trembling on the 
arms'of your compatriots. At night, the sounds of lamenta- 
tions have not made you start from your sleep, you have not 
sat up on your pillow to listen, half asleep, to the wheels 
jolting on the pavement, the wheels of the cart that carried 
your relation, your friend, to the snows of Siberia. In the 
day time, you have not seen bloody executions, nor a tyrant 
in uniform passing like lightning through the public places, 
urging his four Tartar horses at full gallop against the 
passers-by. The passers-by were my compatriots : he was a 
Russian. You have not been compelled to hear a hard, harsh 
language forced on a people who did not understand it. You 
have not caught glimpses of the emaciated faces of your 
brothers through the gratings of a prison. Round the fireside 



i9i i.] Two POLISH POETS IN ROME 27 

in winter, you have never been told how that one disap- 
peared, ^how the other has been condemned, how this village 
was burnt, that town sacked, and all Praga drowned in the 
blood of its inhabitants, children thrown palpitating on the 
icy, stiffened bosoms of their mothers. You have not fol- 
lowed on the map the desolation of your country, how it has 
gradually been shorn, robbed, how at last it has been over- 
whelmed beneath the weight of the oppressors.* 

Irydion, the son of a Greek, but in whose veins runs also 
the blood of the North, has grown up among the citizens of 
Imperial Rome, apparently their friend, but in reality prepar- 
ing, with the stealthy step of the panther, his deadly vengeance 
against the conqueror of Hellas. Nothing is sacred to his soul, 
corrupt to the core by his lust for revenge, if only he can 
bring about the fall of Rome. Everywhere he sows a bitter 
harvest: the tears and frenzy of the women whom he sacri- 
fices for his one end ; discord among the Christians among 
whom he, feigning Christianity to obtain their arms against 
Rome, has intrigued; the treachery of the Praetorians and the 
thirst for blood of the barbarian bands upon which he has 
played. 

At last all seems ready to his hand and the night for 
which he has lived and labored, that of Rome's eternal de- 
struction, is upon him. But the persecuted followers of the 
Cross shatter Irydion's scheme of bloodshed. They withold 
their aid, and Rome is saved. 

Then Masynissa Mephistopheles who has been the evil 
genius and the tempter throughout the drama, leads Irydion 
to a mountain whence Rome is dimly visible. There, in the 
anguish of his failure, Irydion casts himself to the earth, curs- 
ing Masynissa for his vain promises, and not knowing whither 
to turn where all has left him, he cries out that if the God 
of the Christians existed it is to Him that he would now 
look. Let Masynissa tell him if that Christ be God. Masyn- 
issa owns that Christ is God, and his own eternal enemy in 
Whose name Rome will once more be the mother and the 
mistress of all nations. But he has one last temptation to 
offer to the despairing Irydion. He foresees a day when 
" In the Forum there will be dust, in the Circus ruins, on 
the Capitol shame." If Irydion will deny Christ, Masynissa 

* Op/ cit. 



28 Two POLISH POETS IN ROME [April, 

will cast him into a slumber whence after hundreds of years 
he will awake to behold Rome humbled to the earth. 

His heart panting for savage joy, Irydion is wrapt in a 
trance under a mountain near Rome. Centuries roll over his 
head. The face of the world is changed; and then, when the 
hour has struck, Irydion arises (at the date of the drama). 
He passes over the desolated Campagna down the Appian 
Way where all is one mournful memory of the Rome that he 
last saw in her pride, by the fallen palace of the Caesars, 
through the ruined Forum. In the Coliseum he stands to be 
judged. 

The moon shines down upon the yawning walls. The ruin 
is filled with the sound of sighs and hymns the voices of the 
martyrs crying out below, the saints and angels answering 
them above. And at the foot of the Cross, while hell and 
heaven battle for his soul, stands Irydion, now no longer hat* 
ing that Cross for it seems to him that it is " weary as he, 
sorrowful as the fate of Hellas, and holy for evermore." The 
arena is silver with the wings of the angelic Christian maiden 
whom Irydion destroyed but who is struggling to save his 
soul, while Masynissa in diabolic fury would tear him from 
the Cross. 

"Immortal Enemy," cries the demon, "he is mine, for he 
lived in vengeance and he hated Rome." 

"Oh, Lord," cries the heavenly defender, "he is mine, 
because he loved Greece;" 

Love, stronger than hatred, wins, and Irydion is saved be- 
cause, though he had hated Rome, he had loved Greece. But 
because he had labored for what he had loved by ignoble 
means and deeds of hatred, he is sent forth to work out his 
salvation by a second test. In the sentence pronounced upon 
him with which Krasinski closes the play, the poet blends the 
allegory with his message to his own people. The hero of 
his drama and his " Thought " are one. 

Go to the north in the name of Christ. Go and halt not 
till thou standest in the land of graves and crosses.* Thou 
wilt know it by the silence ol men and the sadness of little 
children. Thou wilt know it by the sighs of My angels flying 
o'er it in the night. 

* Poland, 



19 ii>] Two POLISH POETS IN ROME 29 

There is thy second trial. For the second time thou wilt 
see thy love transpierced, dying . . . and the sorrows of 
thousands shall be born in thy one heart. 

Go and trust in My Name. Be calm before the oppression 
of the unjust. They will pass away, but thou and My word 
will not pass away. 

Go and act, although thy heart should faint in thy bosom ; 
although thou shouldst lose faith in thy brethren ; although 
thou shouldst despair of Me Myself, Act ever and without 
rest ; and thou wilt rise not from sleep as erst but from the 
work of ages and thou wilt be the free son of Heaven. 

And the sun rose above the ruins of Rome. And there was 
none whom I might tell where were the traces of my Thought. 
But I know that it lasts and lives. 

This "Thought," born in the Coliseum, became the guid- 
ing star of Krasinski's life. 

Many years after he had written these words, Krasinski 
was again wintering in Rome. Worn by physical suffering 
and grief for his country, the charm of the Rome that had so 
gained his heart seemed lost. Yet at this time 1852 are 
dated his lines to the eternal city. The man whom the na- 
tional catastrophe of 1846 had prematurely aged still pro- 
claimed in unshaken faith that Poland could not perish. 
Around him, he sang, were the ruins of Rome's fallen great- 
ness. Let his nation learn from those desolate heaps of 
stone in the Campagna, about the Tiber, in the Forum, that 
strength without love passes away as smoke, that the spirit of 
vengeance, the works of darkness and oppression die with the 
Roman triumphs of old; but Poland will not die. And that 
even as the Cross rose in glory from the Catacombs, so Po- 
land will arise victorious from her grave, conquering by sorrow. 




THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 

BY WILLIAM J. KERBY, PH.D. 

(ANY minds are tyrannized over by impressions 
which tend increasingly to detach themselves 
from facts. Such minds develop a habit of see- 
ing facts not as facts but as arguments or symp- 
toms. This trait of the mind has its value in 
explaining social movements and particularly in explaining So- 
cialism. 

Socialism has become a composite of ideals, theories, senti- 
ments and emotions which is powerful because these are pow- 
erful in human life. If an individual enjoy hate, Socialism in- 
vites him because hatred enters into its makeup. If he enjoy 
dreams of peace and perfect life, Socialism invites him because 
dreams and the promise of perfect life belong to it. If he 
enjoy logical order, reckless generalization and the complete- 
ness of system, Socialism invites him again for it carries all 
of these to a most satisfying degree. If he enjoy certainty 
and abhor doubt, Socialism will please him because it is sat- 
urated with alleged infallibility. This is the wonderful feature 
of it. It expresses many things that are universal in human 
hearts but are with difficulty brought to expression by the in- 
dividual. Its seductive appeal is due to its keen sense of 
what is universal in human feeling and emotion, and in hav- 
ing created a tradition into which all of these wide features 
of human emotion and action are introduced. Its power lies 
in fancy, in interpretation, in emotional appeal. He would 
make a great mistake who would look with flippancy on So- 
cialism or who would be content to attempt to dismiss it with 
sarcasm or denunciation. Had Socialism a keen sense for 
facts and the self-control which accurate knowledge of facts 
brings to the mind, it would be far less dangerous than it is. 
I do not mean to say that the socialist does not see facts. 
He does. But he sees them as symptoms, arguments, illustra- 
tions for something which is in his mind and feeling. When 
the conservative offers him a fact and asks him to look at it, 
it crumbles in his grasp and becomes a fancy, a commentary, 



i9".] THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 31 

an argument. Thus, on the whole they are right who claim 
that Socialism is a state of mind. Practically the only medi- 
cine which can cure one of Socialism is the medicine of fact, 
but the patient refuses to take it. If this be true why would 
it not be well for us who cannot believe in Socialism to lay 
aside for a moment our own standpoint, and to study Social- 
ism's mind in its attitudes and action. We may take Social- 
ism as a fact in social psychology. Is it not well to do so? 
A description is offered in these pages of the state of mind 
of Socialism relative to private property. In describing the 
indictment which Socialism draws against it, endorsement of 
the charges is neither intended nor implied. Were the narra- 
tive to halt at every paragraph for the sake of making distinc- 
tions and reservations, a reader's patience might easily be ex- 
hausted. This explanation may serve to forestall misunder- 
standings to which this form of description might lead, when 
the matter in hand is the subject of most violent social, po- 
litical and religious controversy. 

I. 

Effort was made in a preceding article to describe certain 
features of private property as we actually know it. The 
State takes one attitude toward industrial property and at- 
tempts to bring it under the secure domination of law. Or- 
ganized labor takes another attitude toward industrial property 
and endeavors to rearrange industrial relations in order to 
improve the conditions of the working class. The Church 
constantly preaches the Christian doctrine of the stewardship 
of wealth, and aims to inject the spirit of Christ into the 
property relations of Christians. Industry itself attempts to 
hold its action largely free from the restraints referred to, 
standing for the old-fashioned individualism on which it 
thrived. Socialism finally, takes an entirely distinct attitude 
toward private property and plans a form of its reconstruction 
through which it promises industrial justice and social peace. 
Thus, we find the State, the Church, organized labor and So- 
cialism in the attitude of critics of private property. Each of 
them contains a criticism of it and a plan of its reorganiza- 
tion. Attention is now directed to the socialist charges alone 
against private property. 

In typical industrial property, that is in the great enter 



32 THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY [April, 

prises, we find as already shown that ownership is separated 
from management; that the individual is a part owner in one 
or in many industrial enterprises but complete owner of none; 
that when the majority or even less than the majority of the 
stock is in the hands of one individual or a like-minded 
clique, the owners of the minority stock have absolutely no 
control of their property other than the right to sell out. 
Thus, the minority owners in modern industry are unable to 
bring to expression a single Christian conviction in the ad- 
ministration of their property. It was shown further that indust- 
ries tend to become more and more dependent on one another 
through industrial organization and that groups of individuals 
who become stockholders and directors in different industries 
tend to concentrate into relatively few hands large numbers 
of directorships. This concentration of industries and oi di- 
rectorships wipes out differences among properties and man- 
agements, and contributes greatly to the unity and centraliza- 
tion of the industrial world, The mechanism of credit is so 
organized that industrial leaders dominate in banking circles 
and vice-versa. Stock watering has been developed to such 
an extent as to have constituted an acute national problem, 
while the divine and natural sanctions for property are now 
extended by force of circumstances to these "legalized forms 
of stealing " as many who are not socialists call them. Capi- 
tal, therefore, may be looked upon as one vast, industrial in- 
terest, animated by common impulse, threatened by common 
enemies and favored by common friends. Private property 
is not therefore, the small holding of millions of distinct par- 
cels of capital but a tremendous amalgamated mass, consti- 
tuting a mighty interest in modern society. In this form it 
tends to question the authority and the power of the sovereign 
State itself. 

Capital has become so powerful in modern society that 
everyone is examining it. It is blamed for everything that 
goes wrong. The concentrated criticisms that are made of it 
by hundreds of thousands have gradually led many to question 
its moral and social justification. Speculative questions are as 
a rule not harmful, but when the man in the street or the 
girl in the factory or the skilled mechanic in his shop chal- 
lenges the moial foundations of the social order, there are 
stormy times ahead. Now the ethical foundations of private 



i9i i.] THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 33 

property are questioned in many minds. In its modern indus- 
trial form, private property has snapped asunder so many of 
the social and ethical restraints which in another day had 
been safe ; it has forced to the front so many social, political 
and ethical questions that it itself is under question. The 
temper of the average radical is well expressed in the philo- 
sophic words of Professor Jowett who, in writing on Plato's 
"Republic" speaks as follows: 

Are we quite sure that the received notions of property are 
the best ? Can the spectator of all time and all existence be 
quite convinced that one or two thousand years hence great 
changes will not have taken place in the rights of property or 
even that the very notion of property beyond what is neces- 
sary for personal maintenance may not have disappeared. 
. . . The reflection will occur that the state of society can 
hardly be final in which, the interests of a thousand are periled 
on the life or character of a single person. 

In the progress of railroading, increase in the speed and 
weight of trains was made possible only when rails and road- 
bed were brought up to the requirements of the new strain and 
when perfected air brakes placed in the hands of the engineer 
the power to throw a controlling clutch on every wheel at 
will. The passion for property has taken on such intensity 
that it has torn through our institutions and we have failed to 
develop the roadbed on which it might run safely, and the 
air brakes which might check its onward rush. State and 
Church, organized labor and public opinion are busy attempt- 
ing to repair the roadbed and improve the brakes by which 
the action of property may be controlled. Socialism stands as 
an onlooker and tells them that this effort is of no avail. 
What, then, is the attitude toward private property which is 
widely diffused and traditional in Socialism ? In order to 
hold more closely to the terminology of the socialist, the word 
" Capital " instead of private property may be used through- 
out the description. 

II. 

Socialism accuses capital of unwarranted usurpation of in- 
dustrial power. 

It is alleged that the owners of industrial capital, or more 
VOL. xcin. 3 



34 THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY [April, 

accurately, the managers of industrial capital have taken to 
themselves the complete authority required in governing in- 
dustry and have seemed unwilling to permit either the gov- 
ernment through its laws or the laborers through concerted 
action to share any of the authority in question. It is held 
that all power in industry is derived from ownership, and that 
there should be no divided jurisdiction, and consequently that 
industrial absolutism is the law. This is taken to mean con- 
cretely that the managers of capital may give protection to 
health, to morality and to home; protection against accident 
and disease, against the dangers in the work of women and 
of children as they see fit, but not as the laborers themselves 
demand or even as the modern state might ask. Hence, it is 
said that when organized labor has demanded specific forms 
of protection, it has not been heard, and when the state has 
endeavored to enact laws offering this protection to men, 
women and children, the managers of industrial capital have 
resisted at every step because of this threatened invasion of 
their jurisdiction. The result of the summing up of facts in 
modern life, and of the interpretations of fact in industrial 
history have driven Socialism into the fixed impression that 
capital in its modern form is inherently brutal and selfish and 
disposed to obey no humane instinct except when compelled 
by law. Hence, the whole history of death by accident, of 
impairment of health and efficiency by disease, the exploiting 
of women and of children in industry, are laid at the feet of 
industrial capital and described as the consequence of the in- 
dustrial absolutism which capital has claimed and exercised. 

Socialism accuses capital of unwarranted usurpation of po- 
litical authority. 

It is claimed that the interests of capital everywhere have 
become identical and that they are so mighty and the men in 
control are so farsighted and powerful that the "Interests" 
have conquered the machinery of government and of law, and 
have actually exercised and controlled political authority in a 
manner highly detrimental to the interests of humanity. So- 
cialism claims that governments have tried in a hesitating 
manner to control capital but have failed, and that captial has 
endeavored to control government and has succeeded. In 
this struggle the action of capital has been largely on the de- 
fensive. It has been necessary only to fight against new prin- 



i9i i.] THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 35 

ciples of social responsibility, against the declarations of new 
rights revealed through industrial relations. The old-fashioned 
individualism that left men free, that left the labor contract 
free, that gave the widest liberty to enterprise and to the 
management and control of property, favored in the highest 
degree the interests of modern amalgamated capital. Hence, 
it has merely desired to be let alone. Now, Socialism's in- 
dictment is to the effect that capital recognized in the state 
a possible enemy, and that it set out to capture the machinery 
of the government in self-defence. We are told that capital 
sends its representatives into the legislatures, places them in 
executive chairs and sends them into our courts. We are told 
that the representatives of capital are active at every stage in 
the process of lawmakfng and constitution interpreting; that 
they have hindered the introduction of laws that displeased 
them; that when these laws have been passed they have been 
declared by the courts to be unconstitutional; and when the 
courts have declared them constitutional, capital has been able 
to neutralize their effect by challenging interpretations and 
opposing enactment. It is claimed further that in this nefari- 
ous activity, capital has been able to secure the highest types 
of legal and political mind and to engage their most brilliant 
powers in its defence. We are reminded that the man without 
property or property affiliations cannot enter a legislature or 
sit among the judges because he lacks the income, the train- 
ing and the prestige. It is claimed that capital has corrupted 
city politics, state politics and federal politics and that it has 
dominated conventions and controlled political parties without 
scruple. 

The relations between capital and government or between 
money and government appear in the socialistic presentation 
as a cause of suspicion because the government is always a 
heavy borrower. It relies on great financiers to place its bonds 
and to sustain the tone of confidence throughout the nation 
on which prosperity depends.- It is said that efforts on the 
part of the government to place its bonds in small units among 
the people at large are easily frustrated by shrewd financiers. 
It is believed in the socialistic propaganda that a few financial 
kings have it in their power at any time to throw the nation 
into a panic without breaking a single civil law. To this con- 
dition is ascribed the timidity which the government feels 



36 THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY [April, 

and its reluctance to assert itself against the so-called money 
kings. It would seem that this thought is similar to one which 
was expressed recently by David Starr Jordan, President of 
Leland Stanford University. The press reports him as say- 
ing : " All civilized nations are owned or controlled." " The 
men who make the war loans control all the civilized nations." 
" Emperors and kings and parliaments may not declare war to 
satisfy a whim, to defend their honor or even to right a wrong, 
until they have secured the permission of their ' uncles/ " 
" The Rothschilds and other money-lending families absolutely 
control the situation." The attention which governments nec- 
essarily pay to the fostering of business interests, the eager 
desire of the government for stability above all things and the 
necessarily close relation between statesmen, industrial leaders, 
and financiers, are elements in a situation which lends itself 
to suspicion and evil interpretation. The result is that the 
mind of Socialism is fundamentally convinced that government 
and law are under the complete dictation of capital. 

Socialism accuses capital of exercising its malevolent sway 
over the non-industrial social classes. 

The constitution of modern property is as a matter of fact 
such as to extend capitalistic sympathies very far beyond the 
actual domain of business. The scattering ot shares of owner- 
ship throughout the country and the wide diffusion of bonds 
and other forms of borrowing make it possible, as was already 
shown, to have tens of thousands of owners of an industry or 
of lenders to it. Now, if a lawyer saves money and invests it, 
he invests it in industrial securities. He thus becomes a capi- 
talist. His sympathies with capital grow strong as his attach- 
ment to his property increases. He becomes, therefore, a par- 
tisan of property interests rather than a champion of humanity. 
Much the same may be said of physicians, of men of professed 
culture, in fact of members of every social class wherein any 
saving and investing are found. Thus Socialism has a logical 
arrangement of facts by which it is confirmed in its belief, that 
capitalistic sympathies expand widely through society and de- 
velop a habit of mind which comes in conflict with the larger 
interests of the race, particularly of the exploited laboring 
class. 

Socialism accuses capital of the enslavement of journalism 
to the interests of property. 



i9i i.] THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 37 

It is claimed that in a democracy the press is the great 
guardian of personal liberty and an effectual restraint on gov- 
ernment. Hence, freedom of the press is always to be guarded. 
The press enjoys great prestige because of this assumption. 
Now, Socialism claims to find that journalism is itself merely 
a capitalistic enterprise; that a newspaper is conducted as a 
stock corporation generally, and that it is conducted only white 
it pays dividends. Enormous amounts of capital are required 
to install a complete modern newspaper, and thus its publica- 
tion is an industrial enterprise in the same sense as manufac- 
turing shoes or steel rails. Consequently, it is claimed that 
the rank and file of our great newspapers stand for capitalistic 
philosophy, that the editorial page is controlled from the 
counting-room, and that no reform principles are advocated 
and no measures are supported which will displease the heavy 
advertisers or the majority of the owners of the stock. A 
curious illustration of this general charge is found in a state- 
ment made some years ago, to the effect that a Western news- 
paper, which was brought into court for some action or other, 
counted among its stockholders a public service corporation, a 
street railway company, a telephone company, a stock yards 
company, and a railroad. 

Socialism accuses capital of academic usurpation. 

It is believed that the whole range of higher teaching re- 
ceives direction or bias from the domination which capital 
exerts in the upbuilding and maintaining of schools. Endow- 
ments come from capital. Therefore, they will have the sins 
of capital. It is alleged that capital exercises censorship over 
the selection of professors or over their teachings and that it 
actually pays professors who write in its interests. If a pro- 
fessor teaches in a manner offensive to property interests it is 
claimed that he is chastised, if not dismissed, or ordered to 
modify his views. This feature of the socialistic indictment 
of things seems to have found expression not long ago in a 
recognized organ of American culture in words which one 
would expect to find rather in some reckless propaganda sheet. 
" Watching vulgar millionaires make irrational endowments for 
self-glorification, having his politics scrutinized before receiving 
a call to teach, and even being obliged to soften down his 
lectures because a patron believes in high tariff, owns a brew- 
ery, or works children to death in the mills, the American 



38 THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY [April, 

teacher is scarcely to be blamed if he concludes that things in 
general cry for a lively shaking-up." 

Socialism accuses capital of ecclesiastical usurpation. 

The hatred of Christianity which comes to frequent ex- 
pression in radical circles is a phenomenon that would merit 
some investigation. The accusations of subserviency to capital 
which Socialism makes against the Church, may be summarized 
under three headings. The most radical form of denunciation 
is that according to which all religion is false, superstitious, 
ignorant, and illusory. In this view religion is looked upon 
as the merest puppet of capital, devised, sustained, and directed 
in a way to control and to perpetuate the enslavement of the 
masses. This view seems to rest on a thoroughly atheistical 
and materialistic attitude and its warfare is directed against 
all religion which claims supernatural sanction. A less radical 
attitude is found among those who do not deny the funda- 
mental truth of religion, but who claim that the spirit of reli- 
gion, that is Christianity, has been destroyed by organization. 
We sometimes hear it called " Churchianity." Where this view 
is held, great respect and reverence may be manifested for the 
name and spirit of Christ and for the beautiful social and 
spiritual teachings contained in His divine revelation, but the 
organization of the Church is denounced. Its enslavement to 
capital is declared to be complete, and on this account it is 
said that the spirit of. Christ has departed from modern reli- 
gion. There is finally an attitude found among those who 
complain not that even institutional Christianity is altogether 
wrong, but that the individual leaders and representatives of 
it have betrayed the message of God, and have voluntarily en- 
slaved themselves to capital. It is indeed with difficulty that 
one restrains one's impulse to express resentment against the 
horrible and reckless insinuations which are scattered through 
many radical publications. One finds associated with these 
attitudes a bitterness, irreverence, and even blasphemy, which 
are shocking to the last degree. To whatsoever extent aca- 
demic socialists represent Socialism independently of these at- 
titudes toward religion, and to whatsoever extent fairminded 
observers endeavor to believe socialists when they deny the 
alliance between this spirit and Socialism, one can scarcely fail 
to find among the traditions of Socialism and its spirit, as here 
described, the elements of the ugly attitudes referred to. 



i9i i.] THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 39 

Thus the monster, Capital, takes on in the mind of Social- 
ism very repulsive features. Its nefarious activity in indus- 
trial and political, in religious and in social life is accepted as 
the final explanation of the evils from which society is suffering. 
In the mind of Socialism, capital appears to be nimble, re- 
sourceful, subtle, and without conscience, capable of every 
form of wrong, and without remorse. 

Further proof of capital's iniquity is presented to its critics 
by alleged evasion of responsibilities. When the employer has 
been adjudged responsible for injury or death to laboring men 
it is believed that he has been unwilling to meet that respon- 
sibility and has used the technicalities of legal procedure to 
defeat justice. By fighting damage cases in the courts, it is 
claimed that capital has so discouraged and disheartened 
laboring men that these look no longer for justice at the hands 
of the law. Fault is found with the mental attitude of capi- 
tal which gives precedence to property rights over human 
rights, as for instance seems to appear in the following declar- 
ation credited to a well-known organization of capitalists. 
" We have had an excess of agitation under the guise of 
moral crusades such as child labor, railroad reforms, and sim- 
ilar movements which are excellent and desirable in reasonable 
measure but not so when pressed to the hazard of vested 
interests and property." The shortcomings of our legal pro- 
cedure which for that matter are frankly admitted on all sides, 
serve in the mind of Socialism to justify its worst suspicions 
concerning the deliberate enslavement of those in power to 
the will of capital. We are reminded in the criticisms now 
under consideration that large industrial interests have domin- 
ated the congresses which have enacted the tariff laws and 
have fattened on them. We are reminded that capital is un- 
willing to pay its taxes, to assume its share of the burden of 
supporting public institutions and that by tricks of incorpora- 
tion the elementary civic obligations of industrial property are 
neglected. In a word, at every point in its outlook and in 
every feature of its activity, capital represents to the mind of 
Socialism the final summary of organized iniquity and the 
final form of malevolent power. 



40 THE INDICTMENT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY [April, 

III. 

There are many forms of Socialism as regards the con- 
structive side of it. There are many philosophies but the 
criticism which is offered is practically unanimous. Whether 
summarized as indicated or otherwise, the minds of socialists 
scarcely differ in imputing to capital, the seven deadly sins 
and the violation of the whole decalogue. There is an amazing 
certainty in Socialism combined with comprehensiveness and 
simplicity. If we ask a conservative to explain this or that 
social evil, he studies, observes, hesitates, looks for data, tests 
his results and speaks with reserve. If we ask a socialist the 
same question, his answer comes promptly, clearly, and with 
certainty. The socialist mind is simplified in its views and 
logical, regardless of logic's limitations. 

The socialist criticism of private property has much in it 
that appeals to certain types of mind. It seems to explain 
things. It is systematic and complete. It is easily learned 
and satisfying to those who accept it. The worker may not 
care about philosophy but he does care to know why his baby 
dies from poisoned milk, why he must breathe steel dust or 
risk an eye or an arm in daily labor. Socialists deal in these 
immediate homely explanations. The whole range of industrial 
oppression, of political corruption, of conservative indifference, 
is explained simply and directly. Shall we wonder that 
Socialism thrives and that even its impossibilities take on an 
alluring charm for those who are disposed to listen to it. 

There is scarcely any doubt that this singling out of cap- 
ital for concentrated criticism has been a valuable feature of 
socialistic propaganda. It has been possible to charge to cap- 
ital and its representatives the whole range of evil which may 
be laid to the charge of human nature itself. The capitalist 
is looked upon as a victim of a system. He is not so much 
blamed as pitied, and sometimes the socialist magnanimously 
tells him what freedom he too will enjoy under Socialism. 
Imagining now, a class of men and women drilled in this 
simple comprehensive criticism of private property or capital, 
we can easily discover the logical foundations of the whole 
system as to both criticism of society and its reconstruction. 

If capital has mastered society, has enslaved the state, the 
law, the courts ; if it has subjected the Church and school 



i9i i.] THE OLD CHURCHYARD 41 

and press ; if it has sanctioned power over our institutions, 
there can be no hope for humanity at large without radical 
changes. Thus Socialism seeks to engender despair of our 
institutions by declaring them bankrupt. It blames this bank- 
ruptcy entirely on the private ownership of capital. It sees 
no hope whatever, except in the collective ownership of capital. 
Then to meet well-known objections, it proclaims the perfect- 
ibility of human nature and the supremacy of environment in 
life. These five positions make up the essential assumptions 
of all Socialism as may be shown later. 



THE OLD CHURCHYARD. 

BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. 

Shaft and slab so naked showing 

Through the twilight gray 
Prop a thousand green things growing 

No man sees, nor may : 
Like flowers of fate, 
We dead await 

Our mystic Sorting Day. 

Hid sweet peas and viewless roses, 

Secret ivy spray, 
Climb unguessed the slanting crosses 

Where no mourners pray ; 
Or wakeful creep 
O'er stones of sleep 

Sunk long in disarray. 

Who shall from our saddest pleasaunce 

Go, transplanted gay 
To the Far all-pertect Presence ? 

Who be flung awav. ? 
Ah, root with mine ! 
Must we untwine ? 

A Gardener comes to say. 




THE FIRST POSTULANT. 

[HE late Father George Deshon on different oc- 
casions told us of our first Paulist postulant 
from the ranks of the laity, for Father Robert 
Beverly Tillotson, who ante-dated all others, 
came as a priest. Father Deshon's account 
was that a young man in New Orleans applied for admission 
early in the year 1861, the community being then not quite 
three years in existence. "I don't remember his name/' said 
Father Deshon, "but we were all deeply interested in him, as 
he was the first layman who applied. He was accepted con- 
ditionally. He belonged to a military company, and ielt 
bound to go to the front with it, promising that as soon as 
he had fulfilled that duty of honor, he would get away and 
enter among us. But he was killed at the battle of Bull Run." 
So far the community tradition. 

Lately some researches were made among the early rec- 
ords of the Paulist community, and two letters were found, 
written by a young man named George W. Muse. They 
identified him as that first postulant from the laity. Naturally 
desirous to learn more, we engaged the kind offices of a 
valued friend, Father Emile Husser, D.D., diocesan mission- 
ary of the diocese of Natchez, to make inquiries in New 
Orleans. He was at once much interested, and being a 
Louisianian was able to obtain for us the following brief in- 
formation from Mr. Sumpter Turner, representing officially the 
Confederate Veteran Association of the Washington Artillery, 
the organization with which Muse was connected. 

This is the sum total of all information obtainable in New 
Orleans, repeated attempts by way of letters of inquiry, in- 
cluding one to the single individual bearing the name of Muse 
found in that city's directory, failing to elicit any answer. Mr. 
Turner's letter is as follows: 



.] 



THE FIRST POSTULANT 



43 




DEAR SIR: George W. Muse enlisted in i86i 9 in the ist 

Company, Washington Artillery and left for the seat of war 

( Virginia) on May 27, i86i t and was killed at the first battle 

of Manasses, July 21 1 i86i t being the first man killed of the 

W. A. 

SUMPTER TURNER, 

Secretary. 



44 'THE FIRST POSTULANT [April, 

Bat comrade Turner is mistaken, as was Father Deshon, in 
thinking that our postulant was killed in the battle of Man- 
asses, or Bull Run. He was killed three days before. We ap- 
pend an extract from the official report of the officer com- 
manding the ist Company of the Washington Artillery in the 
skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, July 18. It is signed " C. W. 
Squires, Lieutenant com'd'g"the captain having been wounded 
in the action. The combat was principally a lively artillery 
duel : 

The firing now became general on both sides, the enemy 
firing at first over our heads, but gradually getting our range. 
We returned their fire, and were informed by General I^ong- 
street that we were doing great execution. The enemy's guns 
ceased firing for a few minutes, and it appeared that some- 
thing had happened. Our battery in the meantime kept up 
rapid firing. The enemy soon opened again, their shells 
bursting in the very midst of our battery, wounding Captain 
Eshleman, privates H. I,. Zebel, J. A. Tarlton, and G. W. 
Muse of First Company. 

G. W. Muse died of his wounds during the night. 

The Union guns were a battery of the regular army, com- 
manded by Captain (afterwards Major General) Ayres, and 
their loss according to Captain Ayres' official report, was two 
killed and two wounded. We trust that young Muse was not 
responsible for any of these casualties, according to his wish, 
" I cannot bear the idea of killing any one," expressed in a 
letter presently to be given. 

It is a curious question as to how the original Faulists 
learned of his death a private soldier killed in a petty skirmish, 
whose incidents, too, were quite overshadowed by the fateful and 
world-renowned battle of three days later, a question we have 
found no means of answering. As to the mother, how soon 
did God accept her offering of her son to his country's "just 
and holy cause," as he sincerely believed it to be, a painful 
sacrifice which forstalled the wholly joyous one of her son's 
vocation : " My mother is very anxious that I should join the 
Paulists." 

Now let us go back and consider the origin of this vo- 
cation. In 1854 the original Paulists, at that time Redemp- 
torists, gave missions in the principal churches of New Orleans. 



19".] THE FIRST POSTULANT 45 

It was then that our future postulant, first made their ac- 
quaintance, which, however, was not as far as we know, per- 
sonal, but rather that of a profoundly moved hearer of the 
Fathers' sermons. It was seven years afterwards that he 
wrote to Father Hecker a letter from which we shall now 
quote : 

NEW ORLEANS, April n, 1861. 

REVEREND FATHER : I take the liberty of addressing you 
upon a subject which is very nearly connected with my eternal 
welfare, and which 'I suppose you, as a missionary, will be 
pleased to receive. Some years ago whilst you and your 
companions were giving missions in this city, I was so im- 
pressed with your sermons, and particularly the one on hell, 
delivered by Father Walworth, that I became sincerely de- 
sirous of leaving the world and joining you. Yet I yielded 
to a feeling of indecision and mentioned nothing about it to 
any of you. After you left, this desire remained with me for 
a long time ; but on account of my becoming engaged in the 
affairs of the world, its strength gradually decreased until I 
thought no more of it. 

He then tells of its revival with the imperative force of a 
well-developed vocation during the preceding winter, and that 
under the spur of it he wrote to Father Walworth, who an- 
swered him encouragingly from Troy, N. Y., where he was at 
the time in charge of St. Peter's parish. After speaking of the 
local priests to whom he could refer, he continues: 

I wish to know if you will receive me, and what will be re- 
quired on my part. I am twenty- three years old and a native 
of Louisiana. I suppose it will require a better acquaintance 
with me than any mere letter could afford, before you decide. 
But I trust it is the will of God, and that ere long I shall be 
with you. I am engaged in business in this city. But I am 
dissatisfied with the world, and really think that I cannot 
remain in it and save my soul. I know all that the world 
can give, and I am persuaded that all is a mere nothing that 
passes away with time. 

And now comes mention of theTreason why young Muse's 
application has so tragical an interest the Civil War. He 
wrote this letter on the nth of April, and at daylight on the 



46 THE FIRST POSTULANT [April, 

1 2th the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor 
began : 

I would like, if possible, to join you before the war com- 
mences, for I am afraid to kill anybody, even in my country's 
cause, but will be compelled to do so, if war is declared. For 
I am a member of the Washington Artillery, a leading mili- 
tary company of this city. I have conversed with several of 
my friends (priests) concerning my vocation, and they all 
seem to think it is the ministry. My mother is very anxious 
that it should be so. Hoping to hear from you soon, and to 
be numbered among you ere long, 

I am your humble servant, 

G. W. MUSE. 

It might be asked how he could reach New York by mail 
after the war had begun. The answer is that though a military 
frontier had been established after Fort Sumter, yet on account 
of the still undecided attitude of the border states, letters passed 
back and forth between the two sections till early summer. 
This letter of Muse was answered by Father Hewit. He at 
that time was a kind of secretary of the little Faulist Institute, 
and in his handwriting we find the following endorsement: 
"G. W. Muse, N. O. Answered April 19, '61. If he would 
make a journey, might come and see whether he had a voca- 
tion if so, study elsewhere until we could receive him." 

In answer to Father Hewit's letter came the following, 
dated nearly a month after. This second and last letter shows 
that Muse considered himself an accepted postulant: 

NEW ORLEANS, May 17, I86i. 

REVEREND FATHER : Yours of the i8th ult. reached me in 
due time, and proved a source of much gratification to me. 
But owing to the present state of affairs, I know it would be 
unsafe for me to visit New York, being a native born Southerner, 
and a strong secessionist. I am, besides, a member of the 
Washington Battalion of Artillery of this city, and expect to 
leave here with that corps in a few days for Virginia. And 
although I cannot bear the idea of killing any one, I yet can- 
not conscientiously forsake my country in her time of need. 
And I furthermore believe that ours is a just and a holy 
cause, and were I to die on the battle-field I would receive 
my eternal salvation. I do not understand how the North- 



i9i i.] THE FIRST POSTULANT 47 

erners can imagine for a moment that they are in the right in 
pursuing their present course. 

I learned that Father Walworth was going as chaplain with 
the 6gth New York Regiment * I trust only to act the part 
of the Good Samaritan. If the Washington Artillery and the 
69th Regiment should ever come in contact, I think we shall 
have to take Father Walworth prisoner with those of that 
Regiment we do not kill ; but if you see him, I wish you to 
tell him that I will try to have him properly cared for. Hop- 
ing to be with you yet, one of these days, I would beg of you 
to remember me in your prayers. Yours sincerely, 

G. W. MUSE. 

This letter is endorsed in Father Hewit's handwriting: 
"G. W. Muse, May 17, '61. Rec'd May 29." The interval 
of twelve days between sending and receiving, is easily ac- 
counted for by the warlike preparations of both parties along 
the border; it was doubtless a portion of the last regular 
mails that came through. 

Will the reader be interested in a brief study of the home en- 
vironment of young Muse ? It was the ante-bellum New Orleans, 
the gayest city of the South, perhaps of the world. Of all 
the river towns, with their redundant and too often sinful 
gladness and giddiness, New Orleans was the foremost in for- 
getfulness of that " eternal welfare " which preoccupied Muse's 
thoughts. There the joy of sinning was defiant, and iniquity 
of every sort was brazen. It was the sink hole of the floating 
human scum of the Mississippi Valley. But as usual, the worst 
was not without the best, and many souls there, like our young 
postulant, were wholly given to God and divine things. 

For the weak side of New Orleans and its flaunting im- 
morality, read G. W. Cabell's Old Creole Days, The Grandis- 
simes, and all the earlier era and character novels of that writer. 
Some of them depict conditions half a century prior to the 
breaking out of the Civil War, in books all reeking with the 
realism of a true master of the art of picturing human morals 
and manners. That these features of life continued on and 
stared Muse in the face at every turn fifty years afterwards, 
is a fact abundantly evident from later writings of Cabell (the 
powerful novel, Doctor Sevier, for instance), and from many 
contemporary witnesses. 

* Muse was misinformed on this point. 



43 THE FIRST POSTULANT [April, 

A mellow climate, genial in winter nor overhot in summer; a 
population, one part of whom had in their very blood the spirit 
of unlicensed joy, and the other, and we fear lesser part, a deep 
flowing, emotional and, if need be, heroic Catholicity. One 
might stroll for hours through the winding streets and fancy 
himself a foreigner in his native land, seeing no emblem of 
even a French city of modern days. The houses were of a 
style of a forgotten generation, dusky and dingy and quaint, 
partly of Spanish, partly of French origin and appearance, 
garnished with queer old gables and protruding dormer win- 
dows ; to an ordinary American relics of a dim and question- 
able past, to the dwellers in them sacred memorials of their 
pristine glories. Religion was a constant struggle against a 
tide of overpowering temptation, but its warfare was not with- 
out many and glorious victories. The public indecency of the 
town, however, was not overcome. Sunday was absolutely 
Parisian in reckless gaiety, and every day spoke loudly of lust 
and gambling and intemperance. This was the old town. Out 
of it has grown the present orderly commercial metropolis, as 
sober-sided married life with its seriousness follows the blare 
and abandon of reckless youth. The war was the beginning 
of the plowing under of New Orleans' wild oats. When this 
light-hearted and hot-headed people seceded and flung out 
the Pelican flag, and joined the Southern Confederacy, and 
the war had run its course, many good things and a vast num- 
ber of good men had perished, but also the worst of the an- 
cient evils were swept away. 

Let us quote briefly from a book, now in oblivion but 
once widely read, and having the peculiar value of the record 
of personal observation. Albert D. Richardson was a corres- 
pondent of the New York Tribune, and, disguised as a com- 
mercial agent, he traveled through the whole South, east of 
the Mississippi, in the winter and spring preceding the out- 
break of our Civil War, ending by being detected and cap- 
tured and spending a doleful and lengthened period in prison* 
We quote what he has to say of New Orleans as he saw it 
in April and May, 1861. He is speaking of the old French 
Quarter : 

Sit down in a stall, over your tiny cup of excellent coffee, 
and you are hobnobbing with the antipodes your next 



i9i i.] THE FIRST POSTULANT 49 

neighbor may be from Greenland's icy mountains, or India's 
coral strand. Get up to resume your promenade, and you 
hear a dozen languages in as many steps ; while every nation, 
and tribe, and people French, English, Irish, German, 
Spanish, Creole, Chinese, African, Quadroon, Mulatto, Amer- 
ican, jostle you in good-humored confusion. Some gigantic 
negresses, with gaudy kerchiefs, like turbans, about their 
heads, are selling fruits, and sit erect as palm trees. They 
look like African or Indian princesses, a little annoyed at 
being separated from their thrones and retinues, but none the 
less regal for all that. At every turn little girls, with rich 
Creole complexions and brilliant eyes, offer you aromatic 
bouquets of pinks, roses, verbenas, orange and olive blossoms, 
and other flowers to you unknown. 

Upon Jackson Square, which is a delicious bit of verdure 
fronting the river, loom the antique public buildings, which 
were the seat of government in the days of the old Spanish 
regime. Near them stands the equally ancient Cathedral, 
richly decorated within, where devout Catholics still worship. 
Its great congregations are mosaics of all hues and national- 
ities, mingling for the moment in the democratic equality of 
the Roman Church. Attending service in the Cathedral one 
Sunday morning, I found the aisles crowded with volunteers 
who were on the eve of departure for the debatable ground of 
Fort Pickens, and had assembled to witness the consecration 
of their Secession flag, a ceremonial conducted with great 
pomp and solemnity by the French priests {Secret Service. 
By Albert D. Richardson, Correspondent of the New York 
Iribune) . 

Not for Pensacola but for Virginia did the Washington 
Artillery receive its send off, doubtless as enthusiastic as the 
one witnessed by Richardson. Muse would privately make his 
confession to one of the Redemptorist Fathers, for he was a 
member of their parish, and then receive Holy Communion in 
their church. Finally his mother who was "very anxious" 
that he should become a Paulist, but, true to her Southern 
blood, would yet bravely if tearfully bid him God- speed to 
"the seat of war in Virginia," would claim the best of his 
final hours tarrying in this queer and questionable city of his 
nativity. And then with her blessing and the holy sprinkling 
of her tears, he would take his place in the battery and be 
carried away to his doom. 
VOL. xcm. 4 



50 THE FIRST POSTULANT [April, 

After he reached the seat of war, what, let us ask, was the 
military environment of our young postulant? He intended 
his military service to be but a parenthesis in his real career, 
yet not failing to reckon the possibility of the death that ac- 
tually awaited him. He was meantime quite at home with his 
neighbors and friends and schoolmates, now his comrades in 
arms. They carried to camp and march and battle the 
peculiar traits of their far distant home. General Richard 
Taylor commanded a brigade of New Orleans soldiers in Stone- 
wall Jackson's corps, and in his bright and lively Memoirs of 
the war, pictures vividly their wonderful bravery and their no 
less wonderful lightness of nature. 

In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (Vol. III. p. 97) 
we have an attractive scene of their jovial style of soldiering. 
The account is written by a lieutenant of the Washington 
Artillery and tells of the eve of the awful battle of Fredericks- 
burg, fought a year and a half after Muse's death, in which 
various ones of these dauntless youths followed their comrade 
into eternity. " We of the New Orleans Washington Artillery 
sat up late in our camp on Marye's Heights, entertaining some 
visitors in an improvised theatre, smoking our pipes and talk- 
ing of home. A final punch having been brewed and disposed 
of, everybody crept under the blankets." 

The following is the impression New Orleans soldiers made 
upon a genuine Virginian, who had strayed among them in the 
confusion of the battle of Second Bull Run, August 29, 1862, 
a little more than thirteen months after our Paulist postulant's 
death "during the night." The account is taken from Battles 
and Leaders of the Civil War, and is signed Allen C. Redwood, 
55th Virginia Regiment: 

The command was as unlike my own as it is possible to 
conceive. Such a congress of nations only the cosmopolitan 
Crescent City could have sent forth, and the tongues of Babel 
seemed resurrected in its speech ; English, German, French, 
and Spanish, all were represented, to say nothing of Doric 
brogue and native " gumbo." There was, moreover, a vehe- 
mence of utterance and gesture curiously at variance with the 
reticence of our Virginians. It happened that we burned little 
powder that day, and my;promised distinction as a " Pelican " 
pro tem> was cheaply earned. The battalion did a good deal 
of counter-marching, and some skirmishing, but most of the 



i9ii.] THE FIRST POSTULANT 51 

time we were acting as support to a section of Cutshaw's bat- 
tery. The tedium of this last service my companions relieved 
by games of " seven up," with a greasy, well-thumbed deck 
of cards, and in smoking cigarettes, rolled with great dexter- 
ity, between the deals. Once, when a detail was ordered to 
go some distance under fire to fill the canteens of the com- 
pany, a hand was dealt to determine who should go, and the 
decision was accepted by the loser without demur. 

What were the wounds our soldier postulant died of " dur- 
ing the night ? " Who were with him in his last moments ? 
Where was he buried, and with what religious rites ? Who are his 
surviving relatives ? Are there no old comrades who remem- 
ber him and can tell of him? We are silent about all these 
interesting matters because unknowing. But this we know full 
well: before and at the time of his death, young George W. 
Muse longed with all his might to be a priest and missionary 
with us in the very earliest era of our little Faulist Institute, 
and we are fully persuaded that this was an inspiration of 
God's grace. We fondly trust that his soul is now in heaven 
with Father Hecker and our original Fathers. 

He served a good postulancy, looking death in the face. 
Death is the best of novice masters, and the one most com- 
petent to concentrate the influences of religion into the brief- 
est period of time, and to elicit their sincerest expression. 

His name stands first in the long list of dead in the Wash- 
ington Artillery, and very near the first in the scores of 
thousands of fearless Southerners who died on the battlefields 
of Virginia. Shall we not place him first in the sacred roll of 
our Paulist dead ? He was separated from the religious so- 
ciety he loved and craved by the bloody chasm of war, but 
not at all divided in spirit and in love. The seed sown in his 
heart was the grace of a tranquil but resistless yearning to 
preach Christ's gospel and minister at His altar; the harvest 
was according to the seed, though gathered by the scythe of 
war. We embalm George W. Muse's memory in our deepest 
affections, and we record his name in the imperishable records 
of our religious community. 




THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE. 

BY S, T. SWIFT. 

HOPE that when you review Mr. Lathbury's 
book,* you will show the ' inhumanness ' of Mr. 
Gladstone," wrote a friend. To one already im- 
mersed in the Letters themselves, the phrase was 
startling. 

" Inhuman " ? the man who could love as he loved Hope- 
Scott and Manning, who could feel so fiercely for the op- 
pressed, even when they were the opponents of all he lived 
for, who showed such childlike reverence for Dr. Dollinger's 
somewhat unwieldy attainments, and such perennial hopeful- 
ness that something would turn up to curb the incomprehen- 
sible encroachments of the Roman Church? No; in these 
volumes, Mr. Gladstone is at last seen delightfully, lovably, 
sometimes quite unreasonably, human ! 

Recalling, however, that it is only through Lord Morley's 
Life that Gladstone is known to the rising generation, we 
ceased to wonder. Mr. Gladstone, portrayed by one who de- 
liberately and conscientiously left his religion out of account, 
showed a curious lack of motive for tremendous, sustained, and 
often distasteful effort, which led to one of two conclusions. 
Either here was a product of the ceaseless pressure of multi- 
tudinous industries acting and counteracting on a man in whom 
energies had come to be automatic, and who had persuaded 
himself that action was a good per se\ or else here was a man 
in whom personal ambition had swallowed up every other con- 
sideration on earth or in heaven, and to whom life meant noth- 
ing if he could not guide a public to whose will he really bent 
with the suppleness of a well-trained moral acrobat. 

Not even Lord Morley's frank assurance that nobody could 
be more sensible of the gaps in his pages than himself, nor 
his statement that no one could understand William Ewart 
Gladstone who did not realize that he was a man wholly domi- 

* The Ecclesiastical and Religious Correspondence of William Ewatt Gladstone. Selected 
and Arranged by D. C. Lathbury. With Portraits and Illustrations. New York: The 
Macmillan Company. 



i9i i.] THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE 53 

nated by his religious nature, atoned for the fact that he gave 
us a soulless book, purporting to be the life of a man pre- 
eminently soulful. 

Here was a man who said at the outset of his political 
career: " Politics would be an utter blank to me, were I to 
make the discovery that we were mistaken in maintaining their 
association with religion." Here was a man who wrote to J. 
R. Hope in 1844: "The purpose of Parliamentary life resolves 
itself simply and wholly into one question : Will it ever afford 
the means under God of rectifying the relations between Church 
and State, and give me the opportunity of setting forward such 
work ? " How could his " life as theologian and Churchman " 
be dissevered from his life as politician and statesman without 
producing a literary monstrosity and a pen-portrait absolutely 
without verisimilitude in short, an " inhuman " Gladstone ? 

The publication of the Ecclesiastical and Religious Corre- 
spondence of William Ewart Gladstone is but a tardy act of 
justice to his memory. We wish the Life could not be bought 
without the Letters! There is no " inhumanness" in these. 
Their humanness is as pathetic as it is lofty. On some pages 
we find a consciousness of the insufficiency of human nature, 
a reaching out for sacramental helps, a desire for some hierarch- 
ical Jacob's ladder, whereby to scale heaven, which instinctively 
remind one of the legends of waiting priedieu and expectant 
priest, ready to reconcile a Gladstone following hard after 
Newman and Manning and Hope-Scott. He craves for an in- 
fallible Church. Again, we find expressions of beliefs so con- 
tradictory, lines of argument in theological matters so opposed 
to those to which he would ever have dared to trust in the 
House of Commons, that we at once see in this " greatest 
citizen of the world" only a tremendous example of Catholic 
teaching on " invincible ignorance," and the inability of the 
human intellect to pass Godward beyond a certain fixed point 
without special illumination by divine grace. 

The wealth of material in these volumes makes their intel- 
ligent reading difficult, unless the reader keep before his mind 
an outline map of this career of magnificent distances. The 
first two hundred pages deal with " Church and State." They 
extend over the period from 1838 to 1894. To Manning, in 
the first years after leaving the University, he opens his heart 
on the subject which formed the central interest of his long 



54 THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE [April, 

life, z>*>., the duty of the State in propagating religion. It was 
still religion which he had in mind, not ecclesiasticism ; not 
yet was his " the passion of the great Popes and master- 
builders for strengthening and extending the institutions by 
which faith is spread." That was to be wrought out in his soul 
by his own book on The State in Its Relation to the Church, 
which he began in May, 1838, as an Evangelical, and finished 
in October of the same year as a High Churchman. Yet Glad- 
stone could never understand how a like mental process went 
on in Dr. Newman while he wrote the " Development of Doc- 
trine ! " 

These earliest letters to Manning seem to have been written 
to clarify Mr. Gladstone's own mind for his forthcoming book. 
He already sees that it is hopeless " to expect a high general 
standard of religion in a National Church," but thinks that its 
chief mission is "to save from the deluge of utter profligacy, 
and preserve in a greater or less attachment to religious ordi- 
nances and professions and even feelings, a very large class of 
persons who would otherwise be totally without God in the 
world." He admits a very low moral average in the members 
of the Establishment, but hopes for better things "when a 
self-reviewing and self-renovating principle is provided, which 
shall be the conscience of the Church and shall have power 
to execute its rewards." It is difficult to gather just what he 
meant by this. He finds it " a hard and formidable question 
. . . how the principle of Catholic Christianity is to be ap- 
plied, in these evil and presumptuous days, to the conduct 
of public affairs." Maynooth already stares him in the face, 
and he regards with horror the assistance given by the State 
to the sects of her colonies. 

In this frame of mind, he wrote the book to which Lord 
Macaulay's robust and healthy sarcasm alone gave immortality. 
Mr. Gladstone in later life probably considered its publication 
a misfortune. The maturity of the young Member's style caused 
the world to overlook the actual juvenility of his thought. In 
it, he advocated the recognition on English soil of but one 
Church, which was to be passively coercive. Up to 1844, he 
was determined to stand by his utterances, and withdrew from 
the Cabinet rather than sanction in a Ministerial capacity the 
increase and perpetuation of a Government grant for the train- 
ing of Catholic priests in Maynooth. 



19 1 1.] THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE 55 

His views changed in after years, because he came to see 
the Church of England and the State of England in another 
light. In 1847, he voted for the removal of Jewish disabilities, 
giving, as his reason, that he now saw England to be not so 
distinctively a Christian nation that the personal tenets of her 
lawgivers made much difference, provided they were willing 
to govern her as a realm not altogether anti-Christian. This 
he felt more deeply or else was willing to express more clearly 
in 1880, when he fought for Mr. Bradlaugh's right of admis- 
sion to an oath probably not more meaningless for him than 
for many who took it, unchallenged, in the same Parliament. 
Disillusionment did not make him cynical. " Men have no 
business to talk of disenchantment/' he wrote briskly, at sev- 
enty-one. "Ideals are never realized." 

Nothing could better refute the charges of inconsistency so 
often brought against Mr. Gladstone than these intimate let- 
ters. Growth does not imply inconsistency. His mind proved, 
happily, more capable of growth than is the case with many 
youths of like precocity. Life is, after all, the one indispen- 
sable text book. Sir John Gladstone's intellect was incompar- 
ably less than that of his son. Yet how much saner and wiser 
the father's brief answer than the perfervid, hysterically devout 
letter in which his student son points out to him that in view 
of the lost condition of the human race and the fact that he 
himself is but one of a world of " guilty, trembling sinners," 
he cannot see how to serve God otherwise than by the direct 
work of the ministry of the Church of England. 

There is every proof that the younger Gladstone's view of 
his own mission altered under the teaching of experience. 
The mental difference between the man of twenty-six, who 
objected to attending the wedding of his own brother with a 
Unitarian, and who busied himself with inventing religious 
tests which might be applied to the new comer into the ortho- 
dox family, and the same man at seventy-one, defending the 
Parliamentary rights of an atheist, in face of all manner of 
obloquy, is but a matter of the lapse of years. Old Sir John 
pointed out his lack of wisdom at the time of the aforesaid 
wedding. It took his son fifty years to see that his mental 
attitude at that period was "a deplorable state of servitude." 

These Letters, no matter under what heading " Church 
and State," "The Oxford Movement," "Controversy with 



56 THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE [April, 

Rome," " Personal " make perfectly clear that their writer 
was always looking Romeward with an attraction against 
which he as steadily fought. This attraction, he says, "never 
presented itself to me other than as a temptation and a sin." 

Mr. Gladstone made no mistake. Unlike many of the Ox- 
onians of his day, he saw, as early as 1844, that Papal juris- 
diction was the real crux for the hesitant Anglican, no matter 
against what background it was presented. This comes out 
clearly in an intimate and confidential letter to J. R. Hope 
(No. 166). 

In 1842, a year after the Tractarian Movement had begun, 
he wrote a most interesting letter to the limes (No. 142). 
The editor refused to publish it. Perhaps it was as well for 
Mr. Gladstone, since he presented a rather forceful argument 
for what was afterward to be the most objurgated of all the 
Tractarian tenets, begging all and sundry " not to insult the 
Elizabethan Reformers " by the suggestion that they imagined 
later generations of Englishmen would follow the opinions 
(expressed in the XXXIX Articles) "which they might pri- 
vately and perhaps dubiously entertain. 1 ' He continues as 
follows : 

It is one of the conspicuous benefits of Catholic principle 
that as it teaches men are knit together by the sacred bond of 
communion in the body of the Savior and not by the unsure 
coincidence of the operations of their own weak judgments 
upon high and sacred truth, it can no longer remain a ques- 
tion of private inclination or choice founded thereon to adhere 
to a given form of religion or to leave it. If such a body be 
within that sacred bond that is, if it be Catholic it is a duty 
to remain in it; if that silver cord be broken, it is a duty to 
depart. It is their business to be not where they will, nor 
where they like, nor where they choose, but where they have 
the assured promise of the Spirit. But when the character of 
Catholicity is erased, the Church leaves them, and not they 
the Church. They do not leave the Church, but follow it, 
and that which they leave is the usurping counterfeiter which 
occupies its place and apes its functions ... If the ill- 
omened hour shall come when the spiritual life of the Church 
shall be found and declared too faint to animate a Catholic 
system in its august dimensions then, although the struggle 
go to the dividing bone from marrow, and to the rending asun- 
der flesh from spirit, their duty is not to be denied ; their de- 



1911.] THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE 57 

cision is made for them rather than by them before the emer- 
gency, and their duty is clear when it arrives. 

This was precisely the attitude of the seceders who were 
still striving to prove the possibility of reconciling the Arti- 
cles with the Decrees of the Council of Trent, and concerning 
whom Mr. Gladstone expressed himself rather mercilessly in 
many later letters to the then Archdeacon Manning. Later 
on, in a letter to Mrs. Gladstone, he expresses dissatisfaction 
as strong as their own (No. 40). 

The truth is, I think, however we may deplore these seces- 
sions, we must prepare to see many more, unless the Church 
of England, by the mouth of her rulers and members, shall put 
an end to her shameful hesitation and give people clearlj'- to 
understand whether she thinks it her duty to teach the Chris- 
tian Faith or not. We must hope in the mercy oi God . . . 
and must for the present think less of the Church of England 
as an organized society (so long as she is content to be a 
Babel) than of what she has been and what we hope she will 
be. 

This letter was written under the shock of the Gorham 
Judgment, which to many of this generation, is only a name. 
In brief, it was this. A bishop had refused to institute a 
clergyman to a vicarage on the ground that he held unsound 
doctrine with respect to baptisimal regeneration. The clergy- 
man appealed to the ecclesiastical Court of Arches, which sus- 
tained the bishop. The matter then came before the judicial 
committee of the Privy Council, where a majority, with the 
two Archbishops as assessors, reversed the decision of the 
court below. Mr. Gladstone gave to this incident its full 
weight, and said that the state of the Church of England, 
after it "almost left men to choose between a broken heart 
and no heart at all." 

On the other question, the divergencies of the early British 
Bishops from Roman ritual and discipline seems to have af- 
forded him a rather unreasonable amount of assurance as to 
the spiritual security of schism (No. 166 ) 

What was the condition of those British Bishops and their 
Churches whom St. Augustine found in England ? ... Is 
the proposition anything less than monstrous that those Bish- 
ops and Churches were cut off from the Redeemer? 



58 THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE [April, 

i 
To us, the inference that an Englishman in the middle of 

the nineteenth century, with a full library of the Fathers at 
his disposal and with free communication, both linguistic and 
personal, with the Holy Roman See, should measure his con- 
duct by the example of the earliest bishops of an isolated 
island in the dawn of civilization and Christianity is equally 
monstrous. 

In later life, he settled solidly into the position he assigns 
in 1884 to Dr. Liddon : 

I had always supposed him to be one of those who may 
properly be called Anglicans, who pay allegiance to the 
Church of England (as Manning did before 1850) entirely 
and exclusively as the Catholic Church, that is, as the branch 
or section of the Catholic Church which in its territorial dis- 
tribution has become possessed of this realm ; and for whom, 
therefore, it is no more possible to join the Anglo-Roman 
Communion, even if they happened to prefer its modes of 
thought and action, than it would be to transfer themselves 
out of the family of their parents, in order to meet the solicita- 
tions of another couple who might profess to be, or who even 
might be, more desirable. This to me has been through all 
my mature and thinking life the clear and simple and inde- 
structible basis of Churchmanship. 

This is plainly the language of a man whom no further 
argument can affect. On this point he seems to have no 
longer any doubt of his personal infallibility. Apparently, it 
never occurred to him to reason that Dr. Newman had given 
to the consideration of the Catholicity of the Anglican Church 
long years of study where he himself could give but stolen 
hours; that he brought to his ponderings at least such theo- 
logical training as Oxford could supply. As soon as Dr. 
Newman decides against the Anglican position, Mr. Gladstone 
finds his ground "impalpable" and considers that he stands 
before the world " as a disgraced man." Yet he himself had 
written the " Relations Between Church and State," as we 
have said before, believing that the English State was Chris- 
tian. He learned, through working as a part of the State, 
that she was not, and he acted accordingly. But he could 
never see that Newman, when he wrote Tract Ninety, believed 
that the Church of England might be reckoned Catholic, and 
that' when he learned by further investigation, as a clergy- 



i9i i.] THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE 59 

man, forming part of her working force, that her hierarchy 
was not so, he, too, was bound to act in accordance with his 
maturer conviction. 

"Human"? Yes; very, very human, in that prejudice 
which Mr. Andrew Lang tells us is universal in things per- 
taining to the intellect. Pathetically human, when he writes 
to his beloved Hope that, although he looks up to his friend's 
mind and intellect "with reverence, under consciousness of 
immense inferiority," he must yet assure him that they are 
" much under the domination of an agency lower than their 
own," and goes on to conclude his letter with the virulence 
of a member of the yet unborn Protestant Alliance. 

One searches in vain for confirmation of the theory that 
the Commission on Oxford Reform was in any way the out- 
come of the so - called Oxford Movement. Mr. Gladstone him- 
self seems to have acted in the Reform only under pressure 
of a most reluctant conscience. If he had felt that it had 
importance in diverting the attention of Oxford thinkers from 
the " Roman question," we should surely find trace of that 
view, given with the delightful naivete of his reasons for ad- 
vocating, in 1841, the Jerusalem Bishopric, "a fantastic pro- 
ject by which a Bishop, appointed alternately by Great Britain 
and Prussia was to take charge, through a somewhat miscel- 
laneous region, of any German Protestants or members of the 
Church of England, or anybody else who might be disposed 
to accept his authority." This was, Mr. Gladstone tells us, 
"simply an effort ... to confront the tendencies, or sup- 
posed tendencies, now first disclosed, toward the Church of 
Rome, by presenting to the public mind a telling idea of 
Catholicity under some other form." 

While the English Church was in Gladstone's eyes the 
dearest object on earth, the Roman Church was, to the end, 
the most fascinating, Witness the nearly fifty pages of letters 
in Vol II., drawn forth by the battle for the temporal sover- 
eignty and by the Vatican Council, though long years had 
passed since that Church had, as he felt, done her worst on 
him by changing the ardent friendships of his early manhood 
into cautious, arm's length acquaintances. The number of these 
private letters was probably lessened, too, by the fact that he 
publicly gave vent to his feelings through the agency of a 
pamphlet. 



60 THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE [April, 

To his manifesto on the undesirability of maintaining the 
temporal power in the Papal States by dint of foreign arms, 
as set forth with clarity and dignity to Cardinal Manning, no 
one can take reasonable exception (No. 241). Events, too, 
have shown us the spiritual advance, which he foretold to the 
Church from her temporal disasters, wrought out by Him 
Who maketh the wrath of man to praise Him. But again this 
most tolerant and fair-minded of men, in other matters just 
to all to the extent of being merciless to himself, accuses the 
Pope of " regarding the interests of the Roman people as a 
matter of infinite unimportance by the side of the interests of 
the Roman Church. He cannot conceive that the Holy Fa- 
ther may regard the interests of the Roman people as insep 
arably identified with the interests of the Roman Church ! 
We, on the other hand, are able to believe that the honorable 
gentleman who argued in the House of Commons in 1833 
against the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and 
again in 1850 against University Reform, had no desire to 
sacrifice the interests of one part of the nation to those of 
another; though we do feel, with Lord Morley, that "no 
worse cause was ever better argued." 

His suggestion, made to Lord Clarendon in 1869, that the 
Powers might possibly do something in respect to the Vatican 
Council " to save the Pope and the Roman Church from them- 
selves/ 1 is hard to treat seriously. From a lesser man, the 
words would have been less absurd. He had kept his head 
when England went mad over the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 
but he lost it temporarily in 1870-1874. Cardinal Manning's 
"Vatican Council" has been deprecated as hastily written and 
rather intemperately phrased. But when even Mr. Gladstone 
was writing of "a piece of effrontery," of "insane proceedings," 
of "a pure piece of ultra- sacerdotalism," etc., etc., one can 
pardon His Eminence for remarking that " when English 
Protestants undertake to write of an Ecumenical Council noth- 
ing less than a miracle could preserve them from making 
themselves ridiculous." 

Correspondence with Dr. Dollinger at this time (Nos. 237, 
247, 248, 249, 251) was not consoling. The German did not 
seem inclined to go to the length the Englishman had hoped. 
However, to this renewal of relations between them, we owe 
a most interesting memorandum (Vol. II., Appendix 4) of an 






i9i i.] THE HUMAN SIDE OP GLADSTONE 61 

old conversation in 1845, when Dr. Dollinger gave him truly 
startling information on indulgences. The old Catholic has 
found apologists on the ground that he was rather a historian 
than a theologian. G. K. Chesterton would tell us that his 
heresy was really due to his being in no wise a grammarian ! 

" To my inquiry," notes Mr. Gladstone, " what was the 
meaning of indulgence to (sic) the dead for so many days or 
other periods of time, he answered it was still the application 
of the prayer of the Church for them for forty days." No 
wonder the inquirer went on to ask: "Is it then meant that 
the force of the petitions of the Church for the peace of the 
departed, is, unconsciously to those who offer them, distributed 
according to indulgences which have been obtained by other 
parties, so that the effect of prayer is thus separated, system- 
atically and by anticipation, from the consciousness of those 
who offer it ? There is something slippery about this, and yet 
it seems capable of an explanation. 11 

If the " good piece of his theological education " for which 
the English Churchman was indebted to the German schis- 
matic was all as original as this scrap, it is not surprising 
that it left him still out of the Haven ! 

Mr. Gladstone has been accused of ignoring the personality 
of his correspondents and of assuming that they all breathed 
his own atmosphere. This is partially, not altogether true. 
No separation in time or thought, for instance, ever chilled 
the glow and warmth of his style when he wrote to Cardinal 
Manning, and the glow and warmth seem to have been called 
out by the personality of Manning's own fiery temperament. 
To the end of his life, Gladstone held him to be " on such a 
level that from my own plane of thought and life I can only 
look at him as a man looks at the stars." Even under the 
first shock of severance he wrote, " I never was worthy to 
associate with you and now, if we could associate, perhaps 
you would find me less so than ever." With Hope-Scott, 
there is a different, though a complete unbending. And never 
was Bishop Wilberforce's own oleaginous style paralleled with 
more delicate adroitness than in the letter explaining exactly 
why the Prime Minister will never recommend him for prefer- 
ment until he steers a straight course and ceases to trim. 
(No. 104.) 

Of personal affection for or interest in those below his own 



62 THE HUMAN SIDE OF GLADSTONE [April. 

social or intellectual level, we find no trace. The mass of 
Englishmen idolized him. He came no nearer to them than 
the platform of the hustings. His desire to serve the People 
seemed never to individualize them. Lord Morley hints at 
special interest in work for fallen women, and we have vague 
recollection of notice given by the great man to Miss Ellice 
Hopkins' Rescue work, back in the very earliest of the eighties 
or before. But nothing in these letters bears on any personal 
work for the poor or the sinful. The dream of shepherd- 
ing souls, put away in early youth, seems to have been put 
away forever. Perhaps with his pitiless, undirected efforts at 
self-discipline, it seemed to him another " temptation and sin," 
which might lead him away from his God-given public work. 
The common people heard him gladly. But if virtue went 
out from him to them, it had to be without contact even with 
the hem of his garment. 

Another side of his life, kept intentionally out of this 
compilation, is the domestic and intimately social side. Surely, 
there is much of that which could be given to the world 
without violating the sanctities of home life. Only in one 
letter to Cardinal Manning, where he speaks of the terrific 
pressure of financial difficulties upon him and of the danger- 
ous illness of his little Agnes, do we get a trace of his do- 
mestic life. Even in the letters to his children given by Mr. 
Lathbury, he is rather the tutor than the father. True, it is 
early days for that. A man's children take longer than his 
friends to get their perspective of him fixed after his death, 
and such a book, or even such a sketch as one longs to see, 
could hardly be written save by one of his children. Miss 
Helen Gladstone, in some respects more like her father than 
any of his sons, is eminently fitted to add the final volume 
to a series which will then be measuredly complete. 

To their writer's genuine goodness and profoundly religious 
nature, as to his deep sense of personal responsibility to God, 
these letters bear fullest witness. That written to Mrs. Glad- 
stone on peace (No. 387) reminds one of the finest of Fenelon. 
To his strange failure to follow those he loved and reverenced 
most on earth into the City of Peace, they give no clue, save, 
as we have reiterated, that Mr. Gladstone was profoundly 
human ; and we can only leave him, to quote his own words, 
" in the never-dying hope of what lies beyond the veil." 



CHAUNTING MYSTERIES. 

BY R. M. BURTON. 

THE VIOLET. I,o, anear, His Cross did loom ; 
And within the garden's gloom 

Agonized the Son of God. 
As He prayed that cup might pass, 
When His blood-sweat dewed the grass : 

Sprung the violet from the sod. 

STAB AT MATER. Hail Mary, Fount of Morn! 

Standing 'neath the cross forlorn. 

Bleeding heart of Mary, none 
But thee Ah, tenderest one, 
Shared His mockery and scorn, 
Felt the piercing of each thorn ; 
Crucified thy Holy Son 
All thy hopes are now undone. 

Hail Mary, Fount of Morn ! 

Three days hence new light shall dawn. 

MAGDALENE. The weeping Mary little knew 
Amid the penitential dew 

As contrite tears she shed ; 
That she should first proclaim abroad 
The resurrection of her I^ord 

When Death was captive led. 

Those tears transfigured, lo, were worn, 
The diamonds in the crown of morn ; 

And she at daybreak first did see 
Within the garden all alone ; 
The riven grave the rolled stone, 

Where Captive led captivity. 

THE LILY. The morning brought its rays of red, 
As Mary sought Him, but instead, 
She found thy glory in His tomb: 
O I41y of immortal bloom. 




WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN. 

BY HILAIRE BELLOG. 

HAVE now carried this series through four sec- 
tions. My object in writing it is to show that 
the Roman Empire never really perished but 
was only transformed ; that the Catholic Church 
which it accepted in its maturity caused it to 
survive and was, in that origin of Europe and has since re- 
mained, the soul of the Western States. 

In the first of these articles I sketched the nature of the 
Roman Empire, in the second the nature of the Church within 
the Roman Empire before that civilization in its maturity ac- 
cepted Catholicism. In the third I attempted to lay before 
the reader the phenomenon of transformation and of material 
decline (but of survival) which has erroneously been called 
"the fall" of the Roman Empire. In the fourth I presented 
a picture of what society must have seemed to an onlooker 
just after the crisis of that transformation and the beginning 
of what are called the Dark Ages: the beginnings of the 
modern European nations which have superficially differentiated 
from the old unity of Rome. 

I could wish that space had permitted me to describe a 
hundred other contemporary things which would enable the 
reader to seize both the magnitude and the significance of the 
great change from Pagan to Christian times. I should in 
particular have dwelt upon the transformation of the European 
mind with its increasing gravity, its ripening contempt for 
material things, and its resolution upon the ultimate fate 
of the human soul which, it now believed to be immortal 
and subject to a conscious destiny. To this I might have at- 
tached the continued carelessness for the arts and for much 
in letters, the continued growth in holiness, and all that 
"salting," as it were, which preserved civilization and kept it 
whole until, after the long sequestration of the Dark Ages, it 
should discover an opportunity for revival. 

My space has not permitted me to describe these things. 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 65 

I must turn at once to the last, and what is for my readers 
the chief, of the historical problems presented by the begin- 
ning of the Dark Ages: that problem is the fate of Britain. 

The importance of deciding what happened in Britain when 
the central government of Rome failed, does not lie in the 
fact that an historical conclusion one way or the other can 
affect truth. European civilization is still one whether men 
see that unity or no. The Catholic Church is still the soul 
of it, whether men know it or do not know it. But the 
problem presented by the fate of Britain at this critical mo- 
ment when the provinces of the Roman Empire became inde- 
pendent of any common secular control, has this practical im- 
portance: that those who read it wrongly and who provide 
their readers with a false solution (as Freeman, Green, the 
German school and Protestant historians in general have done) 
not only furnish arguments against the proper unity of our 
European story but also create a warped attitude of the mind, 
so that such men as believe them and read them take for 
granted things historically untrue which, when taken for granted, 
make much else that is truth and even contemporary and 
momentous truth hard to prove and to believe. 

A man who desires to make out that the Empire that is 
European civilization ^as "conquered" by barbarians can- 
not to-day, in the light of modern research, prove his case in 
Gaul, in Italy, in Spain, or in the valley of the Rhine. The 
thesis of a barbaric "conquest" of those regions must be and 
is abandoned. But such a man can still make out a plausible 
case when he speaks of Britain ; and having made it out, his 
false result will powerfully affect modern and immediate con- 
clusions upon our common civilization, upon our institutions, 
and their nature, and in particular upon the Faith and its 
authority in Europe. 

For if Britain is of the Northern German Barbarism in race 
and tradition, if in the breakdown of the Roman Empire Britain 
was the one exceptional province which really did become a 
separate barbaric thing cut off at the roots from the rest of 
civilization, then those who desire to believe that the institu- 
tions of Europe are of no universal effect, that the ancient 
laws of the Empire as on property and marriage were local, 
and in particular that the Reformation was the revolt of a 
race, and of a strong and conquering race, against the decaying 

VOL. XCIIL 



66 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [April, 

traditions of Rome, have something to stand on. It does not 
indeed help them to prove that our civilization is bad or that 
the Faith is untrue, but it permits them to despair of or to 
despise the unity of Europe, and to regard the present Pro- 
testant world as something which is destined to supplant that 
unity. 

Such a point of view is wrong historically as it is wrong 
in morals. It will find no basis of military success in the 
future any more than it has in the past. It must ultimately 
break down if ever it should attempt practice, but meanwhile 
as a self-confident theory it can do harm to an indefinite de- 
gree by warping a great section of the European mind and 
bidding it refer to legendary and imaginary origins which 
would divorce it in sympathy from the majestic common- 
wealth of western civilization. The "barbaric" school can 
create its own imaginary past, and lend to such a figment the 
authority of antiquity and of an origin. To show how false 
this modern school of history has been, but also what oppor- 
tunities it had for advancing its thesis, is the object of what 
follows. 

Britain, be it remembered, is to-day the only part of the 
Roman world in which a conscious antagonism to the ancient 
and permanent civilization of Europe exists. The Northern 
Germanics and Scandinavia, which have since the Reformation 
felt in religious agreement with all that is still politically 
powerful in Britain, lay outside the old civilization. They 
would not have survived the schism of the sixteenth cen- 
tury had Britain resisted that schism. When we come to deal 
in these articles with the story of the Reformation in Britain, 
we shall see how nearly popular resistance to the Reformation 
overcame the small wealthy class which used the religious ex- 
citement of an active minority as an engine to provide ma- 
terial advantage for themselves. But as a fact in Britain the 
popular resistance to the Reformation failed. A violent and 
almost universal persecution on the part of the wealthier classes 
against the Church they had despoiled just happened to suc- 
ceed, and the Faith was stamped out. It is our business to 
understand that this phenomenon, the moral severance of 
Britain from Europe, was a phenomenon of the sixteenth cen- 
tury and not of the fifth, and that Britain was in no way 
predestined by race or tradition to so lamentable a disaster. 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 67 

Now let us state the factors in the problem. 

The main factor in the problem is that the history of Great 
Britain from just before the middle of the fifth century (say 
about 420 to 445) until the landing of St. Augustine in 597 is 
a blank. 

It is of the first importance to the student of the general 
history of Europe to seize this point. It is true of no other 
province, and the truth of it has permitted a vast amount of 
empty speculation, most of it recent, upon the wrong and false 
side. When there is no proof or record men can imagine 
almost anything, and, as may well be imagined, the anti- 
Catholic historians have stretched imagination to the last pos- 
sible limit in filling this blank with whatever could tell against 
the continuity of civilization. 

It is the business of those who love historic truth to get 
rid of such speculations as of so much lumber, waste or dirt, 
and to restore to the general reader the few facts upon which 
he can solidly build. 

Let me repeat that, had Britain remained true to the unity 
of Europe in that unfortunate oppression of the sixteenth cen- 
tury which ended in the loss of the Faith, had the populace 
stood firm or been able to succeed in the field and under arms, 
or to strike terror into their oppressors by an efficient revolt, 
in other words had the England of the Tudors remained 
Catholic, the solution of the problem would present no imme- 
diate advantage, nor perhaps would the problem interest men 
even academically. England would now be one with Europe 
as she had been for a thousand years before the uprooting of 
the Reformation. But as things are, the need for correction 
is immediate and of momentous effect, and no true historian, 
even though he should most bitterly resent the effect of Cathol- 
icism upon the European mind, can do other than combat what 
was until quite recently the prevalent teaching with regard to 
the fate of Britain when the Empire decayed. 

I will first, in this article, deal with the evidence such as 
it is which has come down to us of the fate of Britain in the 
fifth and sixth centuries, and in a second article consider the 
conclusions to which such evidence should lead us. 



68 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [April, 

I. 

THE EVIDENCE. 

When we have to deal with a gap in history (and though 
none in European history is so serious as this, yet there are 
very many minor ones which enable us to reason from their 
analogy), two methods of bridging the gap are present to the 
historian. The first is research in such rare contemporary 
records as may illustrate the period ; the second is the paral- 
lel of what was proceeding in similar places and under similar 
circumstances at the same time. Both of these methods must 
be submitted to the criterion of common sense more thoroughly 
and more absolutely than the evidence of fuller periods. 

If, for instance, I learn, as I can learn from contemporary 
records and from the witness of men still living, that at the 
battle of Gettysburg infantry advanced so boldly as to bayonet 
gunners at their guns, I must believe it although the event is 
astonishing. 

If I learn, as I can learn, that a highly civilized and in- 
formed government like that of the French in 1870, entered 
into a war against a great rival, with old muzzle-loading can- 
non when their enemies were already equipped with modern 
breech-loading pieces, I must accept it on overwhelming evi- 
dence, in spite of my astonishment. 

When even the miraculous appears in a record, if human 
evidence is multiple, converging and exact, I must accept it 
or deny the value of human evidence. But when I am dealing 
with a period or an event for which evidence is lacking or de- 
ficient, then obviously it is a sound criterion of criticism to 
accept the probable first and not to presuppose the improbable. 
Common sense and general experience are nowhere more neces- 
sary than in their application, whether in a court of law or in 
the study of history, to those problems whose difficulty con- 
sists in the absence of direct proof. 

Remembering all this, let us set down what is positively 
known from record with regard to the fate of Britain in the 
hundred and fifty years of " the gap." 

There is exactly one contemporay document professing to 
give us half a dozen facts contained within this considerable 
period, and set down by a witness of it; and that document 
is almost valueless for our purpose. 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 69 

It bears the title, De Excidio Brittania Liber Querulus. St. 
Gildas, a monk, was its author. The exact date of its com- 
pilation is a matter of dispute; necessarily so, for the whole 
of that time is quite dark ; but it is certainly not earlier than 
545. So it was written one hundred years after the beginning 
of that darkness which covers British history for one hundred 
and fifty years; the Roman Regulars were called away for a 
continental campaign, in 410, never to return. Britain was 
visited in 429 and 447 by men who left records. It was not 
till 597 that St. Augustine landed. St. Augustine landed only 
fifty years after Gildas wrote his Liber Querulus, whereas the 
snapping of the links between the Continent and Southeastern 
Britain had taken place at least a hundred years before. 

Well, it so happens that this book is, as I have called it, 
almost valueless. It is good in morals; its author complains, 
as all just men must do in all times, of the wickedness of poli- 
ticians, and of the vices of princes. It is a homily. The mo- 
tive of it is not history, but the reformation of morals. In all 
matters extending to more than a lifetime before that of the 
actual writer, in other words in all matters on which he could 
not obtain personal evidence, he is hopelessly at sea. He is 
valuable only as giving us the general impression of military 
and social struggles as they struck a monk who desired to 
make them the text of a sermon. 

He vaguely talks of Saxon auxiliaries being hired (in the 
traditional Roman manner) by some Prince in Roman Brit- 
ain to fight the savages from Scotland, after the Third Consul- 
ship of Aetius (whom he calls " Agitius") that is after 446 A. D. 
He talks still more vaguely of the election of local Kings to 
defend the island from these auxiliaries. He is quite as much 
concerned with the incursions of robber bands of Irish and 
Scotch into the civilized Roman province as he is with the 
few Saxon auxiliaries who were thus called in to supplement 
the arms of the Roman provincials. He speaks only of a 
handful of these auxiliaries, three boatloads; but he is so 
vague and ill-instructed on the whole of this early period (a 
generation and more before his own birth) that one must treat 
his account of the transaction as legendary. He tells us that 
"more numerous companies followed," and we know what 
that means in the case of the Roman auxiliaries throughout 
the Empire, a few thousand ; he goes on to say that these 
auxiliaries mutinying for pay another parallel to what we 



70 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [April, 

should expect from the history of all the previous hundred 
years in Europe threatened to ravage the island. Then 
comes one sentence of rhetoric saying how they ravaged it 
" in punishment for our previous sins," until the " flames " of 
the invasion actually "licked the Western Ocean. 1 ' It is all 
and there is much more just what we have had for a hun- 
dred years in the rhetoric of the lettered men who watched 
the comparatively small but destructive bands of barbarians 
crossing Gaul a generation earlier, pillaging and plundering. 
If we had no record of the continental troubles, but that of 
one religious man using the local disaster as the opportunity 
for a moral discourse historians could have talked of Gaul as 
they talk of Britain on the sole authority of St. Gildas. All 
the exaggeration to which we are used in continental records 
is here: the "sword gleaming" and the "flame crackling," the 
"destruction" of cities (which afterward quietly continue an 
unbroken life), and all the rest of it and we know perfectly 
well that on the continent similar language was used to de- 
scribe the predatory actions of barbarian auxiliaries; actions 
calamitous and tragic no doubt, but not universal and in no 
way finally destructive of civilization. 

It must not be forgotten that St. Gildas also tells us of 
the return of many barbarians with plunder (which is again 
what we should have expected) but at end of the account 
Gildas makes an interesting point which shows that even if 
we had nothing but his written record to judge by the bar- 
barian pirates had got some sort of foothold in the island. 
For after describing how the Romano- British of the province 
organized themselves under one, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and 
stood their ground, he tells us first that "sometimes the citi- 
zens " (that is the Roman and civilized men) " sometimes the 
enemy were successful," down to the thorough defeat of some 
raiding body or other of the Pagans at " Mt. Badon" near 
the mouth of the Severn. This decisive action, he tells us, 
corresponded with the year of his own birth. Now the im- 
portance of this last point is that Gildas is talking of some- 
thing which he really knew. Let anyone who reads this page 
recall a great event contemporary with or nearly following his 
own birth, and see how different is his knowledge of it from 
his knowledge of that which came even a few years before. 

Now this battle Gildas calls the last but not the least 
slaughter of the barbarians; and though we note that he 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 71 

wrote in the West of Britain and the battle was fought near 
the Severn, yet we also know that during the whole of his 
lifetime afterwards a matter of forty- four years there had 
been no fighting. 

We have more rhetoric and more homilies about the "de- 
serted cities and the wickedness of men and the evil life of 
the Kings/' but that you might hear at any period. All we 
really get from Gildas is (i) a confused tradition of a rather 
heavy predatory raid conducted by barbaric auxiliaries sum- 
moned in true Roman fashion to help a Roman province 
against wholly uncivilized invaders; (2) which is most imper- 
tant the obtaining of an actual hold by these auxiliary troops, 
(in small numbers it is true), of some territory within the is- 
land; (3) the cessation of any racial struggle or conflict be- 
tween Christian and Pagan or between Barbarian and Roman, 
that would strike a man living within the small area of Brit- 
ain during the whole of the first half of the sixth century. 

Here let us turn on to these most imperfect, confused and 
few facts which Gildas can give us, the light of our common- 
sense. What sort of thing would a middle aged man writing 
in the decline of letters and with nothing but poor and de- 
monstrably distorted verbal records to go on, set down with 
regard to a piece of warfare, if (a) that man were a monk and 
a man of peace, (b) his object were obviously not history but 
a sermon on morals, and (c) the fighting was between the 
Catholic Faith, which was all in all to the men of his time, 
and Pagans? Obviously he would make all he could of the 
old and terrified legends of the time long before his birth, he 
would get more precise as his birth approached (though al- 
ways gloomy and exaggerating the evil), and he would begin 
to tell us precise facts with regard to the time he could him- 
self remember. Well, all we get from St. Gildas is the preda- 
tory incursions of pagan savages from Scotland and Ireland, 
long, long before he was born; a small number of auxiliaries 
called in to help the Roman Provincials against these; the 
permanent settlement of these auxiliaries in some quarter or 
other of the island ; and (d) what is of capital importance be- 
cause it is really contemporary, the settling down of the whole 
matter apparently during Gildas' own lifetime in the sixth 
century. 

I have devoted so much space to this one writer, whose 
record would hardly count in a time where any sufficient his- 



72 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [April, 

torical documents existed, because his book is absolutely the 
only one contemporary piece of evidence we have upon the pirate 
or "Saxon" raiding of Britain* There are a few words about 
it in the various documents known (to us) collectively to-day 
as "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1 ' but these documents were 
compiled many hundreds of years afterwards and had nothing 
better to go on than St. Gildas himself and possibly a few 
vague legends. 

Now we happen to have in this connection a document 
which, though not contemporary must be considered as evi- 
dence of a kind. It is sober and full, written by one of the 
really great men of Catholic and European civilization, written 
in a spirit of wide judgment and written by a founder of his- 
tory, the Venerable Bede. 

True, the Venerable Bede's " Ecclesiastical History " was 
not produced until three hundred years after the first raids of 
these predatory bands, not until nearly two hundred years after 
St. Gildas, and not until one hundred and forty years after 
reading and writing had come back to Britain with St. Au- 
gustine : but certain fundamental statements of his are evi- 
dence. 

Thus the fact that the Venerable Bede takes for granted 
permanent pirate settlements, established as regular, if small 
states, all the way down the north sea coast from the north- 
ern part of Britain in which he wrote, right down to the cen- 
tral South, is a powerful or rather a conclusive argument in 
favor of the existence of such states some time before he 
wrote. It is not credible that a man of this weight would 
write as he does without solid tradition behind him ; and he 
tells us that the settlers on this coast of Britain came from 
three German tribes, Saxons, Jutes and Angles. 

The first name " Saxon " is a generic name for one of those 
large fluctuating Germanic confederations of which the early 
history of Christendom is full. I have called them large, but 
they cannot have been numerous, for they were migratory. 

Ptolemy puts these "Saxons 11 two hundred years earlier, 
just beyond the mouth of the Elbejf the Romans knew them 
as scattered pirates in the North Sea, irritating the coasts of 

* The single sentence in Prosper is insignificant and what is more, demonstrably false 
as it stands. 

t The name has retained a vague significance for centuries and is now attached to a 
population largely Slavonic and wholly Protestant south of Berlin hundreds of miles from 
its original seat. 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 73 

Gaul and Britain for generations. They seem to have provided 
a few bands of fighting men under chieftains who founded 
small organized governments north of the Thames Estuary, at 
the head of Southampton Water, and on the Sussex coast, in 
the sixth century, capturing very probably the Roman fiscal or- 
ganization of the place, but rapidly, as we shall later see, des- 
troying all such social advantages by their barbaric incompe- 
tence. 

Of the Jutes we know nothing; there is a mass of modern 
guesswork about them but it is valueless. We must presume 
that they were an insignificant little tribe who sent out a few 
mercenaries for hire; but they had the advantage of sending out 
the first, for the handful of mercenaries whom the Roman 
British called into Kent were by all tradition Jutish. 

The Angles were something more definite; they held that 
corner of land where the neck of Denmark joins the mainland 
of Germany. This we know for certain, and there was a con- 
siderable immigration of them ; enough to make their departure 
noticeable in the sparsely populated heaths of their district, 
and to make Bede record the traveler's tale that their country 
still looked " depopulated." How many boatloads of them, 
however, can have come, we have of course no sort of record: 
we only know from our common sense that the number must 
have been insignificant compared with the total free and slave 
population of a rich Roman province. They got a hold of the 
land far above the Thames Estuary, in scattered spots all up 
the east coast of Britain, as far as the Firth of Forth. 

There are no other authorities ; no other evidence, save St. 
Gildas, a contemporary and two hundred years after him, 
three hundred after the event, Bede. A mass of legend and 
worse nonsense called the Historia Brittonum exists indeed for 
those who care to consult it but it has no relation to histori- 
cal science nor any claim to rank as evidence. As we have it, 
it is centuries late, and it need not concern serious history. 
Even for the existence of Arthur to which it is the principal 
witness, popular legend is a much better guide. As to the 
original dates of the various statements in the Histotia Brit- 
tonum, those dates are guesswork. The narrative as a whole 
though very ancient in its roots, dates only from a period 
subsequent to Charlemagne, much more than a century later 
than Bede and a time far less cultured. 

The life of St. Germanus, who came and preached in Britain 



74 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [April, 

after the Roman legions had left is contemporary, and sixty 
years before St. Gildas' book. It would be valuable if it told 
us anything about the Saxon invasions, but it does not. We 
know that St. Germanus dealt in a military capacity with 
" Picts and Saxons " an ordinary barbarian trouble but we 
have no hint at Saxon settlements. St. Germanus was last in 
Britain in 447, and it is good negative evidence that we hear 
nothing during that visit of any real trouble from the Saxon 
pirates who at that very time might be imagined, if legend 
were to be trusted, to be establishing their power in Kent. 

And that ends the list of witnesses ; that is all our evidence.* 

To sum up, so far as recorded history is concerned, all we 
know is this: that the Roman regular forces were not to be 
found garrisoned in Britain after the year 410; that the savages 
from Scotland and Ireland disturbed the civilized province 
cruelly ; that scattered pirates who had troubled the southern 
and eastern coasts for two centuries, joined the Scotch and 
Irish ravaging bands ; that some of these were taken in as 
regular auxiliaries on the old Roman model, somewhere about 
the middle of the fifth century (the conventional date is 445) ; 
that, as happened in many another Roman province, the auxil- 
iaries mutinied for pay and did a good deal of bad looting 
and ravaging; finally that the ravaging was checked, and they 
were thrown back upon some permanent settlements of theirs 
effected during these disturbances along the easternmost and 
southernmost coasts. 

Now it is most important in the face of such a paucity of 
information to seize three points : 

First that the ravaging was not appreciably worse either in 
the way it is described or by any other criterion, than the 
troubles which the Continent suffered at the same time and 
which (as we know) did not there destroy the continuity or 
unity of civilization. 

Secondly, that the sparse raiders, Pagan (as were some very 
few of those on the Continent) and incapable of civilized ef- 
fort, obtained as did some upon the Continent (notably on the 
left bank of the Rhine) little plots of territory which they held 
and governed for themselves and in which after a short period 
the old Roman order was so decayed in the incapable hands 
of the new comers as to be superseded by their tribal habits. 

* On such a body of evidence less than a morning's reading, did Green buildup for 
popular sale his fantastic Making of England I 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 75 

But thirdly (and upon this all the rest will turn) the posi- 
tions which these predatory bands happened permanently to hold, 
were positions that cut the link between the Roman province of 
Britain and the rest of what had been the united Roman Empire. 

This, not numbers, not race, is the capital point in the 
story of Britain between 447 and 597. The uncivilized man 
happened by a geographical accident to have cut the com- 
munication of the island with its sister province. He was 
numerically as insignificant, racially as unproductive and as ill 
provided with fruitful or permanent institutions as his brethren 
on the Rhine or the Danube. But on the Rhine and the 
Danube the Empire was broad. Those sea communications 
between Britain and Europe were narrow: and the barbarian 
had blundered across them. 

The circulation of men, goods and ideas was stopped for 
one hundred and fifty years because the small pirate settle- 
ments had, by the gradual breakdown of the Roman ports, 
destroyed communication with Europe from Southampton 
Water right north to beyond the Thames. 

It seems certain that even the great town of London, what- 
ever its commercial relations, kept up no official business be- 
yond the sea. The pirates had not gone far; but, with no 
inteation of conquest save in the sense of the enjoyment of 
material things and of loot, they had snapped the bond by 
which Britain lived. 

Such is the direct evidence, and such our first conclusion 
on it. But of indirect indications, of reasonable supposi- 
tion and comparison between what came after the pirate set- 
tlements and what had been before, there is much more. By 
the use of this secondary matter added to the direct evidence 
one can fully judge both the limits and the nature of the mis- 
fortune that overtook Britain when the central Roman govern- 
ment failed and before the missionaries who were to restore 
the province landed. 

We may then arrive at a conclusion and know what that 
Britain was to which the Faith returned with St. Augustine, 
and knowing that we shall know what it continued to be until 
the vast catastrophe of the Reformation. 

In my next article I shall try to estimate what was the 
extent of this disaster and what was its real consequence. 




THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN. 

BY JAMES P. TURNER, D.D. 

HEN Archbishop Ryan died at four o'clock on 
Saturday, February the eleventh, nineteen hun- 
dred and eleven, the fact was telephoned to 
every Church in the diocese and tolled to the 
people of every parish from every belfry. It 
was flashed to every newspaper throughout the country by 
the Associated Press and announced to their readers on bul- 
letin board or in special edition. It ran by ocean cable to 
Rome, to Ireland, to the Philippines. It was shot out into the 
mysterious ether by the wireless operator, and made known to 
numerous travelers coming and going on the broad Atlantic. 
To all of these the announcement was full of sad interest, for 
the Archbishop was widely known and loved. 

Born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, February 20, 
1831, he received his early education in the Catholic schools 
of his native town and of Dublin. He made his philosophical 
and theological courses in Carlow College, and after receiving 
the deaconship, he came to this country, as a subject of the 
diocese of St. Louis under Archbishop Kenrick, in 1852. He 
was ordained to the priesthood September 8, 1853, and after 
laboring in St. Louis with great zeal and distinguished success, 
as assistant rector and rector of the Cathedral, as founder 
of the Annunciation parish, as rector of St. John's, as Coad- 
jutor Bishop and Archbishop, he was appointed to the metro- 
politan see of Philadelphia, June 8, 1884. He occupied this 
see until his death. 

His whole career was so consistent, so harmonious, so per- 
meated with one purpose, steadfastly followed to the very 
end, that one who considers him at all must perforce consider 
him long enough to ascertain what manner of man he was. 
The answer must inevitably be : a model Roman Catholic 
Bishop, who could have fitted into any age of the Church as 
perfectly as he fitted into this. His many achievements for 
God and his fellowman, for Church and country are oft-told tales. 
Perhaps the man. and his equipment are not so well known. 



i9i i.] THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN 77 

In speaking of a man successful in any walk of life, it is 
difficult to single out any one virtue or qualification and at- 
tribute his success to it. A successful man must necessarily 
possess a combination of virtues and qualities, more or less 
varied according to his station of life. This is particularly 
true of a churchman, who must have a most varied and a 
most complete equipment in order to be singled out from his 
fellows as worthy of special distinction. And yet there is in 
each man some one virtue or quality that seems to predom- 
inate, and that contributes most to his success. 

If we look for this virtue in Archbishop Ryan, we shall 
find that it was faith. It was a rich inheritance which came 
down to him from a noble ancestry who had suffered and 
died for it; a faith that was instilled into him by pious par- 
ents; that was explained and developed by earnest pastors 
and zealous teachers; that brought forth a divine vocation in 
early youth, which bore full fruit in the priesthood and the 
episcopacy. Throughout his whole life he cultivated that 
virtue assiduously, and it was the foundation of his success. 
He lived always in the presence of God. By his daily acts 
of piety he kept in constant touch with his Divine Master. 
He sought first his own sanctification and then the sanctifica- 
tion of others. He obeyed the injunction which Jesus gave 
to his disciples to pray always. Hence, besides his morning 
and evening prayers, his daily meditation, his daily Mass with 
public preparation and thanksgiving, and the prompt and 
faithful recitation of the divine office and the rosary, he had 
recourse to prayer whenever difficult problems confronted him, 
and he decided them only after seeking divine guidance and 
with perfect confidence in the divine assistance. This was 
evident also in his calmness during trouble, or in time of 
failure. He had recommended the matter confidently to God 
and was resolved to be content with the result. This also 
accounted to a great extent for his brightness and cheerful- 
ness on almost all occasions. He was not indifferent to 
trouble, or failure, or scandal, but after doing his best with 
God's help he was able to forget quickly and to practice holy 
indifference. It might be safely said that the Archbishop ac- 
complished more by prayer and by the sanctity of his own 
life, than by his efforts for others. 

The Archbishop was a very charitable man both in word 



78 THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN [April, 

and act. He seemed to have an abhorrence for the uncharit- 
able. He picked out the good in the lives of others and 
dwelt on it, forgetful of the evil. If any one referred to the 
faults or evil deeds of others in his presence he invariably 
turned the conversation to some other subject. This was not 
only true in regard to private individuals, but also with regard 
to public men and especially those in authority. He always 
remembered the saying of St. Paul that there is no power but 
from God, and the injunction of Christ to his disciples to obey 
those that sit in the chair of Moses. He would not attack 
public men, preferring to encourage rather than discourage 
those in positions of responsibility. He was equally charitable 
in regard to candidates for office understanding well the am- 
bitions of men, especially in the political world. He was very 
cautious about imprudent attempts at wholesale reform, and 
the wild accusations that generally accompany them, and that 
are seldom or never proved. 

He was no less charitable in act. He lived in the Cathedral 
parochial residence, and came into daily, constant contact with 
the parochial clergy. He ate at the same table with them, and 
pleasant but dignified familiarity marked their intercourse. 
The whole family, from the youngest to the oldest, was at 
home with him. The conversation was unrestrained, and he 
was as much interested in their affairs, even in their amuse- 
ments and their pleasantries, as if he were only a curate. He 
was accessible to everyone without exception. To priests at 
all times; to others during office hours, and at other times by 
appointment. He constantly made exception to these rules, 
and he very seldom refused to see any one who called, even 
though the hour was irregular and inconvenient. When he was 
at home his door stood always open, and any priest could 
knock, walk in, and be received with a pleasant smile and 
welcome word. He was always assured of a kind hearing. It 
seemed to be an invariable rule of the Archbishop's life never to 
say " no " if he could say " yes," and he never refused a request 
which he could grant. If he did refuse a favor, he did it so 
kindly that the petitioner hardly realized that it had been re- 
fused. The story is told of a priest who called on him for a 
favor which he was very anxious to obtain, and who was leav- 
ing the house in a very good humor, when a fellow-priest 
met him and asked him the purpose of his visit to the Cathe- 



I9H-] THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN 79 

dral. "Why/ 1 came the answer, "I came to ask a favor of 
the Archbishop, and he said ' no ' so pleasantly that I thought 
it was ' yes ' until your question awoke me." 

The laity were equally welcome with only the limitation 
that time and other duties imposed. He received anyone who 
called on him any morning, even when his health was failing 
and when those about him would save him from the strain 
which these visits put upon him. On all these occasions he 
was a' sympathetic listener, a wise counsellor, and a ready 
helper. An illustration of his charity and sympathy for those 
in distress is found in the case of those who were doubtfully 
entitled to Christian burial. Instead of refusing at once when 
the evidence seemed clear against them, he waited and in- 
quired and searched carefully and patiently until, almost with- 
out exception, he found sufficient evidence to justify him in 
laying the body of the poor sinner in consecrated earth, and 
saving his family from the pain and disgrace of his exclusion. 

He was especially considerate of the respectable and sensi- 
tive poor who concealed their needs, and he always helped 
them in the most delicate manner. His kindness to priests 
and consideration for them under all circumstances was founded 
on his intense and abiding sense of the sacredness and dignity 
of the priesthood. This sense so marked every thought, word, 
and action of his own life, and was so apparent in his demeanor 
at all times, that it intensified the sense in others and begot 
that mutual love and respect which is so typically Christian, 
and so essential in the true priest. He was interested in all their 
affairs, sympathized with them in sorrow, rejoiced with them 
in joy, and invariably visited them when they were seriously 
ill. His relations to religious communities were most pleasant 
and edifying. He recognized in nuns the chosen servants of 
God, the spouses of His Divine Son, the wise virgins of the 
Gospel. He realized the great value of their holy lives, their 
prayers and their good works, especially in caring for the sick, 
the aged, the destitute, and the wayward. He acknowledged 
that without them it would be impossible to carry on the 
charitable work of the diocese, and especially the Christian 
education of children. Hence his intense respect and admira- 
tion for them. His visits to them were awaited with pleasure 
and remembered with delight. His interest in the charities of 
the diocese was shown not only in the building up of material 



8o THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN [April, 

edifices but still more in his constant watchfulness over them, 
and his faithful attendance at all board meetings. He entered 
these standing engagements on his ordo at the beginning of the 
year and considered them previous engagements. 

The growth of the charitable institutions under his wise 
directions attest his effective interest. The hospitals were en- 
larged, new ones erected, orphan asylums increased in number 
and capacity, homes for the aged multiplied, and protectories 
founded. He regretted that he could not provide homes for 
other classes of needy, destitute, and suffering persons, and was 
restrained from doing so only by lack of means. 

When pressed by some urgent demand he went forward 
courageously, quoting the saying of St. Vincent de Paul: 
" What is necessary is possible." His charity was true and, 
therefore, embraced all men. He had a special interest in the 
Indian and Negro, particularly the former, whose soble quali- 
ties he admired and often spoke of. This interest was very 
much increased when Mother Katharine Drexel established in 
his diocese and under his direction, the Sisters of the Blessed 
Sacrament, to devote themselves entirely to these two classes. 
President Roosevelt recognized this interest, and made the 
Archbishop a member of the Indian Commission. He was as- 
siduous in the discharge of his duties, attending the Mohawk 
Lake Conferences whenever possible, and never missing the 
formal meetings of the Commission. In his last sickness he 
was planning to attend a meeting which he considered unusu- 
ally important, and which was held shortly after he died. 

He loved peace and bated strife, and therefore would sac- 
rifice everything but principle rather than enter into a contest. 
He had a special dislike for law-suits, particularly when they 
involved the members of a congregation with their ecclesiasti- 
cal superiors. He never appeared in person at such trials, if 
he could send a substitute, because he said it looked too 
much like a father quarrelling with his children. When ne- 
cessity did call him to the forum he showed the highest re- 
spect to the court, and received the highest respect. 

He excelled in all the natural virtues, but was preeminent 
in prudence. He was conservative, almost to a fault, and 
when those near him who were younger and more impulsive 
grew impatient sometimes at what seemed unnecessary delay, 
he always counselled patience and remarked that time is a 



i9i i.] THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN 81 

great adjuster. The result showed his wisdom. With a little 
time, misunderstandings are cleared away, anger cools, new 
evidence is discovered, motives good and bad are more clearly 
defined and the case settles itself almost automatically. He was 
hardly less noted as a just man, not only because he kept the 
law of God, but also because he had a keen sense of the right 
of others. He always weighed carefully rival claims and in- 
variably decided in favor of him whose claims were stronger 
even though his desires might incline him in the opposite di- 
rection. Nay, he would reverse himself in a moment if he 
made a mistake and do it most cheerfully. His favorite 
quotation for such occasions was : Sapientis est mutate consilinm. 

A man who is prudent and conservative to an extreme 
degree, and whose sense of justice is very keen, will seem to 
the casual observer to lack at times something of fortitude. 
The opportunities for the exercise of the former virtues are 
much more frequent ; those virtues are also less obtrusive, ap- 
pearing generally in the humble garb of the peasant, soft- 
spoken and retiring, while fortitude is more apt to appear in 
military garb, stalking forth with a flourish of trumpets. To 
the more close observer, however, it will be apparent that the 
truly prudent and just man, will also be the strong man, be- 
cause the moral strength required for the exercise of those 
virtues is the greatest and rarest. It is much harder to store 
up energy, keep it under control, and expend it gradually as 
occasion may require than to let it burst forth and expend 
itself freely. Such fortitude the Archbishop possessed ; quiet, 
hidden, unobtrusive, almost unknown, and yet firm and even 
irresistable on occasion. 

It naturally follows that he was a temperate man, not only 
in the modern acceptation of that term by abstaining from in- 
toxicants altogether, which he did for the edification of his 
neighbor, and because he was greviously pained by the preva- 
lence of drunkenness and its ravages, but in the sense of the 
cardinal virtue: moderation in all things, excess in none. He 
had won remarkable control of self by long practice, and was 
habitually able to preserve an even balance. In dealing with 
others he followed St. Vincent of Lerin's rule: "In essentials, 
unity; in non-essentials, liberty ; in all things, charity." He was 
so tolerant of the opinions of others, so charitable as to their 
feelings, and so anxious to make allowance for all the circurr- 
VOL xcm. 6 



82 THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN [April, 

stances that bring about differences even in regard to the 
most important matters, that he was frequently spoken of as 
a liberal, broad-minded man. These terms are misleading if 
they mean that he ever shaved down or minimized in the 
least any doctrine of the Church. He was always and above 
all a staunch, uncompromising bishop of the Catholic Church, 
walking in the footsteps of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the 
Ambroses and Augustines, and Gregorys and Leos and Piuses 
of ancient and modern times. The terms are not misleading 
if they only indicate that he did not quarrel with his neigh- 
bor about religion, but accorded to every man that same lib- 
erty of conscience which he claimed for himself and all the 
members of his flock. His unquestionable orthodoxy was 
shown strikingly in his loyalty to the Holy See. He looked 
on the Holy Father at all times as the Vicar of Christ, the 
successor of St. Peter, and the Visible Head of the Church. 
Hence he gave him cheerful support and ready obedience. 
He had the deepest respect for Papal decrees and decisions 
and carried them out promptly. He never criticized them or 
tried to lessen their force, and if others spoke in his presence 
of the difficulties in the way of putting them into practice, he 
always reminded them of the wisdom and experience of the 
Holy See, and of the divine guidance which had been prom- 
ised to it and had never failed. 

He had known Pius IX., Leo XIII. and Pius X , and he 
frequently spoke with admiration of the sanctity and learning 
of each of them. He remembered especially the peculiar com- 
bination of humor and piety in Pius IX., the great learning 
and business ability of Leo XIII., and the genuine humility ac- 
companied by all the other virtues, because it is the founda- 
tion of all, which he remarked in Pius X. He seemed to be 
drawn most strongly to the present Holy Father, and those 
who knew them both saw in them many things in common 
and looked on them as congenial spirits. 

The Archbishop was a striking figure at church ceremon- 
ies. He always prepared carefully for ecclesiastical functions 
and was faithful to even the slightest detail. He was very 
fond of music, especially Irish melodies and ecclesiastical chant, 
and while not a trained musician he had a beautiful singing 
voice of remarkable range. He sang the ecclesiastical music 
with much unction and correctly, but he excelled in the sing- 



i9i i.] THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN 83 

ing of Pontifical blessings. He was in the habit of assisting 
at Solemn Mass every Sunday in the Cathedral, and the man- 
ner in which he sang the blessing, was a fitting climax to the 
most elaborate ceremonial. 

While zealous in all good work and in the discharge of 
every duty, the Archbishop was indefatigable in his efforts to 
provide Catholic education for all the children of his diocese. 
He was convinced by experience as well as by reason that 
there can be no true morality without religion; that it is 
impossible to spread religion in a community unless the seed 
is planted in the hearts of the young; that this seed cannot 
be planted in such a manner as to bring forth good abun- 
dant fruit, unless it is done from earliest childhood, in a Christian 
school; that the welfare of the family, the community and the 
state demands it. Therefore his constant aim was, a Catholic 
school in every parish as soon as possible after the parish was 
established. So urgently did he insist on this, that whereas 
formerly the school followed speedily upon the building of the 
church, they now go forward step by step. Formerly, when a 
parish was founded the work was begun by the erection of a 
temporary chapel, to be followed by the basement of the per- 
manent church, the parochial residence and the school. Some- 
times the school preceded the permanent church. In recent 
years and as a direct result of Archbishop Ryan's zeal for 
Catholic education a zeal which has been communicated to 
the priests of the diocese, the order of procedure in new 
parishes is, the erection of the first story of the school, which 
is used as a chapel, the completion of the building for school 
purposes, the erection of the priest's and teachers' houses, and 
last, perhaps after several years, the erection of the permanent 
church. 

The Archbishop followed faithfully the Third Plenary Coun- 
cil of Baltimore in regard to Christian education and constant- 
ly quoted it to the pastors of the diocese. The result of his 
efforts is shown in the increased number of Catholic schools in 
the diocese, and the increased number of those who attend 
them. When he became Archbishop of Philadelphia in 1884 
the diocese had 59 parochial schools, they now number 141. 
Then the schools had 22,000 pupils, now they have 63,612. 
The Catholic population during this period has increased from 
300,000 to 525,000. 



84 THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN [April, 

In addition to his efforts in school building, he never 
missed an opportunity either privately or publicly to speak on 
the subject, and he richly deserves the title of champion of 
Christian education. 

During the last year of his life, and especially during the 
closing days, almost up to the last moment, he was striving to 
make the final arrangements for the building of a high school 
for girls. Indeed, the last official act of his life, was to sign 
some document which brought the matter to a conclusion, and 
those who were near him at the moment, can never forget the 
smile of triumph and happiness that lit his face when he was 
assured that the building of the high school was certain. 

In a direct line with his zeal for Catholic education was his 
successful direction of the two important Catholic publications of 
the diocese, the Catholic Standard and Times and the American 
Catholic Quarterly Review. The former is known throughout 
the country as one of the best, if not the best, Catholic weekly 
and the latter has lived faithfully up to the high standard of 
its first editor Monsignor Corcoran and has kept unsullied its 
continuous reputation for uncompromising orthodoxy, even 
when the temptation to be brilliant rather than illuminating 
has been very great. 

The Archbishop's interest in these two publications was 
much more than passive. He looked on them as valuable 
teaching agencies, as strong allies of the pulpit, important 
parts of the diocesan equipment and therefore worthy of every 
encouragement. He watched them closely, and discussed im- 
portant questions with their managers and editors and rendered 
them valuable assistance. They reflect his prudence and wis- 
dom. 

Although the Archbishop possessed many gifts and many 
virtues, he was, perhaps, best known as an orator. He culti- 
vated this gift from childhood. The story of his heading a 
delegation of school boys to make an address to Daniel 
O'Connell, indicates his early bent in this direction. History 
also tells us that while only a deacon in St. Louis he preached 
so well that he was permitted frequently to preach to large 
congregations. After his ordination, his powers increased and 
his reputation grew until it reached every part of this country 
and even penetrated to the Vatican. While yet a young man 
he gave the Lenten course of sermons in Rome. He was in- 



i9i i.] THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN $5 

vited to preach at the most important ecclesiastical functions 
of his time and he accepted the invitation whenever his other 
engagements would permit. On several occasions he was 
asked to go to Europe to deliver sermons. In Philadelphia, 
he preached in the Cathedral on the second Sunday of each 
month and people came from far and wide to hear him. The 
church was always crowded with an audience that followed 
him with rapt attention. Nature endowed him with all the 
qualities of an orator. He was tall, well built, with a large 
head and copious dark-red hair combed back; he had classi- 
cal features and a mobile countenance; his voice was perhaps 
his greatest asset; it was rich, musical, strong and resonant; 
he spoke slowly and distinctly with faultlessly correct inflec- 
tion. He had an unusual command of the various tones and 
used them with telling effect. He was a living speaker; each 
sermon was full of soul. He did not devote much time to 
exordiums or perorations but promptly attacked his subject 
and having exhausted it, retired promptly. 

He always had at least one oratorical climax in his sermon 
up to which he worked very skilfully and which moved his 
hearers deeply. He preached about forty minutes, as a rule, 
at the Solemn Mass or ordinary occasions, but sometimes even 
on these occasions, he preached longer. In earlier life he 
wrote all his sermons carefully ; in later life he did not have 
time to write. He often lamented this, but prepared no less 
carefully. He took notes with him to the pulpit generally on 
one small sheet of paper and so peculiar and personal as to 
be of no value whatever to anyone else. 

He was extremely nervous before preaching, although he 
did not show it. During the last two years of his life he did 
not preach more than three or four times. He preserved the 
qualities of the orator which he possessed in so remarkable a 
degree until the end, and only about a month before his 
death he delivered the prayer at a public memorial service 
before a vast audience including the heads of the city govern* 
ment and other distinguished men, in such a manner as to 
thrill his hearers with all his old time power. It was the last 
flash; from that moment he failed. Although he was best in 
pulpit oratory he shone on the lecture platform also, especially 
in St. Louis. He was very happy in his addresses to children, 
and he was particularly apt in illustration. He could make 



86 THE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN [April, 

an excellent after dinner speech and was a master in short 
addresses, at the close of church functions, such as dedica- 
tions. As an orator and public speaker Archbishop Ryan 
leaves a void which it will be extremely hard to fill. 

He was equally well known as a wit. It has been fre- 
quently remarked that it was typical Irish wit. He was nat- 
urally of a cheerful sunny disposition, inclined to look at the 
bright side of things. He quickly saw the humorous side 
of a matter, and the merry twinkle in his eye prepared one 
for the witty remark or story that was sure to follow. It 
was a remarkable fact, however, that there was no sting to 
his good humor. If it ever happened that anyone was pained 
however slightly by any witticism of his, he was quick to 
make amends. He had a large stock of stories because his 
experience had been wide, and he had a good memory. 

In later years, at least, the Archbishop was strongest in 
reminiscence. His memory for remote events was very faithful 
and very accurate. His stories of Ireland, Rome and Missouri 
were extremely interesting and instructive because he related 
them without any attempt at embellishment and with a sim- 
plicity and faithfulness that were charming. So much has been 
said about Archbishop Ryan as a wit and raconteur that one 
might be tempted to think he was a frivolous man. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. He was on the contrary, 
habitually serious; his witticisms and stories were always 
made to point a moral. 

The Archbishop was a public man. He was known to the 
entire community and he had the respect of ail classes and 
creeds. He was invited to all important public functions, was 
appointed on many public committees and was often consulted 
on public questions. His opinion always commanded the 
highest respect, because it was universally acknowledged that 
he was wise and good and fair beyond all question. His pru- 
dence and conservatism played an important part on such oc- 
casions. 

His Grace was frequently complimented on his youthfulness. 
His full hair with no tinge of grey, his soft skin, his ruddy 
complexion, his complete command of all his faculties, and his 
unfailing interest in the affairs of his diocese, gave him the 
appearance of a young man until advanced old age. Indeed, 
although he was almost eighty years old, it was not until 



i9i i.] IHE LATE ARCHBISHOP RYAN 87 

about two years before the end that he began to be an old 
man. He was fond of quoting the saying that a man is only 
as old as his arteries, and then, he said, he could prove to 
the physicians who examined him at different times that he 
was growing younger instead of older. 

About two years before his death he began to age very 
rapidly, and those who were near him noted the change. He 
made a brave fight against it, perhaps too brave, for nature 
will not be denied, and those who make a graceful submission 
to her demands fare better. The end came quickly, although 
the Archbishop had recovered from an illness which disabled 
him in December last. The rally was only temporary, and for 
about three weeks before his death, he failed rapidly. During 
those last days he gave a splendid example of a dying Chris- 
tian. He put his temporal and spiritual house in order, and 
then cheerfully, even longingly, awaited the end. When it 
came, he' said: " adsum," and went into the presence of the 
Divine Master Whom he had served so long and so faithfully, 
and to Whom he desired so much to be united. 

One hundred thousand persons of every rank and station 
of life passed his bier, and looked on his face with love and 
respect; three thousand persons, including the heads of city 
government, the judges of the courts, and men from all the 
learned professions, filled every inch of space in the Cathedral, 
to assist at his obsequies ; over seven hundred seminarians and 
priests, many of the latter coming from distant points, chanted 
the divine office for the repose of his soul; while thirty. five 
bishops and archbishops with a Cardinal and Apostolic Dele- 
gate, came from every direction, to do him honor. 

He was laid to rest beneath the high altar of the Cathedral 
in which he had officiated for more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury. His memory shall live for generations, to give abiding 
inspiration to his successors. 




EAST AND WEST. 

BY L. MARCH PHILLIPPS. 

>LL the great emotional conceptions which have in- 
fluenced the West, asceticism, monasticism, mys- 
ticism, the contemplative philosophy, and I know 
not how many other things of the same kind, have 
come out of the East; and in the same way all 
the intellectual and scientific ideas which have reached or are 
reaching the East have come out of the West. 

So it always has been and so it still is. The East is per- 
manently and at heart emotional, the West permanently and at 
heart intellectual. And so much is this the case that these 
opposite faculties have gradually worked themselves out into 
all the circumstances of the life of East and West; have sup- 
plied their own standards of success and failure, their own so- 
lution of all social and political problems, their own ideals 
and traditions in religion, morals, and conduct. Intellectualism 
in the West has built up one kind of solution of life's prob- 
lem; emotionalism in the East has built up another and quite 
different solution. No two systems could be more at variance 
than the whole mass of beliefs, observances, habits, and cus- 
toms which Eastern and Western life have respectively accu- 
mulated, yet each in all its parts is consistent. Both systems 
possess a certain unity; the Eastern because it is all an out- 
growth of the emotional root, the Western because it is all an 
outgrowth of the intellectual root. 

It is as these things affect the lives of the people that they 
seem to me most significant. Their influence is to be traced 
through the tiniest channels and verified in the most trivial 
circumstances. Well do I remember, many years ago though 
it was, the arrival in our remote village of the first reaping 
machine. It was painted blue and red, and the farm-hands 
and neighbors came and hung about it, admiring and won- 
dering, while the farmer, intoxicated with a sudden sense 
of greatness and the stirrings of a vague ambition, called to 
the girls to bring cider. Then, while he handed round the 
jug, he explained to us how in these days a man must keep 



.] EAST AND WEST 89 

abreast of the times; how it was not enough to do as our 
fathers and grandfathers had done, but that it behooved us to 
be on the lookout for ideas and catch on to these new inven- 
tions and things we heard so much of; and how he was one 
of that sort and had always had these thoughts and would 
probably be found more forward in the race than some people 
expected yet, though he was not one to talk much. And then 
the rest applauded and admired him, and to all the thought 
came how splendid a thing progress was and how fine it was 
to be one with the purpose of the age. 

I read in a story once an account of the smash- up of the 
ice-floe in the Northern seas by the incoming tide; of the 
pounding and ripping of the huge masses detached and broken 
up and grinding against each other; and how, to two watchers, 
far off, the sound came as a faint murmur, and how a shaving 
of whalebone, which one of them had set up in the near-by ice 
barely quivered, yet quivered, to the distant shock. Even so 
the great days of science were heard of faintly in that distant 
and sleepy village of mine. Yet were they heard of. Men 
and lads now and again stopped and bent their heads to listen 
to the far-off sounds, and every little household quivered an 
imperceptible response to them. We never guessed at the rest- 
lessness they were instilling ; but by and by one lad left, and 
then another, drawn by that distant lure. The places that fell 
vacant in farm and field were filled less often by the young, 
upspringing generation than by a sort of feckless and spiritless 
residuum of the rural population which sluggishly circulated 
about the countryside, deteriorating in quality and quantity as 
years went by. Everything that had any ambition, any ear 
for the drum and quickstep of the race, had gone off long 
ago to join the forward and progressive march of Western in- 
tellectual civilization. 

And then, from these memories, my thoughts drift to the 
low countries of Ceylon, and I see in mid-jungle the Cinga- 
lese huts clustered under groves of palms, secluded and shut 
off from the world. I see a life which from day to day and 
year to year aspires but to repeat itself; which relinquishes 
itself to the care of circumstances and lets time, flowing by, 
carry it like a fly upon its current. All details of those 
scenes, as they glide before me, bear out this sense of a pas- 
sive acceptance of life. The great fawn-colored gentle oxen 



90 EAST AND WEST [April, 

with their slow motion and languid ways, the monotonous, 
tuneless chant from some figure lolling in the shade of slant- 
ing palms, the heavy scented air, the tom-tom's droning 
throb, the slow-moving glossy river, and, when evening falls, 
the velvet shadows weaving their spells around and sprinkled 
with a gold-dust of fire-flies; so in brief all the sights and 
sounds and scents of those scenes combine to utter that deep 
but still emotion, 

"Felt in the heart and felt along the blood, 1 ' 

which has penetrated with its influence the Eastern tempera- 
ment. 

And yet how wrong would that European be who should 
see in this quiescence torpor and insensibility. Passive as this 
simple village life is there exists among these people a spirit 
of dignity and gentienesss which suggests that some influence 
works for good in them though it is not the influence that 
acts on Western life. 

I have often thought that between these dreamy Indian 
villagers and the Indian seers and mystics there exists the 
same sympathy as exists between our own peasants and the 
leaders of Western thought. The huts on the Kaluganga, like 
the cottages. of my native village, were stirred by thoughts that 
came from afar. The wisdom of the Hindoo sage, which consists 
in nothing but pure and perfect receptivity, is popular in the 
East in the same sense in which the practical knowledge of 
the scientist or the expert is popular in the West. The race, 
that is to say, recognizes in that direction its own natural 
bias and outlet. Eastern life is saturated with mysticism. 
The anchorites and ascetics, so honored and revered, who 
make their lonely lairs in Indian jungles, and the wandering 
mendicant fakirs who prowl along the highways, deal but in 
degrees of the same gift. Knowledge in their idea is revela- 
tion. It comes not of thought or conscious study but is freely 
given to the contemplative soul which in stillness receives 
and in stillness enjoys the divine inspiration. This in India 
is a common thought ; indeed it has been laid down as a rule 
of life there that all men at a certain age, having fulfilled 
their duties as citizens and to their families, should sever all 
earthly ties and adopt the vocation of avowed visionaries. 

Such people, I say, are understood in India because their 



I9H-] EAST AND WEST 91 

view of life is after all the people's view. That attitude, emo- 
tionally sensitive yet too passive almost to be called content, 
in which the Indian peasant accepts what the days bring, is 
the raw material, and contains the germ of the whole Upanishad 
philosophy. It is natural that such a one should feel himself 
sustained by the presence of these holy hermits, for it is in 
their wrapt contemplation of spiritual things that his own 
gentle acceptance of earthly things is countenanced and justi- 
fied. The one is the complement of the other, and together 
they pervade the East. Hence the unity of Eastern life. No 
eager pioneers beckon those docile natives along the path of 
progress or if such there be they excite little attention, little 
enthusiasm yet are they conscious of dim possibilities of de- 
velopment and growth. They are one with the spiritual in- 
stinct which is indigenous in India, and with the more serenity 
do they in the valleys contemplate their banana trees because 
their high priests stand upon the mountain tops and contem- 
plate the infinite. 

These two tendencies then, as I take it, founded on op- 
posing faculties and pulling opposite ways, are what make the 
difference between Eastern and Western life and temperament. 
When we speak of the " wisdom of the East " we have in 
mind the exercise and effects of the emotional faculty ; and 
when we speak of Western civilization and progress we have 
in view the exercise and effects of the intellectual faculty. At 
the head of Western knowledge stand our professors and 
scientists and scholars and experts of one sort and another, 
devoted to practical experiment and exact definitions. At the 
head of Eastern knowledge stand sages and prophets and seers 
absorbed in abstract contemplation. Down from these, in long 
array, stretches on the one hand a society, orderly, alert, 
powerful, progressive, unrivalled in managing, superintending 
and organizing, yet with a bias in its aims and ideals towards 
the mundane, the finite, the material; and, on the other, a 
society gentle, docile, sensitive to spiritual suggestions, but 
immobile, quiescent, ignorant and ineffective. Both, however, 
are consistent and of a piece. Western life is of a piece be- 
cause, broadly speaking, intellectualism is the root of it; and 
Eastern life is of a piece because, broadly speaking, emotional- 
ism is the root of it. So deep into the roots of thought and 
character goes the abyss which separates East and West. 



flew Books. 

WILLIAM BLAKE. By G. K. Chesterton. Popular Library of 
Art. New York: E. P. Button & Co. 75 cents net. 

Mr. Chesterton (who has given us upon many occasions so 
much) has scarcely given anything more suggestive or stimu- 
lating than this little study of William Blake. Now Blake is 
himself quite bafflingly interesting; for slightly more than a 
hundred years he has been the delight of the poet, the de- 
spair of the critic, and the delirium of the general reader. 
Mr. Chesterton's Blake is all this only more so. It is, briefly, 
the historic Blake poet, revolutionist, artist, mystic, mad- 
man, seer; and then at far greater length it is the ideal 
Blake ; which, as our critic points out, is beyond all computa- 
tion more actual and more significant than the real. Thus 
does the strange, wise, foolish eighteenth century Londoner 
become a symbol of certain ideas and ideals, a text from 
which the twentieth century Londoner preaches a rarely 
pointed sermon. He warns us that any real biography ought 
to begin with the beginning of the world ; and the present 
volume (although, because of the weakness of the flesh, it in- 
clines to greater brevity) can scarcely be said to end short of 
the consummation of the world. 

One of the most pregnant passages in this study is its 
final antithesis of Oriental and Occidental mysticism; of pes- 
simism against personality, dissolution against immortality and 
the resurrection of the body, nihilism and infinity against the 
humble Incarnation in one word, Buddha, the great negative 
pole of the universe, against Christ. "The wise man will fol- 
low a star, low and large and fierce in the heavens;" ends 
this really great and essentially Patmorean summary, " but the 
nearer he comes to it the smaller and smaller it will grow, till 
he rinds it the humble lantern over some little inn or stable. 
Not till we know the high things shall we know how lowly 
they are. Meanwhile, the modern superior transcendentalist 
will find the facts of eternity incredible because they are so 
solid; he will not recognize heaven because it is so like the 
earth." 

There are a thousand temptingly quotable passages in the 
little volume; that upon the illiteracy and unreliability of the 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 93 

specialists for example; that upon mystery and mysticism, 
on caricature, on the nature of Blake's mental obliquity, on 
the poetic truth of the common sense of humanity, on "fads" 
or heresies, et cetera. But for all these delectable things we 
commend the reader to the book itself. 

Mr. Chesterton has often been acclaimed as master of the 
paradox. Surely the ultimate paradox of all is, that a writer 
so drastically Catholic as Mr. Chesterton should still be not 
a Catholic. 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Essay on the Constitutional History 
from the Accession of Domitian to the Retirement of 
Nicephorus III (81 A. D.-io8i A. D.). By F. W. Bussell. 
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Vols. I., II. $9 net. 

These two bulky volumes form a notable and original con- 
tribution to the study of the constitutional history of the Roman 
Empire. The author makes no idle boast in his introduction : 
" I have not essayed a task which has been before successfully 
attempted within similar limits, nor have I consciously built 
upon another man's foundation" (Vol. I., p. 22). He begins 
with Domitian, because the classical age of the Empire has 
been adequately treated by such scholars as Finlay, Gibbon, 
Bury, and Hodgkin; he ends with 1081, because the period 
after Alexius I. belongs " rather to medieval and European 
history than to the old Roman Empire of Constantine, Trajan 
or Augustus" (Vol. I., pp. 2-17). 

This is not a history of battles, of palace intrigues, of re* 
ligious controversies, of the public exploits or the private lives 
of the rulers of the East and West. On the contrary, the 
writer appeals solely to the scholar who has all these details 
on his finger ends. " It is the impersonal interest in the com- 
monwealth and its destinies which forms the theme, embodied 
as it is in personal representatives; and through imperceptible 
and gradual transformation changing its outlines but never 
altering its countenance beyond recognition" (Vol. I., p. 17). 
The viewpoint throughout is that of the subjective, as distinct 
from the objective, historian; that of the political philosopher 
as distinct from the chronicler or annalist. The treatment is 
tentative, suggestive, critical, with a tendency at times, as the 
author seems to admit, to be a bit dogmatic. 

Volume I. deals with four distinct periods: 



94 NEW BOOKS [April, 

(a) The Pagan Empire, the Civilian Monarchy, and the 
Military Reaction (Domitian to Constantine, 81-337); 

(b) Problems of the New Monarchy and the New Subjects; 
or the Limitations of Autocracy and the Bulgarian Offer ; (The 
Sons of Cons tantine Leo I. 337-457); 

(c) Reconstruction and Collapse under the Houses of Justin 
and Heraclius. Victory of Civilian and Reaction to Military 
Forms, (Leo I.-Justinian II., 457-711); 

(d) Zenith and Decline of the Byzantine Monarchy under 
Asiatic Influence: Roman Tradition, the Court, and the Feudal 
Nobility (Justinian II.-Nicephorus IV., 711-1081). 

Vol. II. is divided into two sections: 

(a) Political Influences Moulding the Nominal Autocracy of 
the Caesars (400-1080); 

(b) Armenia and Its Relations with the Empire (520-1120). 
Bussell gives as the reasons of the Empire's permanency its 

strict impartiality, its uniform justice, and its equalization of 
burden and of opportunity (Vol. I., p. 8). The Romans ever 
boasted "that they lived under a constitution, and were ruled 
according to law" (Vol. I., p. 209); throughout the entire 
period "the enterprise and policy of the sovereign and the 
welfare of the state were identical and synonymous " (Vol. I., 
p. 237). In all its seven stages, the Empire was consistently 
" democratic " as opposed to the aristocratic and exclusive basis 
of later European society (Vol. II., p. 167). "The Roman 
people was no more servile in its attitude toward the sovereign 
than the American people to-day in its genuine admiration for 
a tireless and outspoken President" (Vol. I., p. 202). "The 
Roman system was to an extent undreamt of to-day founded 
upon moral influence, upon confidence in the subject's loyalty, 
which events justified. It betrayed the same laudable weakness 
before foreign aggression as China; because these two mon- 
archies alone in human history contemplate peace as the normal 
condition of mankind" (Vol. I., p. 195). The Romans always 
demanded personal service in their ruler; "he must work and 
govern as well as reign" (Vol. I., p. 47). "Roman history 
had two springs of movement; the internal development towards 
bureaucracy, centralism, and caste distinction, inseparable from 
any advanced civilization ; and the exterior pressure of the 
new races" (Vol. I., p. 366). "Strictly speaking, the imperial 
system is with us to day modified and transformed, but still 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 95 

potent" (Vol. I., p. 191). "Religion was ever regarded by 
the Romans as a mere department of the state 11 (Vol. I., p. 

56). 

It is impossible in the short space allotted a reviewer to 
mention even summarily the many topics discussed or the ideas 
suggested in this political history of the Empire. In a few 
illuminating pages the author outlines the strong personal rule 
of the plebeian Domitian, the steady working of the adminis- 
trative machine under the Pseudo-Antonines, the centralized 
absolutism of Diocletian and Constantine, the restoration under 
Justinian, and the orthodox crusade of Heraclius. He brings 
out clearly the economic, social, and political characteristics of 
every period, and is rather fair and unprejudiced, until he ven- 
tures out of his province to discuss Iconoclasm and its attitude 
towards monasticism, celibacy, and the reverence due to images. 
He discusses well the problem of Empire versus nationality, 
the ethics of East and West, the ever changing policy toward 
the barbarians, the fiscal question, the law codes, the dominancy 
or effacement of the military power, the influence of Teuton 
and Armenian, the power wielded by court officials and palace 
favorites, the results of the Persian wars, the causes of the in- 
roads of Islam, the corruption of the provincial officials, etc., 
etc. 

We welcome his meagre praise of Western monasticism 
(Vol. II., p. 155), his estimate of the French Republic's tyr- 
anny (Vol. I., p. 161), his condemnation of Socialism (Vol. I., 
p. 360; Vol. II., p. 352), his view of the political character of 
the Reformation (Vol. II., p. 123), his refusal to acknowledge 
the Albigenses as the forerunners of Protestantism (Vol. II., 
P- 395)* Occasionally, however, the author's Protestant bias 
makes him forget the impartial character of the historical 
critic. He cannot understand the celibacy of the monks (Vol. 
I., p. 294), he fails to grasp the Catholic doctrine of the 
veneration of the saints and their images (Vol. I., p. 294 ; Vol. 
II., pp. 116, 134, 151, etc.), he is continually praising the in- 
tolerant Asiatic Iconoclasts like Leo III. and Constantine V, 
for their so-called patriotism (Vol. I., p. 294; Vol. II., pp. 74, 
89, 116, 123, 345, etc.). 

His views on modern democracy and his estimate of the 
republican form of government read for the most part like the 
utterances of an Austrian autocrat in the days of Metternich's 



96 NEW BOOKS [April, 

supremacy. " Apart from a monarch no sound conception of 
the state has been possible ; the people cling with pathetic 
tenderness to the hereditary principle" (Vol. I., pp. 260, 126). 
In a republic " the people are excluded from any real share 
in the government beyond the payment of taxes and the sur- 
render of power to compact and irresponsible minorities " (Vol. 
! P 5) J " the y are cleverly diverted from the main issue of a 
political campaign by the dexterity of rival politicians " (Vol. 
I., p. 119). "To say that the people have the power is to 
utter a truism or a fallacy ; to say that an autocrat exercises 
absolute authority is to say nothing at all" (Vol. I., 139). 
"A republican state is only a headless and disorganized mili- 
tarism" (Vol. I,, p. 359). " The chief effect of the recognition 
of Republican ideas is the denial of the rights of a minority " 
(Vol. I., p. 89). " Indeed of all governments, a republic is 
that which is least conformable to human nature, least intel- 
ligible to the average man, etc." (Vol. I., p. 132). He insists 
frequently on " the mocking formulas of free institutions," 
" the nominal and insincere democracy of to-day " (Vol. I., 
pp. 161, 90), and after pointing to "the striking and cynical 
immunity" of the arrogant wealthy class of the United States, 
he asserts with dogmatic omniscience " that the war against 
privilege and abuse can never be carried on with effect except 
under monarchical institutions" (Vol. I., pp. 161, 260, 261; 
cf, Vol. I., 40, 98, 252, Vol. II., 165 etc.). 

Bussell more than once acknowledges his indebtedness to 
other historians who have dealt with the Empire, such as 
Gibbon, Finlay, Diehl, Bury, Lebeau. Again he gives proof 
of his knowledge of the old annalists like Procopius, Psellus, 
etc. (Vol. II., pp. 3948, 358, 249, 254, 297, 303, 343). How- 
ever, he is always on his guard in citing them, and frequently 
criticizes their viewpoint or questions their "facts." Finlay 
whom he quotes most of all, and commends highly for his 
erudition, sympathy, insight and political acumen (Vol. I., p. 
230) is called to task for his fanciful speculations on the end 
of the Empire under Justinian II. (695 A. D.), his false notion 
of Thomas' revolt (820 A. D.), his confused judgment on the 
success of the Comnenians (1057 A. D.), etc. He calls Gibbon's 
verdict on the Byzantine populace " superficial and unfair like 
his entire treatment of later Roman history," mentions his 
ignorance concerning the anti-Bulgarian campaigns of Zoe 



191 1.] NEW BOOKS 97 

(914-920 A. D.), finds fault with his odious "taste for scandals, 
etc." (Vol. II., pp. 41, 176, 201, 210, 473, etc.). Equally un- 
fair is Mommsen's view of Caesar as "the clear-sighted and 
consummate statesman with a definitely outlined plan of gov- 
ernment" and Ferrari's theory of the imperial " arch-oppor- 
tunist always embarrassed by his unexpected success " (Vol. I. 
pp. 147, 148). 

The author's subjective method lends itself to constant repe- 
titions, although a few days of careful revising might have 
eliminated most of them. The style throughout is very heavy 
and turgid, abounding in elliptical and involved sentences, 
pedantic in its constant use of rarely- used or obsolete words 
from the Latin, and often faulty in its use of the transitive 
verb (temulence, peregrine, decanting, chace, inspired, defeats 
(Vol. II., pp. 196, 274, 357, 391, 477, etc.). 

He anticipates our objection to the lack of references by 
stating that " the whole emphasis of a subjective appreciation 
of a period is lost by the leaden sediment of footnotes which 
in our heart of heart (?) we distrust by instinct, yet have 
rarely the leisure to verify" (Vol. I., p. 17). We hope the 
next edition will be bettered by a thorough bibliography, an 
index of the first volume, and the addition of some maps of 
the Empire in its various stages. We hope that in an age 
like the present, when " concentrated and continuous reading 
is becoming obsolete " (Vol. I., p. 3) there are still thinkers 
enough to justify a second edition of this important history. 

NON-CATHOLIC DENOMINATIONS. By Robert Hugh Benson. 
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.20 net. 

Those who have St. Alphonsus of Liguori's History of 
Heresies, translated into English by that brilliant Irish Fran- 
ciscan, Father Mullock, who afterwards became lost in obscur- 
ity as bishop of a Newfoundland diocese, will find in the pres- 
est volume of Father Benson an amplification of the later 
periods of the older book. Father Benson divides his work 
into two main parts: Episcopal and Non- Episcopal Sects. In 
the portion of the book dealing with the former classes we 
find, as we should naturally expect, that he enters more 
thoroughly into the deeper and inner aspects of their doctrines 
and practices, and very enlightening is some of the informa- 
tion that he gives us. The same thoroughness is not notice- 
VOL. xcm. 7 



98 NEW BOOKS [April, 

able in connection with his chapters on the Non-Episcopal 
sects, but all through he shows generosity and kindness. In- 
deed these are the predominating characteristics of the book. 

We have a detailed exposition of the tenets of the "His- 
toric High Church " party, of the " Moderate High Church " 
party, of the "Ritualists," the "Extreme Ritualists," the 
" Low Church," and the " Broad Church." While he shows a 
friendly tone towards these, he demonstrates at the same time 
the contradictions and peculiarities oi all those who are bonded 
by the one link known as "The Establishment." The idea of 
Queen Elizabeth to gather all Christians "Papists" excluded 
within one fold has become a merciless reality, and the 
greatest diversities of opinion exist even on fundamental doc- 
trines of Christianity. And there is, apparently, no way out 
of the difficulty, for there is no authorized person, or collec- 
tion of doctrines to which appeal may be had. 

All the parties within the bosom of the Establishment hold 
views special to themselves, with the exception of the Moderate 
High Church party. "Its characteristic is," writes Father 
Benson, (p. 22) " that its principles are almost impossible to 
define. ... It disregards Corpus Christi; it celebrates 
Harvest Festivals with a wealth of pomp and pumpkins; it 
does not elevate the Host; but it elevates the almsdish. It is 
very clerical; but not at all sacerdotal . . . the Moderate 
High Churchman is the despair of all other parties in the 
Establishment who have definite principles." Into the motives, 
ideals, and tendencies of the other parties comprising Episco- 
palianism we cannot enter. But we cannot help noting in 
passing the absurdities into which logic drives the Ritualists. 
They hold that in England " Catholics " (Anglicans) are bound 
to be in communion with Anglican bishops, and that they are 
guilty of grave sin if they frequent the services oi " The Ital- 
ian Mission," an ignomious term for the Catholic Church, and 
coined if we mistake not by Father Benson's own father. 
But when these same "Catholics" cross the Channel for a 
holiday they are to frequent our Catholic Churches on the 
Continent and pass by the Anglican churches. Nay, they 
may even go to confession and receive Holy Communion in 
our churches, and that without acquainting the confessor that 
they are Anglicans. This certainly will open the eyes of 
Catholics as to how far Ritualism is prepared to go. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 99 

Among the Non-Episcopal sects mention is made of the 
Presbyterians, the Congregationists or Independents, Baptists, 
and Methodists. These are all treated of fairly well, but we 
confess to have felt some dissatisfaction at the brevity with 
which the doctrines of Methodism were treated. This is one 
of the points where the method adopted by the author of net 
repeating a doctrine held by a sect previously spoken of shows 
its shortcomings. After all the Westminster Library is for 
students, and it is a little disconcerting if a person in search 
of an explanation of the doctrine of Conversion, or wishing to 
learn what is necessary for " holiness," and what the term 
carries with it, will fail to find one word in the chapter de- 
voted to Methodism, but will have to begin at the first page 
of the book and work onwards until an approximate doctrine 
will be met with in the chapter on the " Low Church." And 
it is also because of the advertised aims of the series that we 
think the editors should be subjected to sharp criticism for not 
providing the volume with either an index or a synoptic table 
of contents. 

Father Benson shows the same generous treatment and 
liberality of view in all the chapters and sections concerning 
the various sects; indeed, in some places we think that he 
goes very near straining a point to bring out the goodness of 
a sect. Still this is to be commended, for it is better to allow 
the shadows to show themselves when the clear light is dem- 
onstrated, than to seek murkiness and leave unnoticed the 
rays of the sun. The author sees in Spiritualism a possibility 
that it will become the most dangerous opponent of the Cath- 
olic Church. In this we are one with him. And we agree 
entirely with him also that Catholics and particularly priests 
should not look with self -satisfied amusement on the practices 
of Spiritualists. Undoubtedly there is an amount of charla- 
tanism in it, but there is also much that needs explanation. 
And we have no hesitation in saying that Catholics should be 
taught the dangers to soul and body arising from any unlaw- 
ful curiosity in this direction. 

If any person wishes to see the innumerable ways in which 
the principles of the so-called Reformation may be applied, he 
has only to read this book of Father Benson's, which we com- 
mend to him. 



ioo NEW BOOKS [April, 

A PRIEST AND HIS BOYS. From the French, by Alice Dease. 

London: R. & T. Washbourne. 75 cents. 
The priest who wrote this book is certainly a hard-work- 
ing man, and it is rather sad to think that all or nearly all 
his labors will apparently disappear. He is a curate in a 
French country village of seven hundred people of whom only 
about fourteen men practice their religion. To instill into the 
village boys' minds some idea of religion the priest turns his 
house during the winter evenings into a kind of boys' club, 
and there teaches them the practices and doctrines of religion. 
In this book he tells us how he proceeds with his work, and 
we must say frankly that we do not care for his methods, 
which to our mind are too sentimental and tend towards 
mawkishness. It seems] to us that his boys are too good to 
persevere; there is too much exhibition of their religion; too 
much evidence of their little self-imposed penances; and one 
of them at least appears to have the making of a first class 
hypocrite and scoundrel in him, though the Abbe makes sure 
to quote his piety and penitential practices. The book is 
rather sorrowful reading, as it unconsciously shows up the la- 
mentable state of Catholicism in France, even in the rural sec- 
tions; and according to it the women are nearly as bad as 
the men. The slight insights which the author gives us are 
far from pleasant or inspiring. With all the evident sincerity 
and holiness of the priestly author we should not like to see 
kis methods introduced among our children. But his book 
will prove interesting reading to those who are following the 
development of affairs of the Church in France. 

EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. 
By Charles Franklin Thwing, LL.D. Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin Company. $1.25. 

In tracing the history of educational endeavor since the 
Civil War, President Thwing has ventured beyond his usual 
field of the college and university into other parts of our edu- 
cational system. He has seized upon the vital problems of our 
schools, and presents them in a clear and impartial manner. 
His work is, therefore, valuable, not alone to the teacher, but 
likewise to the layman who is interested in this most impor- 
tant phase of our national life. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 101 

Much light is thrown on several mooted questions of the 
day. When we are reminded, for instance, that the area of 
knowledge has vastly increased in recent years, and that the 
curriculum has, as a result, been considerably broadened while 
the capacity of the human mind to receive learning has not 
increased in any appreciable degree in a generation, or, indeed, 
in any one generation since the beginning, we are better pre- 
pared to understand the oft-repeated charge that the graduates 
of our schools are no longer well grounded in the essentials 
of knowledge. 

The prime importance of moral character as the aim of 
education is recognized, and the moral constitution of the in- 
dividual is regarded as of supreme importance. Two methods 
of nourishing moral character are recognized; the first indirect, 
the second direct. The first seeks indirectly through the ordin- 
ary school studies, and through the routine of the school itself 
so to direct the student that good character and righteous 
conduct shall normally and unconsciously follow; the second 
seeks the same end by direct instruction in morals, such as is 
given in the public schools of New York City. 

Owing to the fact that religious teaching is barred from the 
public schools, however, it is difficult to see what is the ulti- 
mate basis or sanction for this carefully planned system of 
moral training. We look in vain for the answer in President 
Thwing's treatise, as we likewise do for any notice of the 
magnificent system of Catholic parish schools which has made 
such wonderful progress during the last forty years. Surely a 
school system which comprises over 1,000,000 pupils, over 
20,000 professional teachers with more than $100,000,000 worth 
of property, and with an annual expenditure in the neighbor- 
hood of $150,00,000 is worthy of consideration. 

EARLY STEPS IN THE FOLD. By F. M. De Zulueta, SJ. 
New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $i. 

Many converts just within the threshold of the Church, 
still strangers in a strange land with many questions on their 
lips, will find in Father De Zulueta's book a much needed 
"guide, philosopher, and friend." 

With truly maternal prescience and solicitude the author 
forestalls their difficulties, answers their questions, and directs 



102 NEW BOOKS [April, 

their " early steps " towards the inner life of Catholic faith 
and practice. 

Comprehensive ia subject matter, simple and direct in style, 
it is admirably calculated to fulfil the purpose outlined in the 
foreword and "develop in the newly found sheep that sense 
of 'at-home-ness' in the one True Fold which conduces so 
powerfully to inward peace and happiness and is especially 
in the case of less robust souls so necessary for growth and 
expansion in the service and love of Christ." 

EDUCATION. HOW OLD THE NEW. By James J. Walsh, M.D. 
New York : Fordham University Press. $2 net. 

With only one reservation we have nothing but praise for 
this book. It is just as well to state what we think a fault 
and be done with it. Dr. Walsh disarms criticism by saying 
in his preface that certain repetitions occur owing to the ad- 
dresses having been originally delivered orally. This, though 
not offensive, is quite apparent in several places; but we think 
Dr. Walsh would have done well had he omitted altogether 
the address on "The Church and Feminine Education," for it 
is only a retelling of what he has already plainly told in a 
preceding address, and its presence has the damaging effect 
of urging readers to skip much good matter that succeeds it. 
Here our fault finding ends. 

The first address from which the book derives its title is 
splendidly done. In it Dr. Walsh goes back to B. C. 3500 
and introduces us to a work by Ptah Hotep which is full of 
wisdom and common sense. From this Dr. Walsh proceeds to 
show that those remote ages could give us of the enlightened 
twentieth century many lessons in various departments of 
knowledge. In jewelry, for instance, the Egyptians were past 
masters, whilst we cannot produce anything original in the 
same craft. In other things also the Egyptians were remark- 
ably advanced. They understood mathematics; geometry and 
arithmetic were in general use. And in medicine they had 
made extraordinary progress. A papyrus is quoted in which 
seven hundred different substances are stated to have medi- 
cinal and remedial qualities. The Egyptians knew how to ad- 
minister drugs in various forms. Their doctors specialized, 
"some for the eyes," as Herodotus tells us, "others for the 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 103 

head, many for the teeth, not a few for the stomach and in- 
wards." They had clinical teaching, a course for medical stu- 
dents, and the old temples were used after the manner in 
which we use health resorts. 

This theme is continued in the second paper on "The 
First Modern University." And we find the first modern uni- 
versity to be that of Alexandria founded as a legacy of Alex- 
ander the Great. Its great library is known to all of us as 
the largest and most important collection of antiquity. But 
in addition to its library the University had some great names 
connected with it. Euclid and his " Geometry," Archimedes 
and his many inventions, Appollonius of Perga and his conic 
sections, Keren and his discoveries in hydrostatics (the great- 
est of his inventions being the turbine engine), and Ptolemy 
the astronomer. To this list may be added names of those 
who were famous in medicine and surgery. 

The lectures following may be grouped together since they 
show some connection between the ideal popular education, 
the education of women, and the work of the Church in both 
fields. The central point of Dr. Walsh's treatment of ideal 
education is the work of the medieval guilds compared with 
our much talked-of modern methods. Workmen then gave 
all their talents to what they had in hand, and never shirked 
difficulties. They knew more than their descendants of to-day 
know. Many of their arts are lost the burnishing of gold on 
vellum so that it would retain its lustre, the production of 
ruby glass, and of a blue glass that would not fade with 
strong light; these are some of their secrets that have disap- 
peared. Then, again, the guilds were places of education for 
their members, and amusements of an elevating kind were 
held in their quarters during the winter months. True frater- 
nity between workman and workman prevailed. If a man be- 
came injured, members of his guild came every night to watch 
by his bedside and care for him. There were about 30,000 of 
such guilds in England in the fifteenth century, and when the 
great Robbery, called the Reformation, took place these asso- 
ciations of workmen were ruthlessly despoiled by the King 
and Parliament. 

We should like to dwell at some length on the addresses 
concerning the education of women, but we must leave that 
pleasure to readers of the volume. The addresses are full of 



104 NEW BOOKS [April, 

valuable material, and must inevitably provoke thought among 
serious-minded women who may read it. 

The remaining papers also are valuable, especially to those 
interested in the history of medicine. Dr. Walsh is a loyal 
champion of Catholicism, the kind we wish to meet, and our 
only desire is that we had a few more like him. 

LITTLE BLOSSOMS OF LOVE, KINDNESS, AND OBEDIENCE. 
By Sister Mary Agnes McCann. Mount St. Joseph-on-the- 
Ohio: Sisters of Charity. 

Two recent volumes of religious lyrics are with us: often 
similar in matter, but in manner as different as souls, or as 
womanhood itself. The Little Blossoms of venerable Sister 
Mary Agnes McCann are cheery with the singular domestic 
brightness of the cloister always, to those in the world, a 
phenomenal thing. Their themes, in the main, are found in 
the mysteries of our Faith, in its feasts and fasts, its saints and 
shrines. But Sister Mary Agnes has been ever ready with her 
pen, and scarcely an episode of convent life of friendship or 
of fealty is without its memorial. 

THE UNFADING LIGHT. By Caroline Davenport Swan. Bos- 
ton; Sherman, French & Co. $1.25. 

Caroline Davenport Swan is already favorably known to 
readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The dreamy delicacy of 
her style, the devout and tender sincerity of her thought are 
not strangers to us. Through the present volume theie is a 
noticeable avoidance of the storm and stress of life; a shade, 
perhaps, of weariness; yet persistent serenity of hope. Miss 
Swan has her own subtlety ; and her " unfading light " is found 
upon quiet horizons in a golden monotone which speaks of 
the immense silences of God. 

MEZZOGIORNO. By John Ayscough. St. Louis: B. Herder. 

$1.50. 

In Mezzogiotno, by John Ayscough, author of San Celes- 
tino, we find a Catholic novel of the highest type. It is a 
fine, firm piece of work, and has a secure excellence of style 
and treatment, very rare in these days of hurried fiction 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 105 

writing. The story is of England, and is thoroughly English 
in tone. Both in development of plot and in character anal- 
ysis it bears a strong resemblance to the work of George 
Eliot ; a like resemblance may be found, in the stern idea of 
retribution, of the grinding of the mills of the gods. But 
George Eliot, self-bound in Positivism, could never attain the 
subtle grace with which John Ayscough has outlined the spir- 
itual awakening of his heroine, and her slow turning to Catho- 
licism. Gillian Thesiger is an unusual heroine ; one believes 
in her personality. And, what is more of a compliment to the 
author, one believes in her difficulties. Mczzogiorno is an ex- 
ceptionally capable book. We urge our readers to hasten to 
enjoy it. 

HOME RULE. Speeches of John Redmond, M. P. New York: 
Frederick A. Stokes Co. 

Twenty- four selected speeches made by John Redmond 
during twenty-five years of the struggle for Home Rule have 
been edited and arranged in one volume by R. Barry O'Brien. 
In an introduction by the editor they are properly said to 
be "persuasive, dignified, skillful in arrangement, clear in ex- 
position, logical and incisive in character.' 1 More than half of 
them were delivered in the House of Commons. If that body 
were influenced by forcible and lucid argument, these speeches 
would have great practical value as a means of winning Home 
Rule. They should be read by every one who wishes to make 
up his mind and form a judgment about the somewhat conflicting 
opinions current regarding Ireland's surest road to prosperity. 
He is the official exponent of the views held by the Irish 
Parliamentary Party, and that Party holds the views of an 
overwhelming majority of the Irish people. The central idea 
to which all others are referred or from which they radiate is 
this: Ireland can never prosper until she enjoys the freedom 
of making laws for the nation and executing them in accord- 
ance with the dictates of her own peculiar genius. Experi- 
mental proof of this is drawn from the complete failure for 
more than a century of English rule, so that self-government 
is claimed on the ground of expediency as well as on that of 
right. Abundant facts are given and statistics produced to 
show the wretched condition of the country, and solid reasons 
advanced to prove that it cannot be otherwise, under the 



io6 NEW BOOKS [April, 

domination of an alien government. The case of Canada is 
brought forward to exhibit Home Rule as a remedy for dis- 
content and as the condition of prosperity. For various reasons 
Mr. Redmond has become thoroughly convinced that Irish 
autonomy is now inevitable. The masses of the English peo- 
ple are not opposed to it, the attitude of Ulster has under- 
gone a favorable change, the British Parliament can transact 
its own business only by granting it, most of the popular 
prejudices against it have died out or been killed. A favorite 
and influential objection to it was the alleged unfitness of the 
Irish for managing a government of their own; this has been 
refuted by successful administration of the Local Government 
Act. The working out of this Act has also demonstrated how 
futile were the fears entertained for the Protestant minority 
left to the mercy of a Catholic majority. Every year now 
brings new evidence that Home Rule for Ireland is near at 
hand. 

ROBERT KIMBERLY. By Frank H. Spearman. New York : 
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.30 net. 

This novel will be of special interest to Catholic readers 
because the plot turns largely upon the influence of the 
Church in the lives of a man and woman. Alice MacBirney, 
Catholic by birth and education, has been married five years 
to a non-Catholic. Through his hostile influence she has 
ceased to practice her religion, but has not lost her faith. She 
meets her husband's new partner, Robert Kimberly, a multi- 
millionaire and a financier of note. He falls in love with her, 
but for a time she repulses him; her conduct however, is ap- 
parently directed, by ordinary ethics rather than by Catholic 
principle. At last, after enduring neglect and insult from her 
husband, she leaves him, obtains a divorce, and promises to 
marry Kimberly. She admits that she would like to obtain 
the Church's blessing on the marriage, so that she might re- 
turn to the practice of religion, but adds that she fears it to 
be impossible. Kimberly, as an American millionaire, is in the 
habit of overcoming the impossible, either by money or by 
influence, and promptly decides to consult the Catholic Arch- 
bishop. The interview is most interesting. In the kind, firm 
explanation given by the Archbishop of the utter impossibility 
of obtaining the permission of the Church for a second mar- 



i9.] NEW BOOKS 107 

riage while the first husband lives, the author states very 
clearly and sympathetically the Catholic attitude and teaching 
on the subject of divorce. Kimberly and Alice are disap- 
pointed at this verdict, but are not at all hindered in prepar- 
ations for their marriage. It does not take place, however; 
Alice is seized by an attack of cerebral lesion, the result of a 
blow dealt by her husband, and dies in a few days, recover- 
ing consciousness only long enough to grasp her crucifix. 
Heartbroken at her death, Kimberly finds consolation in the 
Church, and immediately after his conversion leaves for Molo- 
kai to devote himself to the work of nursing the lepers. 

We believe that this is the first novel that Mr. Spearman 
has written since his own conversion to the Church, and it 
will be of undoubted interest to Catholic readers. With the 
character of Robert Kimberly he has succeeded splendidly, 
but his herione, Alice, gives the effect of unreality. Religion 
is a vital thing to a Catholic woman, even if she has sinned 
against it; it is not a thing of second-class sentiment, to be 
taken or left after a melodramatic, but half-hearted struggle. 
After leaving her husband Alice's strongest instinct would 
have been to return to the faith of which he is supposed to 
have " robbed " her, and without which, we are told, she was 
unhappy. Only a tremendous passion, which she is not once 
represented as feeling for Kimberly, would have driven her 
to what she knew was a sinful marriage. 

Mr. Spearman's presentation of Catholic beliefs and teach- 
ings is always accurate; his non- Catholic readers will get 
some correct, and, we hope, illuminating information. They 
will probably be impressed by the superiority of the Church 
to the American idea of the " almighty dollar." To Catholics 
the book will surely be most interesting, but in no way en- 
lightening, except as another argument against mixed mar- 
riage. 

We cannot refrain from adding that if Mr. Spearman's 
priests really must use Latin phrases, they should at least use 
correct ones. 

CHRIST AND THE GOSPEL. By Marius Lepin, SJ. Philadel- 
phia: John J. McVey. $2. 

By an elaborate scientific examination of the first three 
Gospels this book shows what critical history has to tell us 



108 NEW BOOKS [April, 

regarding the Person of Jesus Christ. At the same time it 
furnishes material for forming a judgment upon the method, 
labors, and conclusions of contemporary critics engaged in the 
study of those Gospels. The capital question involved is this: 
What does genuine history say as to Christ's divinity ? Whose 
Son is He? Is He the Son of God and equal to His Father? 
Both the unbelieving critic and the believer enter upon the 
examination of documents with contradictory convictions, neither 
of which springs from the study of history ; for the one they are 
based upon philosophy and for the other they are founded on 
faith. But this does not necessarily preclude a fair statement 
of historical facts or just reasoning upon them, and a conclusion 
will be perfectly legitimate if logically derived from premises 
which contain it. What vitiates the scientific method in the 
handling of history is that it allows an antecedent conviction 
affecting the conclusion to take part in the process. This book 
is singularly free from that vice, which is more than can be 
truthfully said of the unbelieving critics. In fact these openly 
declare that whatever is supernatural cannot be historical; the 
author cites their very words. An indirect but important effect 
of the book is the impression it produces that the critical 
method, which rejects the evidence supplied by tradition, is 
powerless to satisfy the mind. The modicum of light its appli- 
cation sheds upon the Gospel histories, while it contributes in 
turn to the great light of the accumulated testimony of nine- 
teen centuries, is of itself utterly impotent to reveal the truth. 
Nevertheless, the author's laborious undertaking has shown 
that the critical method, so far as it avails, inclines the his- 
torical student of the Gospels towards the conclusion that the 
historic Personage, Jesus Christ, was no other than the expected 
Messiah of the Jews and no less than the true Son of God. 

AT HOME WITH GOD. By Matthew Russell, S.J. New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co. $1.25. 

The meaning of this title is the author's invitation to a 
fully developed childlike relationship with God. The book, not 
a large one, is a manual of reverent familiarity in one's private 
dealings with the heavenly Father. In its twenty-four chapters 
which sum up the principal aspects of our kinship with the 
Deity, Father Russell instills "at home-ness" of feeling into 
our prayers and meditations. One is here aided by thoughts 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 109 

of vital encouragement along the entire journey of the spirit, 
from the avoidance of petty deceitfulness to the achievement 
of the supreme and final goal of perseverance. 

It is many years since this author began to make it a 
pleasant thing to be hard on self and generous with Jesus; 
he wears the enviable laurels of a veteran in the gentle warfare 
of conquest by love. He does not fear to be misunderstood 
by using such terms as " easy spirituality," for, like Father 
Faber, his bright writing and his gift of adornment of style 
are introductory to the solid teaching of the Gospel. His skill 
of expression is wholly expended in exhibiting the beauty of 
virtue, which to many minds is well learned without dwelling 
much on the hatefulness of vice. 

To be strongly devotional and yet not strongly sentimental, 
or rather to be sentimental without forfeit of reason's guidance 
and faith's stability is a great boon. We believe that Father 
Russell's volume contributes materially to this end. 

THE LIFE OF BLESSED JOHN EUDES. By Matthew Russell, 
S.J. New York: Benziger Bros. 

To many this interesting sketch of " a great priest who in 
his day pleased God," will come as an introduction to a 
Founder whose foundations are familiar to all. Who but knows 
of the Houses of Refuge and of the Good Shepherd, yet how 
few know of the man whose yearning for sinners gave birth to 
this Apostolic work. Father Eudes' life gives another instance 
of the travail in which new religious families see the light. It 
was arduously spent in troublous times. 

Like St. Philip Neri and St. Vincent de Paul, the great 
preoccupation of his mind was the need for "a holy race" of 
priests. To this end he wrote and labored and prayed ; this 
drew him to the Oratory, and thence to form the Congregation 
of Jesus and Mary, especially devoted to the work of seminaries. 

His biographer calls Blessed John Eudes " one of the letter- 
writing saints," the two last volumes of a twelve volume edi- 
tion of his works being devoted to letters. Father Russell 
has fully appreciated the impossibility of doing justice to such 
a full life in a sketch of less than two hundred pages; he but 
presents an outline portrait which will inspire every priest, 
and impel the layman toward increased loyalty and reverence 
for those " who break unto him the Bread of Life." 



1 10 NEW BOOKS [April, 

ANDROS OF EPHESUS. By J. E. Copus, SJ. Milwaukee: The 
M. H. Wiltzius Co. $1.25. 

Sustained interest and much instruction are to be found 
throughout the chapters of this story, the scene of which is 
laid in Ephesus during the early years after the Ascension of 
our Lord. The theme is one of love. Andros, a well-to-do 
shipowner falls in love with Lydda, who has another admirer 
in the person of Aratus, a suitor more desirous of the dowry 
that will go with Lydda than of herself. As one would nat- 
urally expect, he becomes the villain of the book, and lays a 
plot for the destruction of Andros; but the course of love 
runs smoothly, happiness coming in the end. 

The particular interest attached to the story lies in the 
picture of the early Church, a sharp distinction being drawn 
between the conduct of those who worship Diana, and the fol- 
lowers of Christ. St. John the Apostle is introduced with 
some effect, but we confess that the portion relating to the 
Blessed Virgin falls short of what we should desire. And we 
feel inclined also to find fault with the scanty treatment of the 
plot hatched by Aratus; for, after all, a good plot is the life 
of a book. With these exceptions the reading of Andros of 
Ephesus has been a pleasure, and we recommend it to readers 
of light literature. 

NONE OTHER GODS. By Robert Hugh Benson. St. Louis: 
B. Herder. $1.50. 

From Father Benson one expects the extraordinary. His 
latest book, None Other Gods, is unspeakably strange in theme 
and treatment; religiously it is quite unconventional. The story 
is of the Honorable Frank Guiseley, second son of an English 
nobleman, and, in the first chapters, student at Cambridge. 
Frank has become a Catholic, and in consequence has been 
cast off by his father without even the proverbial shilling. 
He startles his friends by announcing an auction sale of his 
furniture, books, and clothes; later, armed with the resultant 
thirteen pounds and his exeat from Cambridge, he "takes to 
the roads" very literally and determinedly. To the remon- 
strances of his friend Jack Kirkby, Frank's reply is, " I'm going 
to find out things for myself." 

Frank is as good as his word. He does find out things 



i9i i.] NJSW BOOKS 1 1 1 

for himself, but the roads that he travels are cruelly hard. 
He meets privation and hardship and suffering, and, most un- 
nerving of all, heartless desertion from the girl he has loved. 
The two companions with whom he has taken up, Major Trust- 
cott and Gertie, are constant torture to his sensibilities; yet 
he accepts their sordid vulgarity and endures unspeakable 
humiliations because of them. All this is a part of the scheme of 
renunciation which he is resolutely following out, and which he 
now believes imposed upon him by something higher than him- 
self. He feels that he is meant to rescue Gertie from the life 
she is leading. 

He finally succeeds in bringing Gertie back to her home; 
he does it simply because his will is stronger than hers. But 
and this seems the most dully tragic bit in his history he 
effects no repentance, no conversion in the girl. On the jour- 
ney to her home she begs Frank to take her away with him 
instead. Her life does not seem worth redeeming (there is no 
question of converting her soul) at the price of Frank's own 
life. For that is the terrible price that he pays; the Major 
kills him in a fit of drunken anger at Gertie's loss. That, 
briefly, is the story, and very harsh it seems in outline. 

Father Benson makes us believe that Frank was specially 
guided by Divine Grace, that it accompanied him always in a 
mysterious, unmistakable way, and that through renunciation 
and failure he finally attained his self-realization and union 
with God. 

The book has subtly dramatic incidents, showing vivid 
against the background of detailed realism. Father Benson's 
style is always refreshing; in this story we find, as usual, the 
quick, short-lined character drawing, the sudden parentheses, 
and the singularly chosen, much-connoting phrases of psychical 
or spiritual experience. 

MELCHIOR OF BOSTON. By Michael Earls, SJ. New York: 
Benziger Bros. $i. 

Melchior of Boston by Michael Earls, S.J., is that wonder- 
ful thing, a story with an original plot. Mr. Earls he is a 
scholastic, we believe has written something unusual, some- 
thing really worth while. He takes a typical Boston business 
man, gives him a Catholic wife and children, and throws him 
into circumstances which result in his playing the part of 



ii2 NEW BOOKS [April, 

Melchior in a morality play of the Three Wise Men, given by 
his son's class in a Jesuit day-school. Then, by a pretty bit 
of symbolism, the author shows his hero's awakened religious 
interest and his search after truth in the face of a rather sur- 
prising opposition from his business partners, as parallel to 
Melchior's following of the Star. The idea has real beauty in 
it. The style of writing is not at all free and the author 
handles the story rather awkwardly. But he is a beginner, 
this being, we believe, his first attempt in prose; practice 
will bring ease of style and construction. And in the mean- 
time Melchior of Boston will command praise for its really un- 
usual merits. 

THE BROAD HIGHWAY. By Jeffery Farnol. Boston: Little, 
Brown & Co. $1.35. 

The Broad Highway ', a novel by a new writer, Jeffery Farnol, 
was approved with unusual warmth by London critics, and has 
already met with much praise in America. The time of the tale 
is the early nineteenth century, the scene rural England, and the 
hero, one Peter Vibart, who tells his own history most engag- 
ingly. Disinherited, as he believes, by his uncle, Peter sets 
forth n the " Broad Highway " in search of a livelihood and 
of adventure. The first he finds as blacksmith in a Kentish 
village, the second rushes upon him in various and startling 
forms. Love comes to meet him, too, and he tells of it with 
an amusing, careful candor that recalls Blackmore's hero, John 
Ridd. In fact, the whole story, suggests Lotna Doone, but the 
resemblance is vague enough to be pleasant. 

More charming than the narrative, however, are the de- 
tached descriptive passages .sketching the travelers met by 
Peter on the road, and the quaint rural types of his later experi- 
ence. The author has rare powers of character- photography. 

The book might be improved by the omission of the one 
chapter in which Peter voices a belief which seems to be a 
wild combination of Christian Science and Unitarianism. Such 
theories are utterly incongruous with his character, and with 
the story. 

TALES OF THE TENEMENTS. By Eden Phillpots. New York : 
John Lane Company. $1.50. 

The rather ambiguous title may lead some to suppose 



i9ii.J NEW BOOKS 113 

that this book is the autobiography of a New York settlement 
worker; the reader of taste will, of course, foresee that it 
deals not with the " Lower East Side," but with those ancient 
homesteads on the banks of the Dart in the country which is 
now inseparably linked with the name of Eden Phillpotts. 
Many of the old abandoned farms which travelers see in 
Cornwall and Devon date from Tudor days, and folk tales still 
clinging about the names and places in the ancient Royal 
Forest of Dartmoor form the substance of this present book. 
Presented in the author's entertaining and characteristic style 
they make a readable volume. 

SIENA AND SOUTHERN TUSCANY. By Edward Hutton. New 
York : The Macmillan Company. $2 net. 

We cannot but feel deeply resentful that Mr. Hutton per- 
mitted himself to disfigure his precious book with a nasty 
page from Boccaccio. Adding O. F. M. Ward's well-chosen 
and finely executed illustrations sixteen in color, twelve in 
monotone to a clear and exhaustive description of one of the 
loveliest and most memorable art centers of Italy, the author 
has constructed a satisfying work of beauty which we should 
have liked to declare without a flaw. We mention as particu- 
larly discerning his analysis of the Sienese school and his re- 
fusal to compare the work of Buoninsegna's followers with that 
of Giotto's disciples. 

GUIDA DEGLI STATI UNITI PER L'IMMIGRANTE ITALIANO. 
Di John Foster Carr. New York: Doubleday, Page & 
Co. 25 cents. 

The philanthropy of the Connecticut Daughters of the 
American Revolution and the zeal of Mr. John Foster Carr 
have combined to put at the disposal of the Italian immigrant 
a booklet in his native tongue replete with the sort of informa- 
tion most useful to him. An apt illustration likens it to the 
Baedeker which we found so indispensable in our traveling. In- 
numerable practical difficulties find their solution in this book. 

Two suggestions we venture upon. Experience proves that 
more detailed information than is here given about American 
marriage laws would be required in order to ensure the en- 
lightenment of the immigrant on this matter so hard for him 
to understand. Again, though perhaps we could hardly ex- 
VOL. xcm. 8 



ii4 NEW BOOKS [April, 

pect the graciousness of the D. A. R. to extend so far, the 
book would surely be of greater practical assistance to the 
Italian immigrant if it contained a list of the clergymen min- 
istering to Italians and a clear statement of the Church to which 
each clergyman belongs. 

The book deserves to be circulated for it will further the 
performance of an arduous and praiseworthy task. It is un- 
fortunate that so many of the people to whom it would be 
most useful are handicapped by inability to read even their 
own language. Of 135,080 male Southern Italians entering 
this country during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, 
there were 71,240, over fourteen years old, who could neither 
read nor write. The previous year there were 30,268 out of 
73,824. But this only goes to show how diligently we must 
co-operate with the author of the booklet in spreading the 
information he has here so conveniently brought together. 

THE PLAIN GOLD RING. By Robert Kane, SJ. New York : 
Longmans, Green & Co. 65 cents. 

Here is another book to be added to the Catholic family 
library. Its title, after reading a page or two of the text, is 
made clear and tells the contents of the book. Everything 
that touches on marriage and the home is spoken of, and there 
are valuable helps to happiness. Father Kane seems to have 
the subject at heart, and evidently speaks from his large ex- 
periences as missionary. 

On nearly every other page are to be found helpful ideas; 
truth set forth in plain homely language; and abundant evi- 
dence of the kindliness and warmth of the author's priestly 
heart. There is nothing narrow, petty, or repellant as not 
infrequently happens in writings on this subject in these lec- 
tures, which are of course thoroughly in harmony with the 
teaching of the Catholic Church. We Jdo not think that a 
Catholic after reading them can help giving considerable thought 
to some of the serious problems of modern life. And, certain- 
ly, the author's desire that the work may be a cause of hap- 
piness to some Christian homes will be brought to pass. 

A perusal of The Plain Gold Ring may be the means of 
making some women halt in their rush after so-called emanci- 
pation. Father Kane will make enemies among these folk, for 
he says rather bluntly, but none the less truly, that "Those 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 115 

who advocate the extreme theories of Woman's Rights seek 
unconsciously to limit their power and lessen her influence." 

Here and there Father Kane's Irish wit peeps out, either 
in his selections, as his quotation from St. Clement of Alexan- 
dria on women using false hair, or in the paper on the home- 
less where he gives keen thrusts. He wants marriages, plenty 
of them, and between young people. " A nation where early 
marriages are almost universal will have plenty of sons and 
daughters of sturdy frame and healthy mind, and such a race 
shall command a triumphant success in peace or war. . . . 
Old bachelors deserve no pity." He closes his book with a 
very good paper on education, and makes a vigorous plea for 
love of children. He would like his boys to be brave and 
manly; the girls to have "exquisite maidenly modesty, thrift, 
tidiness, and taste." 

ALLEZ A LUI. By Abbe Frederic Riviere. Paris : Pierre 

Tequi. 6 fr. 50. 

The aim of this book, which may be read between break- 
fast and supper, is to " faire un peu de bien aux ames." 
Doubtless it will edify the reader, though it can hardly lay 
other claim to his attention. It treats of frequent Communion, 
and this makes it opportune. As for the treatment, it is bare- 
ly mediocre. What is original in the book lacks spirit, deals 
chiefly in generalities, and betrays no firm grasp of unifying 
principles. Unless every book dealing with religious truths in 
a religious way and composed with a zealous purpose be com- 
mendable, there is no call for such a production as Allez a Lui* 



T^HE non-committal monosyllable, Pat, is the title of a gay, 
* red-covered book that comes from B. Herder, St. Louis. 
And the author's name, Harold Wilson, is, we confess, equally 
unenlightening. On investigation Pat proves to be a readable, 
rather pleasant story of school and university life in England. 
It is of the usual variety, with football and card- playing for 
the main issues, and a heroic runaway rescue thrown in. The 
price is 50 cents. 

A SHEAF OF STORIES, by Joseph Carmichael, is a col- 
* lection of amiable, mid-Victorian tales, whose consistently 
Catholic atmosphere is their chief claim to merit. St. Louis : 
B. Herder. 80 cents. 



n6 NEW BOOKS [April, 

T C. PAGE & CO., of Boston, have published a very desir- 
*-** able volume, by Charles Livingston Bull, describing and 
picturing animal life in the Guiana wilds. The title is Under 
the Roof of the Jungle. The many drawings from life by the 
author add interest and value to the volume. $2. 

''PHE Irish writer, Rev. Joseph Guinan, author of The Meores 
-* of Glynn, has written a new story called Donal Kenny. 
Father Guinan's drawing of rural life in Ireland has been 
warmly praised, and deservedly so. This latest story is so sim- 
ply and charmingly told that one can forget the triteness of 
the plot. Benziger Brothers are the publishers. $1.10 net. 

THE Year Book of the Catholic Settlement Association of 
Brooklyn, New York is a modest, though hopeful record 
of the activities of the Association in the field of charitable 
work. The spiritual aim of the society is to bring under 
Catholic influences the emigrants of any and all races. 

THE eighth volume of the admirable Round the World series 
published by Benziger Bros, (price $i) has come to us. 
Like its predecessors, it contains a series of interesting articles 
on a great variety of subjects and is profusely illustrated. 

BRIGHT IDEAS] FOR ENTERTAINING by Mrs. H. B. 
*-* Linscott gives two hundred forms of amusement or enter- 
tainment for social gatherings and various suggestions for holi- 
day festivals. It is well arranged with a complete index and 
may be "purchased from George W. Jacobs, Philadelphia, for 
50 cents. 



a knowledge of English literature, and particularly of 
English poetry it is necessary to make students ac- 
quainted in some measure, at least, with the myths of an- 
tiquity. A book which we may recommend for such a pur- 
pose is : Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art, by 
C. M. Gayley, Boston: Ginn and Company. The present vol- 
ume is a new edition enlarged and revised. Dr. Gayley gives 
an abundance of quotations from English writers that illus- 
trate the employment of myth. His book includes sketches of 
the Odyssey and the Iliad and of Wagner's version of the 
Ring of the Nibelung. The book abounds in illustrations, has a 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 117 

pronouncing index and a full index of subjects treated and of 
the English authors from whose works selections have been 
taken. 

WE are pleased to note a second edition of The Ground- 
work of Christian Perfection by Rev. Patrick Ryan, 
published by Benziger Bros., New York. We have already 
called the attention of our readers to this excellent little 
volume. It sells at 70 cents net. 

THE CENTURION, written by A. B. Routhier, and trans- 
lated from the French by Lucille P. Borden, (St. Louis : 
B. Herder. $1.50) calls itself "a historical romance of the 
time of the Messias." It is a careful, scholarly piece of work 
done with painstaking zeal, but it is not likely to commend 
itself widely. The fictional element is quite without merit ; the 
historical part, however, which is based upon the Gospels, de- 
serves praise as orthodox and deeply reverent. Yet we cannot 
but ask, what is the need of any enlarged or changed repeti- 
tion of the most beautiful story in the world, already told in 
the most beautiful language in the world? 

DR. FREDERIC ERNEST FARRINGTON, Ph.D., has at- 
tempted in his French Secondary Schools (New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co.), to extricate what he considers the 
real history of education from its patriotic and religious ele- 
ments a rather impossible task, we believe. Nevertheless, 
though we take emphatic exception to the primary assumption 
of the author, we wish to say that Dr. Farrington has pro- 
duced a painstaking book, full of interesting detail with regard 
to the State secondary schools of France, and one that will 
be valuable to the special student. 

A RE OUR PRAYERS HEARD? by Joseph Egger, S.J. St. 
** Louis: B. Herder, is a well-written and a well-printed 
booklet of 64 pages and sells at 15 cents per copy. 

JESUS ALL GREAT, a companion volume to Jesus All Good, 
I has just appeared by Father Alexander Gallerani, S.J., 
translated by F. Loughnan and published by P. J. Kenedy & 
Sons (cloth, 50 cents, leatherette, $i). To the cultivation of 
love this little book adds that of reverence and leaves no 



n8 NEW BOOKS [April, 

room for doubt as to the practical influence on public, as well 
as private life of a reverential love of " Christ, the power of 
God." Like its precursor it is full of devotion and the fear 
it inculcates is the loving filial fear which " is the beginning 
of wisdom." 

A TEX AS BLUE BONNET by Emilia Elliott. Boston : L. 
C. Page & Co. $1,50, tells the experience of a fourteen- 
year-old mistress of a Texan ranch, who comes to spend a 
winter with her New England relatives. The story is harm- 
less enough, with a happy ending that will please all little 
girl readers. 

A COURSE of lectures given at the Catholic Institute of 
Paris is The Assyro- Baby Ionian Religion, by Le P. Paul 
Dharme. Paris: Victor Lecoffre. These lectures have been 
considerably developed for book publication, although the work 
does not claim to be an exhaustive treatise of so vast a sub- 
ject. Mythology, magic, and divination are designedly left in 
the background. They study in particular the basis of religious 
psychology, that is to say, the idea of the Divinity and the 
relations existing between it and the world, the sentiments 
arising therefrom in the heart of man, and man's own desire 
to strengthen the bond of union between humanity and superior 
beings. The volume belongs to the series of Etudes Palestini- 
ennes et Orientates, of which it forms a valuable and interesting 
number. 

THE Religion of Ancient Egypt, La Religion de VAncienne 
Egypte, by Philippe Virey Paris: Beauchesne et Cie., is 
simply the reproduction of seven conferences given in 1909 at the 
Catholic Institute of Paris on different subjects relative to the 
Egyptian religion. It is a general view of the religious ideas 
of ancient Egypt rather than a precise and methodical ex- 
position of the Egyptian religion in all its manifestations. 
To the many interesting problems suggested by this religion 
the author has not failed to propose a solution. He has con- 
sidered also the questions of monotheism and polytheism; 
but his attention has been especially directed to the dogma 
and religious thought of the Egyptians, while he notices also 
their religious literature, especially the Book of the Dead and 
the texts of the Pyramids. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 119 

IN La Verite du Catholicisme (Bloud et Cie, Paris: 3 Jr. 50). 
Abbe Bricout treats of the historical value of the Gospels, 
points out how Loisy may be effectively answered, and gives 
consideration to the question of how one may be scrupulously 
orthodox and still love his century and his country. The 
volume will give much serviceable material to apologists. 



panegyrics, oftentimes unduly exaggerated, delivered 
by 1'Abbe Coube on Joan of Arc are published in the 
volume UAme de Jeanne d'Arc (P. Lethielleux, Paris: 4 fr.) 
The volume concludes with the studies previously published 
by the author under the title U Ideal. The author discusses 
in detail such questions as ; Was Joan a Shepherdess ? Did 
she act under hallucinations ? Was she burned by the Church ? 

T A VIE INTERNATIONALE. By Vte. Combes de Les- 
*-' trade. Paris: Victor Lecoffe. 2 fr. t is a careful study 
by an eminent historian and sociologist of the various ways 
in which nations are to-day brought into contact with other 
nations. Travel, circulation^ of foreign periodicals, etc., have 
done much to produce a cosmopolitanism that is an effective 
safeguard of peace, and a scholarly study of these phenomena 
is to be welcomed. 

THIS little book of 170 pages (Essai sur la Foi, by Abbe 
Snell. Paris: Pierre Tequi), treats of the historical devel- 
opment of the Christian idea of divine faith. Until the birth 
of Protestantism, and for some time after that event, the tra- 
ditional notion of faith as an assent of the mind to revealed 
doctrine, was commonly held. But Protestantism contained the 
seed which has since germinated and produced an abundant 
crop of concepts regarding faith that gainsay its intellectual 
nature. As a consequence belief in the supernatural has no 
standing in the field of reason, being merely an affair of the 
heart, having no concern with dogma. This is a radical de- 
parture from the ancient idea and no true development. The 
Catholic concept of taith, on the contrary, is substantially the 
same all through the centuries, and it's growth in distinctness 
is genuine evolution. The reading of this Essay is recom- 
mended to those desirous of forming a proper estimate of the 
many theories regarding religion without dogma, popular at the 
present day. 



^foreign Iperiobicals* 

The Tablet (4 Feb.): " New Legislation for Religious Orders." 
The Sacred Congregation of Religious has just issued a 
new decree regulating the admission of lay brothers. 
They may be admitted as postulants at the age of sev- 
enteen ; they cannot become novices until they are 
twenty, or solemnly professed members unless they have 
attained their thirty-first year. " On Personal Ser- 
vice/' by May Quinlan. A Catholic social centre has 
been opened at Southwark and an appeal has been made 
not only to the Catholics at this place but to the faith- 
ful throughout England to take up social work and by 
their civic influence, writings, visitations, and prayers 
combat the Rationalistic and Socialistic tendencies of 
the age. A Bill providing a Constitution for Alsace- 
Lorraine has passed the first reading in the German 
Reichstag. 

(n Feb.): King George V. opened his first Parliament 
and made the Accession Declaration in the new form 

provided by the Amending Act passed last year. 

The new regime in the Congo State is effecting very 
happy reforms. " Peace and confidence now reign where 

formerly there were war and trouble." " In Pursuit 

of a Shadow," by A. L. Cortie, S.J. The writer deals 
with his proposed expedition to Vavau, an island in the 
Sonthern Pacific, to observe, as one of the official British 
astronomers, a total eclipse of the sun, which will be 

visible from that point in April. " News from France " 

gives a summary of Mgr. Duchesne's address to the 
Academy and of M. Etienne Lamy's reply to the dis- 
tinguished new Academician. 

(18 Feb.): "Taxation of Spanish Religious," by F. M. 
de Zulueta, S.J. The first move in the anticlerical cam- 
paign of continental politicians is an attack on the 
Church's outer defences the religious orders. A proof 
of this is seen in the recent measure enacted in Spain, 
forbidding an increase in the number of religious houses. 
Father de Zulueta takes up and refutes in order the 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 121 

arguments offered in support of the measure and then 
suggests that there is another motive in the minds of 
those who wish to procure the ruin of the Orders, 
namely, the realization of " Universal Freemasonry." 

"The Holy See and Germany," Mgr. Butt, the 

new Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, was consecrated 
on Friday, February 24. 

The Month (Feb.): "The Ethics of Subscription," by Rev. 
Sydney F. Smith deals with the recent oath taken by 

the clergy. The text of the oath is given in full. 

" Gheel Colony for the Insane," by Alice V. Johnson, 
describes the treatment of alienation cases in the Belgian 

colony. The Rev. H. Thurston contributes an article 

entitled "The Medieval Primer." This article refutes a 
paper appearing in a recent issue of the Guardian^ 
which asserted that Mariolatry never took root in the 
hearts of the English people. By numerous quotations 
from the " Primer," the common prayer book for the 
medieval layman, the author shows that devotion to 
our Lady was bound up with the religious practices of 
all classes. 

(March): J. Elliot Ross, M.A., under the caption, "The 
Consumer's Opportunity," emphasizes the great power 
that lies in the hands of the consumers for the better- 
ment of social conditions. The author gives a brief ac- 
count of the origin, aims, etc., of the Consumer's League, 
an institution which strives, through the consumer, to 
bring about better conditions for those employed in the 
sale and manufacture of goods. " Iconoclastic Criti- 
cism," by Rev. H. Thurston is a review of a paper, 
written by the Rev. Fedele Savio, professor of Ecclesi- 
astical History at the Gregorian University. Father 
Savio considers various religious traditions and devo- 
tions in no wise connected with the deposit of faith. 
He scores those hostile critics who maintain that " these 
devotions are stuffed down the throats of all," and are 
placed upon the same footing as the dogmas of faith 
because their exposure would lead to great loss of rev- 
enue and truth. He further shows the admissibility of 
criticism toward these and maintains that corrections 
have been made in books, traditions, etc., which goes 



ii2 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [April, 

to show that no infallible authority is claimed for their 
historicity. 

The Expository Times (March): " Light from the Ancient East/' 

by the Rev. James Iverach, D.D. " The Tradition of 

the Elders," by the Rev. G. Margoliouth. " The Life 

of Faith/' by the Rev. W. W. Holdsworth. 

Ihe Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Feb.) : " University Students 
Afield." Rev. James P. Clenaghan, B.A. The author 
asks: "If the world is to be brought back to Christian 
ideals and Christian principles, what is to be Ireland's 
share in the great movement?" And he answers the 
question thus: "The spirit of the young men and women 
who come forth from the new universities will go far to 
decide that question." The spirit with which they should 
go forth, the author says, should be that of Frederick 
Ozanam, whose life and works he. sketches briefly. He 
urges them to engage in the work of the Society of St. 
Vincent de Paul saying: "that society embraces within 
its program the remedy of all the evils that threaten 
Christ's earthly kingdom at the present day ; " and 
" Nothing that can promote the glory of God's Church 
and the salvation of souls is outside the work of the 

society." " The Arians and the Greek Schism," by Se- 

nanus. In this article the schism of Cerularius, in A. D., 
1053, is traced back step by step to the abuses origin- 
ating in the Arian Period, A. D., 328-378. " Pre- 

Reformation Archbishops of Cashel," by W. H. Grattan 
Flood, Mus.D. This article is an extended review of 
a recently published book on the " Pre-Reformation 
Archbishops of Cashel," by St. John D. Seymour, B.D. 

The National (March): A Unionist Free Trader under the 
caption "A Democratic House of Commons 1906 1910" 
discusses both the negative and positive qualities of the 
Lower House of which he has little that is good to say. 

Writing in strong opposition to "The Declaration 

of London and Its Surrenders to Germany " H. W. 
Wilson says that the " Declaration is a lamentable proof 
that the spirit of Pitt and Palmerston is disappearing 

from British diplomacy." " Canada and American 

Reciprocity," by Albert R. Carmen Austin Dobson 

contributes a historical and descriptive sketch of the 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 123 

once famous Buckingham mansion known as Stowe. 

In the spring of last year a battalion of eight hundred 
blacks, with women and children, arrived in Algeria. 
Discussing this event Philippe Millet says: "It proves 
that the French government has started a new military 
policy which consists in building up a black army 
large enough to be used in North Africa and even in 

case of need, in European battlefields." " The Girl 

Graduate in Fiction," by R. Reinherz reviews several 
recent novels. Of these the author says: "the stories 
are frankly disappointing; we have not seen one of 
even passing interest or met a single heroine worth 

remembering." "American Affairs" by A. Maurice 

Low. "The Genius of Mr. Thackery " is an ap- 
preciation contributed by H. G. Biron. The present 

system of "Elementary Education" is reviewed by D. 
C. Lathbury. 

Le Correspondant (10 Feb.): " Chambord and the House of 
France," by Prince Sixte de Bourbon relates the history 
of Chambord Castle with a description of its architecture. 

"Whither are We Tending?" by H. Korwin Milew- 

ski is a review of the posthumous work of the same 
title by Count Albert Dzieduszycki treating of the 
political and social life and also the religious and moral 
life of Poland. "The Fortification of Flushing," dis- 
cusses the question proposed recently to the Minister 
of Foreign Affairs in France by M. Delafosse. Flushing, 
a strip of territory between Holland and Belgium, was 
made neutral territory in 1839 by the Great Powers of 

Europe. "The Juvenile Courts," by Edward Julhiet, 

presents a study of Juvenile Courts with its methods 
and results in United States, France and other Euro- 
pean countries. "The Plays of M. De Porto- Riche," 

by Peter Lasserre reviews and discusses the works of 
this play-writer illustrating his remarks by quoting from 

the works under consideration. " A New Method of 

Teaching to Read," by Abbe Felix Klein explains the 
phonetic method for teaching children to read the work 
of Arnauld and Lancelot. 

(25 Feb.): "The Public Spirit in Germany," by Henry 
Moysset discusses the attitudes of the various political 



124 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [April, 

parties of Prussia and Germany towards electoral reform. 

"The First Step in the Reign of Terror," by 

Dauphin Meunier presents another view of this period, 
from papers found among the effects of the Jacobin 

leader Mirabeau. Leander Vaillat presents the life 

of the Italian artist, John Segantini, in brief, as re- 
corded in the artist's diary and personal letters. 

11 Anonymous Heroism," by Jane Mairet describes an 
expedition of exploration on the Gunnison River to di- 
vert its current thereby rendering fertile a portion of 
the sterile lands of the Great American Desert. 

Revue Pratique d* Apologetique (i Feb.): "Preaching," by H. 
Lesetre. The article treats of the declaration of the 
present Pope on preaching, and discusses many practi- 
cal points. " M. Branly, of the Academy of Sci- 
ences," by F. Nau. M. Branly is the subject of a short 
and eulogistic biography. His work as a scientist be* 
gan in 1865. Since that date M. Branly has written 
many works on physics. 

(15 Feb.): In the September issue a resume, of the ar- 
guments presented by M. Guibert for a reawakening in 
the study of Latin was given. In a November number 
an author signing himself G. R. takes exception to 
them. The present article, by J. Gimazane, is an an- 
swer to G. R. 

Annales de Philosophie Chretienne (Feb): H. Bremond, review- 
ing the Abbe Humbert's "Origins of Modern Theol- 
ogy*" says he is unable to understand much of the lan- 
guage the Abbe has used. As a whole, the book has 
for the reviewer the effect of a "long, brilliant, and 
deceiving contradiction." 

Revue Thomiste (Jan.-Feb.): The first of a series of papers on 
"The History of Proofs in the Middle Ages for the 
Existence of God," by Pere Henry, P. B. is the leading 
article of this issue. The author begins with Isidore of 
Seville and covers the period down to the end of the 
twelfth century, dealing with such men as St. Anselm, 
Abelard, Peter Lombard, and Richard of St. Victor. 
M. S. Gillet, O.P. writes on the efficacy of Catholic 
Moral Theology and the intelligibility of her dogma, 
treating the subject first negatively from the point of 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 125 

view of Agnosticism and Pragmatism, and then from 

the Catholic standpoint. "Liberalism," by R. P. 

Hedde, O.P., is a logical and a psychological study of 
the nature of a concept, and is the continuation of a 
previous article on Nominalism and Idealism by the 
same author. "Adam and Original Sin" is interest- 
ingly handled by Pere Hugueny, O.P. First he gives 
the definition of the Council of Trent on the subject, 
and then among other things dwells upon the effects 
and transmission of the sin of Adam, the condition of 
primitive man, and finally the question of Redemption. 

Etudes Franciscaines (i Feb.): Father Ren of Naples begins 
the life of Father Joseph of Morlain (ne de Kerven) " A 

Breton Capuchin" of the seventeenth century. In 

"New Lights on the Priestly Vocation," Father Jules 
d'Albi cites scripture, the Fathers and the Sovereign 
Pontiffs, to refute M. Lahiton's contention that it is pure 
subjectivism to claim, as the source of vocation, a per- 
sonal interior call from God Serviam, taking up the 

present criticism oi Taine's estimate of the Jacobins in 
Les Origines de la France Contemporaine, argues the truth 
of the estimate from the principles and conduct of the 
Radicals of to-day who boast their descent from the 
Jacobins. He arraigns both Jacobins and Radicals for 
insufferable egoism of pretention, " feudalistic " concen- 
tration of power and usurpation by the state of the 

natural rights of the individual. The study of "The 

Mystical Spirit of St. Francis " as shown by Ossuna and 

Duns!; Scotus is continued. " A Monograph of the 

Foundation of the Capuchin Clarisses in Paris" by M. 
Denis opens with a sketch of Louise of Lorraine to 
whose devotion and generosity this establishment is due. 
Father Gabriel reviews five new books of " Medita- 
tions of the Clergy." 

Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (1911, No. 2): Chr. Pesch, S.J., under 
the title "Intellectualism and Anti-intellectualism" points 
out the dangers of the present reaction against rationalism. 
An underrating of reason's importance is apt to lead to 
the position that it makes no difference what a man 

believes. E. Wassmann, S.J., writes on " Professor 

Branca and Fossil Men." " The Contents of the Oath 



126 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [April, 

in the Motu Proprio, ' Sacrorum Autistitum ' of Septem- 
ber i, 1910," by J. Bessmer, S.J., takes the view that 
the points herein enumerated have already been authori- 
tatively decided by the Vatican Council. 

La Civilta Cattolica (18 Feb.): "The Principles of Christian 
Education " are explained in an important article deal- 
ing especially with that theory of " self- education " 
which finds so much favor with many modern pedagog- 
ists. The writer shows how unacceptable is that theory 
from the Catholic point of view. "The Revolution- 
ary Internationalism of Free-masonry " is to be described 
in a series of articles, the first of which points out that 
the true inwardness of masonic teaching, wrapped up 
as that teaching is in high-sounding phrases of Biblical 
and generally religious character, is utterly opposed to 
true religion and is entirely humanistic. The value of 
Masonry's grotesque and apparently silly symbolism is 

pointed out. "The Oath against Modernism" is 

further treated in a second article which expose* a 
number of the more common sophisms current among 
modernists. It also clearly describes the nature and 
scope of the Church's teaching authority in connection 
with the case of Miss Maud Petre in England and shat- 
ters the case of those who try to draw fine distinctions 
between what is de fide and what is not and who en- 
deavor to convict the church of confusing merely human 
opinions with dogmatic teaching "The Chronology 
of the Gospel Story " is continued by Father Murillo, 
S.J., who describes the distribution of the facts contained 
in the period between the first and the fourth Paschs, 
among the four Evangelists giving references from which 
a connected account can easily be made for the three 
years. "Revelation according to Theosophy" is dis- 
cussed at length, the works of Mrs. Annie Besant being 
mainly used for the purpose. 

(4 March) : The series on " Organized Labor " is con- 
tinued in an article treating of collective bargaining, the 
influence of labor organizations on legislation, and the 
plans suggested by Duthoit for giving organized labor 
a definite political function in the State, and removing 
it from among the forces which threaten disorganiza- 



1 9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 127 

tion of society "Good reading" is a plea for the 
necessity of utilizing the printing press in aid of Chris- 
tian civilization. The authorship and date of compo- 
sition of the Psalms is treated in a further article by 
Father Luciano Mechineau who discusses at length the 
fifth, sixth and seventh decisions of the Biblical com- 
mission A further instalment of the study of " Leo N. 
Tolstoi " is devoted to his experiments in pedagogy, 
his family life, his capacity as a writer and his early 
religious aberrations. The many contradictory aspects of 
his character, his intolerance of opposition, the imprac- 
ticable nature of his pedagogical attempts based on the 
utter abandonment of discipline, and the unevenness of 
merit in his writings are well described by the writer 

of the article. The study of "Orpheus" by Solomon 

Reinach is concluded in a paper which deals with his 
theories of resurrection from the dead, more particu- 
larly with the story of Osiris and Adonis. The critic 
sums up Reinach's methods as a combination of super- 
ficial analogies, wild hypotheses and extravagant gener- 
alizations. Notwithstanding this the author seeks to 
have his doctrines imposed upon the schools of France ! 
The principal book reviews of the number are 
Bruschelli's " Celibacy of the Clergy " and the publica- 
tion "St. Charles Borromeo" which was issued monthly 
from November 1908 to December 1910 in connection 

with the Centenary of the Saint. An abstract of the 

remonstrance addressed by the Azione Cattolica Italiana 
in connection with the proposed reform of the primary 
schools by tke Daneo-Credaro law shortly to be voted 
on by the Italian senate. The memorial points out that 
the true method is not to weaken but rather to strengthen 
the individual communes. 



IRecent Events, 

The retirement of M. Briand, for 

France. it would not be right to call it a 

fall, is likely to inaugurate harsher 

treatment of the Church. The politique cTapaisement advo- 
cated, and to a certain extent practised, by M. Briand was 
distasteful to a large number of his supporters. As long ago 
as last October M. Combes, a strong opponent of the Premier, 
was elected President of the Executive Committee of the 
strongest party in the House of Deputies, and a resolution 
was passed condemning M. Briand's policy. Ever since then 
an opportunity has been sought to make this condemnation 
effective. This "opportunity was afforded on the occasion of 
an interpellation with reference to the application of the laws 
of 1901 and 1904 with regard to religious orders. A deputy 
made a violent attack on the way in which those laws had 
been applied, or rather, as he alleged, ignored. Teaching es- 
tablishments were being opened with the connivance of the 
government in every part of the country by members of the 
expelled communities. A Jesuit school had been re-opened 
with the consent of the authorities. The politique la'ique et 
sociale had been abandoned. All this had been done in order 
to curry favor with the Centre Parties of the Chamber. All 
of these allegations were denied by M. Briand, and a leading 
Catholic Deputy declared that the Catholics were not con- 
scious of any conspicuous laxity in the enforcement of the 
laws. When the question of confidence came to the vote the 
majority in favor of M. Briand was only sixteen. Although 
this majority was made up exclusively of Republican votes 
(for M. Briand threw himself entirely upon their support), the 
Premier decided to resign. M. Combes when Premier had 
remained in office for a long time with a majority of no more 
than twelve in which were included the members of his minis- 
try. But M. Briand has higher aims than the average politi- 
cian; he wishes to represent the mind of the country, and to 
carry out its ideas, not to be a mere office-holder. The coun- 
try, he believed, was weary of the policy of anti- clericalism 
a entrance. He has been overthrown by its supporters in the 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 129 

Assembly, but still holds a strong position outside the Chamber. 
His successor as Premier is a Radical of an extreme type who 
held office in the Waldeck- Rousseau cabinet. The Cabinet 
which he has formed is of a fairly homogenous Radical type 
the members of which seek their inspiration and guidance from 
M. Combes. No small anxiety is felt in many quarters as to 
the future. Catholics can expect little fair treatment at the 
hands of a Ministry of which their chief assailant is the ad- 
viser, and in which the leader of the recent attack on M. Briand 
is an office-holder. Supporters of law and order against the 
attacks of revolutionary socialists and labor organizations have 
every reason to fear the outcome when M. Jaures is loud in 
his praise of the new Ministry. The departure of M. Pichon 
from the Foreign Office renders the attitude of France in 
external relations somewhat uncertain, and the fact that M. 
Delcasse is included in the Cabinet as Minister of Marine has 
excited criticism in Germany and Austria, for he is considered 
in those countries to be not unwilling to promote a militant 
foreign policy. M. Briand in resigning office said that he had 
found himself unable to consolidate the majority of the Cham- 
ber in support of a policy of social progress, of order, and of 
security, and of what he looked upon as a tolerant and reason- 
able la'icization. The country is declared by staunch Republican 
journals to be wearied of belligerent anti-Catholic action. The 
present Ministry may perhaps represent the last efforts of ex- 
tremists to prevent the triumph of a more reasonable policy. 

The entente cordiale with Great Britain although surviving 
with undiminished strength has for the first time been sub- 
jected by some leading authorities to a certain amount of 
criticism. It has been declared to have been sterile of results, 
and its value to have been impaired by the death of King 
Edward, and by the constitutional conflict in which England 
is engrossed. But no serious importance is attached to these 
utterances. The navy of France has relatively lost in strength 
and its administration has been faulty in many respects. But 
recently successful efforts have been made to correct the 
latter evil; and a programme of new construction has been 
adopted, of which M. Delcasse the new Minister of Marine was 
the ardent supporter. It is therefore likely to be carried into 
effect. 

State ownership of railways has suffered great loss of 
VOL. XCIIT. 9 



1 30 RECENT EVENTS [April, 

reputation in consequence of the deplorable chaos which has 
ensued since the assumption by the government of the man- 
agement of the Western Railway. A long series of accidents 
have taken place several of which were serious. The matter 
has been taken in hand by the government, but the proposals 
of reform meet with no small criticism. 

Germany pursues her way steadily 

Germany. increasing both her army and her 

navy, and thereby adding not only 

to her own burden but also to that of other nations. Last 
year every man, woman, and child in Great Britain and Ire- 
land had to pay nearly five dollars each for the building and 
maintenance of their navy, a sum larger than ever was paid 
before and chiefly due to the fear which is felt of Germany's 
designs. Little has been heard of late about the work on the 
German Navy, but there is no reason to think that any re- 
laxation of efforts has taken place. 

Further additions are to be made to the Army. Its strength 
on peace footing is to be increased during the next five years 
by about 10,000 men at a cost of about 25 millions of dollars, 
although it is said that 35 millions is nearer to the mark. 
Yet large as is the cost of the army, it is no more than 15 y 2 per 
cent of Germany's total expenditure, whereas France devotes to 
the Army 34 per cent, of her income. Little opposition was 
offered in the Reichstag to the government proposals, which 
were, as it is always said now-a days, all in the interest of 
peace. Europe never before was armed as it is now, and 
never before was there so much talk about peace. Out of a 
house of 321 only 63 voted against the proposed increase. 
Socialists, Poles, and three Catholic members of the Centre form- 
ing this minority. Never before has there been less opposi- 
tion. The old Liberalism seems to have died. The improve- 
ment in the financial position of Germany is indicated by the 
fact that the increase of cost is not expected to involve the 
raising of a loan, but will be defrayed out of revenue. 

The examination in Committee of the proposed Constitu- 
tion for Alsace-Lorraine has resulted in important changes 
having been made in the government proposals. The effect 
of these changes, which were supported by the Centre Party, 
is to give further privileges to the Province. It is to be 



i9i u] RECENT EVENTS 131 

made a Federal State, and to have three votes in the Federal 
Council. So far the government has offered a determined op- 
position to these proposals. It is hoped that a compromise 
may be made. If not, the probability is that the Bill will be 
withdrawn, and the second attempt at Constitutional Reform 
of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg will have failed. 

Taxation of unearned increment which for many years has 
been adopted for municipal purposes has been accepted by 
the Reichstag as an Imperial Tax, and a step looked upon by 
many as tending towards Socialism has thus been taken. The 
Socialists themselves have lost their distinguished leader, Herr 
Singer; but the apprehensions felt that his funeral might be 
the occasion of disturbances were not realized. 

No change has taken place in the relations of Germany to 
foreign powers, nor have the exact terms of the agreement be- 
tween Germany and Russia, the result of the Potsdam meet- 
ing been disclosed. 

To a meeting of agriculturists the Emperor gave an account 
of the way in which he had reclaimed land on one of his 
estates. He is going to pay a state visit to England in May ; 
he is not going to pay a visit to Rome this year, the Jubilee 
year of the declaration of Italian Unity. The Crown Prince is 
to take his place. 

The Delegations have been hold- 
Austria-Hungary, ing their meetings and the Minis- 
ters of the common departments 

have been rendering to them accounts of their stewardship 
and the estimates of expense to be incurred. Count Aehrenthal 
has had to meet another onslaught of the Professor Dr. Masaryk, 
who repeated his accusation of forgeries in connection with 
the annexation of the Provinces, and offered what seemed to 
be proofs. Count Aehrenthal denied all complicity both of 
the representative of Austria in Servia, and of the Foreign 
office at Vienna with the concoction of these forgeries. Doubt- 
less each side will judge according to its preconceived opinions. 
It is announced that two months leave of absence is to be 
granted to Count Aehrenthal for the sake of rest after his 
arduous labors. There are those who think that this may be a 
prelude to his b;ing permanently relieved, nor are those wanting 
who would not grieve were this to be the case. 



132 RECENT EVENTS [April, 

Greece, there is reason to hope, 
Greece. is on the way to being recon- 

structed. Efforts, at least, are 

being made with this end in view, and these efforts have 
some promise of being successful. It will be remembered that 
when her keen rival, Bulgaria succeeded in attaining to the 
dignity of an independent kingdom, Greece found her army so 
weak and disorganized and the whole country in such a state 
of decrepitude, that it was out of her power to secure any 
compensating advantage. Not even the annexation of Crete, 
so long sought for, could be effected. In these circumstances 
the Army League was formed and was allowed to assume a 
virtual dictatorship, under a semblance of constitutional forms, 
and to prescribe to the legislature scores of laws and regula- 
tions. The League itself, however, soon became unpopular, 
and, on the advice of M. Venezelos, it was decided to call a 
special Assembly for the revision of certain parts of the Con- 
stitution. 

The League thereupon dissolved itself, leaving the field 
clear for the man who seemed to give promise of becoming the 
savior of the country. This man, M. Venezelos, was appointed 
Premier, and the Assembly which had been elected having 
proved itself incapable of doing the work to his satisfaction, the 
King, upon his advice dissolved it. A new Assembly was chosen, 
consisting of a large majority who were in favor of the plan 
of reform suggested by M. Venezelos, although the old po- 
litical leaders threatened, by abstaining from voting them- 
selves, and by trying to induce their adherents to adopt the 
same course, to deprive the new Revisionary Chamber of 
moral weight. They did not however succeed in this attempt. 
The great mass of the people voted, thereby showing that the 
nation was roused to a just appreciation of the necessity of 
effecting reforms, and of passing a condemnation upon the old 
political methods. Six sevenths of the Assembly were elected 
as supporters of M. Venezelos. He is therefore the master of 
the situation, if the deputies do not change their minds a 
thing which looking to the past is not impossible, for the 
modern, like the ancient, Greeks are inclined to be very fickle. 

The modifications of the Constitution proposed by M. Vene- 
zelos include the re-establishment of the Council of State which 
originally formed part of the Constitution, but which had been 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 133 

abolished. Its chief function will be to prepare and revise 
new laws and decrees. Greece is one of the few countries 
which has a single-chamber Parliament, the results of which 
should serve as a warning to advocates of this system. The 
revival of the Council may be meant to serve as a corrective 
of the uncontrolled House of Deputies. A more complete 
revision is not within the power of the present Assembly, 
since it is not a Constituent but a Revisionary Assembly. 
Among the proposals of reform are the appointment of all 
judges for life, and most of the public officials are to be made 
irremovable. The number of deputies is to be reduced from 
150 to no, and the age of the Deputies from 30 to 25. Offi- 
cers of all ranks and managers and directors of banks are to 
be rendered ineligible. Elementary education is to be made 
compulsory. Newspapers and other publications which might 
expose the state to danger are to be made liable to confisca- 
tion. It is to be made lawful to appoint foreigners to govern- 
ment services, and the French Army officers and the British 
Naval officers whom it is proposed to employ will be per- 
mitted to exercise their functions. Such are the principal pro- 
posals. They do not seem to be very drastic, nor do they go to 
the root of the matter ; the real evil is in the character of the 
people and this cannot be touched by any law made by parlia- 
ment. It will be interesting to watch the course of events as 
well in Greece as in Portugal, for they are both engaged in 
the attempt to regenerate their political systems. Both coun- 
tries have had the misfortune of having had to suffer for a 
time under absolute rule which in theory declares mankind 
incapable of self-government, and in practise makes it so. To 
both has been given a constitutional form of government, and 
in both this Constitution has broken down more through the 
fault of the politicians than of the ruler. The question is 
which will be the more successful in carrying out the neces- 
sary reforms. 

The relations of Greece with Turkey, which at one time in- 
dicated the outbreak of war, have improved to a certain ex- 
tent. This is to be attributed to the pressure put upon the 
Porte by the Powers who are interested in the preservation 
of peace, rather than to any good will towards Greece on the 
part of the Young Turks, for they would like nothing more 
than to be given a free hand to inflict chastisement upon their 



134 RECENT EVENTS [April, 

troublesome neighbor, and thereby compensate Turkey for the 
independence of Bulgaria and -the loss of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina. This attitude of Turkey has drawn together, if not into 
an alliance, at least into a close understanding and sympathetic 
union, the two Christian States, Bulgaria and Greece, which 
have hitherto hated each other more than their now common 
foe, the Turk. The Cretans seem to be as far off as ever from 
attaining that union with Greece upon which they have set 
their hearts. It must come in the course of time, but it is 
more likely to be the result of the war of which the desire of 
this union will be one of the causes. 

The attempt to establish a con- 
Persia. stitutional form of government in 

Persia is still being made. The 

prospect of success is not of the brightest, but, on the princi- 
ple that while there is life there is hope, it would be prema- 
ture to give way to despair. The death of the Regent some 
months ago, was followed by the choice, as his successor, of 
the one person in whom anything like confidence was placed 
by the holders of power in the country. This was Nasr-ul- 
Mulk, who received part of his education at the University of 
Oxford and is a Balliol man. He was not at all anxious to 
accept a position involving so much anxiety, and so likely to 
result in failure, and it took him more than four months to 
reach Persia and to assume the reins of office. His reluctance 
was certainly justified, ior the country is almost in a state of 
chaos. In the South commerce has almost been paralyzed by 
bands of robbers and of warring chiefs of tribes. Great Brit- 
ain, although friendly to Persia and especially to the attempt at 
constitutional rule, was forced to send a note insisting that an 
end should be put to the state of anarchy on the route from 
Bashire to Shiraz and Ispahan. If this were not done within 
three months' time, a police force would be raised controlled 
by Indian officers in the name of the Persian government. This 
interference naturally raised a great outcry, an appeal being 
made by a number of Persians to the German Emperor, as the 
Protector of Islam, to shield Persia from the nefarious designs 
of Great Britain. No response was made to this appeal, but 
as the interval was employed by Persia in taking the requisite 
steps for the establishment of order, the proposal has not 



I9H-] RECENT EVENTS 135 

been carried out. In the North the Russian troops are in 
possession of several places; but as they have been withdrawn 
from one of these places which has been held for some time, 
hopes are entertained that they will soon depart from the rest. 
Notwithstanding all their weakness, the Persians resent nothing 
more than interference on the part of foreign nations in their 
internal affairs. Money is the crying need of the government, 
and the want of it paralyzes all of its efforts to establish 
order. But it would not accept a loan from Russian and 
British financiers, because conditions of control were imposed 
which were thought to be derogatory to the independence of 
the government. It has, however, consented to the appointment 
of foreign experts to advise upon methods of taxation and of 
raising revenue, and it is to this country that recourse has 
been made. It must have been a mortification to this national 
feeling that the making of railways in Persia should have for 
so long a time been the subject of negotiations between Ger- 
many, Russia, and Turkey. 

Turkey and Persia are not the 
China. only Asiatic countries that are 

undertaking to make the funda- 
mental change from absolutism to Constitutionalism. A few 
years ago the Imperial authority of China announced its inten- 
tion to grant to the subjects of the Empire the right of self- 
government in a more or less restricted form, and to summon 
a Parliament at the end of ten years. There were those who 
called this, to use a vulgar expression, mere " bluff " ; but it 
seems to be in the course of realization much more quickly 
than was at first proposed. The way for the complete Parlia- 
ment was to be prepared by Provincial Assemblies in the first 
instance, to be followed by a National Assembly. All these 
bodies have been organized, and in most cases have shown 
tnecnselves business like and capable within the sphere assigned 
to them. The National Assembly has been holding its meet- 
ings in the course of the last few months, and has proved itself 
strong enough to force the hand of the Imperial Government, 
and to bring about the summoning of the Parliament at a much 
earlier date than was originally proposed. As a result of its 
agitation a Cabinet is to be formed in the immediate future. 
In the course of the present year a Privy Council is to be 



136 RECENT EVENTS [April. 

instituted and civil, commercial, and criminal laws issued. In 
1912 a Parliamentary Budget is to be framed, and regulations 
made for the elections. In 1913 Parliament is to be definitely 
established. 

In other ways China under the leading of a large body of 
reformers is striving to raise itself from the slough of corrup- 
tion and inefficiency into which it has for so long a period 
been plunged. The old methods of education have been super- 
seded, and an almost universal desire is felt for Western culture 
and modes of training. The cultivation, and even the use, of 
opium are strictly prohibited, and, what is more, there is rea- 
son to believe that in many of the provinces of the Empire 
the prohibition is being enforced. The long-established but 
barbarous custom of foot-binding is also being abandoned. 
The National Assembly at its recent meeting petitioned for the 
abolition of pig- tails, but this was going too far; the Crown 
turned a deaf ear to this appeal. Notwithstanding the strong 
desire to adopt Western educational methods, a widespread 
antipathy has grown up towards foreigners. Hence it was 
feared by those familiar with the state of feeling in the coun- 
try that this might have led to a war with Russia when the 
latter country sent the rather surprising ultimatum a few weeks 
ago. The Chinese authorities, however, thought it prudent to 
make the soft answer that turns away wrath. This it was more 
easy for them to do, for China seems to have been in the 
wrong in the matter in dispute. 

The future of China, both internal and external, is, of course, 
one of the great problems of the day, and no one with any 
sense of the difficulty of the question, or with any knowledge 
of the history of the recent past, will venture to offer even a 
conjecture. A widespread dread has long been felt that if she 
became strong, the rest of the world might suffer from her de- 
sire to find an outlet for her surplus population, but this need 
not be the necessary result, for within her own borders there 
is, good authorities assert, room for at least double of the 
present population. 



With Our Readers 



SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL. 

WRITTEN IN IQOI BY UONBI, JOHNSON. 

Ordinavit in me caritatem, says the Church in the Canticles, 
signifying that the spirit of charity works in her by organized 
method, by co-operation, by disciplined harmony of aim and effort, 
not by individual, isolated accident or caprice. Mr. Pater tells us 
how the young Church of Rome, in the gracious autumnal Antonine 
age, contemplating the charitable enterprise which is one of its win- 
ning notes, seemed to say to that age of wistful paganism, "You 
don't understand your own efforts; " there lacked the motive power 
and the sure foundation, the appeal in the name of a more than 
human pity, of a divine compassion * ' sweetly and strongly disposing 
all things." Mr. Adderley writes of St. Vincent de Paul : 

It is no exaggeration to say that in the Church we owe wholly or in 
part, directly or indirectly, to St. Vincent, the following precious institu- 
tions: active communities of Sisters of Mercy, Ten Days' Missions for both 
clergy and laity, theological colleges, and the enlistment of the rich and 
well-to-do Christians as active workers for example, as district visitors, 
hospital visitors, etc. In the State we owe to him the initiation of, or at 
least the stimulation of such works as foundling hospitals, workhouses, 
casual wards, night shelters, prison reform, and charity organization. I am 
not conscious that the above is an over-estimate of Saint Vincent's work. 

Again, dwelling upon the secret of his influence and success : 

Just as among commercial men there are some, head and shoulders 
above the rest, who have a genius for trading. Perfectly honest and straight 
forward, they yet rise far above the rest, through sheer force of generalship, 
insight, foresight, and power of application. So St. Vincent stands among 
the great men of the Church; the most successful of organizers, a general 
commanding vast charitable armies of men and women, handling enormous 
sums of money; the life and soul of countless schemes in Paris, the prov- 
inces of France, and in almost every country of Europe, and beyond it ; yet, 
for all that, much more than an organizer. He is not merely a genius, who 
would have shone in any walk of life, but who happened to find himself in 
the Church, and so shone there; not merely one who, if he had been a states- 
man, would have been Prime Minister, or, if he had been a soldier, would 
have been commander-in-chief. No doubt this would have been the case, 
but with St. Vincent it is more ; it is ecclesiastical success founded upon 
genuine Christianity, as all ecclesiastical success should be. It is sanctified 
genius. 



138 WITH OUR READERS [April, 

Sixty-five years ago a young French Catholic, nineteen years 
old, founded a society to aid the poor, and working lads especially. 
He had a handful of helpers, and nothing more. This was Fred- 
eric Ozanam, afterwards famous for his writings on Dante and the 
Middle Ages ; his society to-day counts upwards of 85,000 members, 
is spread all over the the world, and is known as the Society of St. 
Vincent de Paul. It is not the least of the works achieved in, and 
by, the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul, though he ex vita in coelum de- 
migravit, as the Pope has it, nearly two centuries and a half ago. 

It is a notable story, that of a poor peasant's son, born in the 
melancholy region of the Landes, in the far southwest of France, 
who lived to speak with authoritative simplicity to wearers of the 
royal purple of France and the sacred purple of Rome, a man of the 
people to the last, but an equal of .the greatest by the dignity of his 
priesthood and the zeal of his apostolate among the poor. Though 
he died, with a name revered throughout Christendom, in his eighty- 
fifth year, he might well have been lost to Christendom, if not to 
life, before he was thirty. St. Teresa, at the age of seven, fired by 
lives and legends of the martyrs, prevailed upon her brother to set 
out with her for Africa, there to win martyrdom among the followers 
of Mahomed ; as Crashaw sings of her, it was " Farewell house and 
farewell home. She's for the Moors and martyrdom.'* But the 
chivalrous little enthusiasts of Spain had not journeyed far from the 
ancestral house and home in Avila of Castile when they encountered 
an unwelcome and prosaic uncle, who promptly restored them to 
father and mother. The " undaunted daughter of desires " had 
before her a long life's work, too precious to be lost by baby mar- 
tyrdom. But a boat in which St. Vincent was sailing from Mar- 
seilles to Narbonne was swooped upon and captured by three Turk- 
ish pirate galleys; the saint, severely wounded by an arrow, was 
taken with his companions to Tunis, and there they were sold in the 
square for slaves. His inborn feeling for all poor wretches " fast 
bound in misery and iron " must have been quickened by this brutal 
experience, from which, in touching and romantic circumstances, 
he escaped within two years. 

At the date of his capture he had been five years a priest ; but 
though known by friends and neighbors for a man of holy life and 
spiritual wisdom, he had made no visible mark upon the world. 
Henceforth his career was an unbroken series of good and great 
works, each enough to absorb the entire time and thought of one 
man, yet all successful, all vigorously bearing fruit to-day. It is 
well to hold in admiring remembrance the unwearied labors of a 
Howard in turning prisons from homes of obscene squalor and insen- 
sate cruelty ; but St. Vincent did the work of a dozen Howards. 



19".] WITH OUR READERS 139 

Wherever to use the noble phrase of a religious vow, which he ad- 
mired with a sweet envy wherever "our lords, the poor" were 
neglected, oppressed, forgotten, exposed to temptation, forced among 
evil surroundings, there was St. Vincent; and where St. Vincent 
was there soon would be ready helpers won to his side by his bound- 
less gift of sympathy. " They dreamed not of a perishable home, 
who thus could build," says Wordsworth, in a famous sonnet. 
The same is true of St. Vincent's works, not in stone or marble, but 
in flesh and blood ; in his creating and moulding of institutions for 
the exercise and application of Christian charity, which in spirit, if 
not in form, though often in both, should endure and multiply. He 
was at one time tormented with doubts about the faith ; had those 
doubts triumphed, he would not have lost his instinct of charity, 
but he would have felt himself crippled and powerless. His Chris- 
tianity was St. Vincent's lever, wherewith to raise the fallen, and to 
move the inert world to a sense of its responsibility for all preventa- 
ble sorrow and wrong. "I am a friend of the unfriended poor," 
cried Shelley, and he was ; but St. Vincent would have smiled and 
sighed at his Utopian beautiful frenzies of a mankind regenerated 
by dreaming. Disaliter visum : to St. Vincent Christianity was a 
hard fact, and its gospel a gospel of work done under divine sanc- 
tion, with divine graces to strengthen human weaknesses and to 
console human disappointments. 

Organization, whether in Church or State, can be the best of 
things and the worst. Organization that has stiffened, mummified, 
petrified itself into a semblance of life without suppleness and ease, 
or which is somnolent and sluggish, with clogged blood in its veins 
and a feeble pulse, is disastrous in religion. St. Vincent toiled at a 
time when France, the " eldest daughter of the Church," could boast 
of some great saints, of innumerable great sinners, and of a vast 
middle class to whose indifference or negligence was due a mass of 
social miseries and evils. His remedy was simple ; all heroism is 
simple. 

There are scores ot poor fellows in our L,ondon, some in the 
buoyancy of youth, others fanatic grey-beards, brooding day and 
night over perpetual motion, the squaring of the circle, the flatness 
of the earth ; and there are hundreds of religious and social reform- 
ers as insane as they. St. Vincent was not as these; his sublime 
common sense and measureless energy spent themselves upon the re- 
animation of the existing forces for good provided by the doctrine, 
discipline, and organization of the Church. He made the dry bones 
live: " They came together and stood on their feet, a very great 
army." And, with all his consuming fire of love, his intensity of 
earnestness, he was a man of prudent forethought and careful scru- 



140 WITH OUR READERS [April, 

tiny and meditative deliberation ; he would have feared something 
rash in Father Mathew's celebrated " Here goes, in the Name of 
God ! " that blessed but unpremeditated exclamation. It may 
often have been some sudden single sight that awoke St. Vincent to 
the realization of this or that iniquity ; a perishing gutter-child, all 
bruises and vermin and starvation ; a chained gang of convicts en 
route to the galleys; some beggar's rags and wretchedness, or hope- 
lessness and gray hairs ; and the horror of it all, and the horror of 
all that it implied, may have inflamed his soul. None the less, he 
did not start out the next morning with a brilliant plan for the in- 
stant abolition of suffering and sin. He "[possessed his soul " in holy 
patience, and, if in impatience also, the impatience was also holy. 
His conception was invariably broad ; he had none of the tendency 
most incident to ecclesiastics, towards identifying "the Church " 
with its clergy; he recognizes that, whilst the clergy may be, or 
should be, the salt of the Church, they are " a contemptible minor- 
ity "of Churchmen ; and lay ministrations of personal service, both 
from rich and poor, he prized and was indefatigable to secure. He 
was the saint who " had compassion upon the multitude " and who 
"considered the poor and needy," being himself, like his Master, a 

child of poverty. 



IT is generally thought that Socialism, the radical kind, that would 
uproot all our institutions, is alone the dangerous foe of the 
Christian religion to-day. That radical Socialism is such a foe, no 
one will dispute. Yet it is well to know that there are many (who 
would utterly reject the title of Socialist) who are propagating 
doctrines just as subversive, as those of the radical Socialist, of the 
principles of Catholic faith and consequently of social order and well- 
being. Or it may be more exact to say that because of the chaotic 
condition of the non-Catholic world in matters religious, certain re- 
ligious doctrines of the radical Socialists are being put forth in very 
respectable company and in well- appearing garb. We should not 
blind ourselves to this. The religion of the Socialist the self per- 
fectibility of man ; the religion of achievement in so called social 
progress ; the leveling of the God-man Jesus Christ to the rank of a 
mere social reformer is no longer a matter of the few and the un- 
known. It has its spokesmen among the literary lights of the day, 
and for its forum the best of our secular American magazines. We 
will give but two recent examples. In the Survey of March 4 
appeared some pages of a iorthcoming book by Simon N. Patten, 
entitled 7 he Social Basis of Religion. The character of the book 
and its complete variance with Christian teaching may be seen from 
the following extracts: "Religion does not begin with a belief 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 141 

in God but with an emotional opposition to all removable evils." 
" Sin is misery, misery is poverty and the antidote of poverty is in- 
come." 

Mr. Patten robs Christ's death on the Cross of any unique value 
and uproots the foundation of the Christian faith when he adds : * * If 
Christ's doctrines had been handed down to us by a Plato instead of 
a Paul, . . . Christ to us would be a social leader." "Salva- 
tion through sacrifice would be a repugnant idea from the dread of 
which He^wished to free the world." " This glaring antinomy must 
be removed before social religion can be put on a sound basis." 

Our second quotation is from the April Century which contains 
an article by Will Irwin, one of his series on " The Awakening of 
the American Business Man." In the course of it he writes : 

1 ' Efficiency is a kind of religion with the corps of engineers 
who are working out the basic principles of industry after industry, 
making them operative in factory after factory. And I use the word 
' religion ' as more than a metaphor. The * spiritual unrest ' which 
prevails in these times has driven many to supplant or supplement the 
formal church creeds with working creeds of their own, looking 
toward a practical application, in our new, complex time, of the 
moral and social principles taught by Jesus of Nazareth. And these 
men, also, have gone at their work with this kind of spiritual fervor. 
Their object is not only the increase of production, but the ultimate 
happiness of the world satisfied stomachs, shod feet, light hearts, 
untroubled souls. Each believes in the system not only as a means 
of industrial output, but as a means of social grace." 



A PAMPHLET containing a vulgar and bitter attack upon mar- 
riage was sent us some little while ago, with the request that 
we answer it. It does not merit an answer ; it refutes itself. To the 
man who wrote it might be applied Mrs. Berry's words in Richard 
Feverel, " But matrimony's a holier than him. It began long before 
him, and it's be hoped will endoor long's the time after, if the world's 
not coming to rack wishin him no harm." 



i 



n its issue of December 31, 1910, giving a review of the last de- 
cade, Rome says : 



Even as late as ten years ago most sensible men would have smiled at 
you if you told them that you expected to see men flying through the air 
from London to Paris, and now the same persons will yawn over accounts of 
such everyday events; we have touched one of the great secrets of nature in 
the discovery of radium; we have improved marvellously on our means of 
intercommunication; we have made great progress all along the line of 
physical research ; we have had a great war between Russia and Japan ; we 



142 WITH OUR READERS [April, 

have had the greatest disaster in all history in Messina and Calabria two 
years ago; we have looked on at the murders of Kings, Princes, and Presi- 
dents, in Servia, Portugal, and the United States ; we have seen an ancient 
monarchy disappear ignominiously in a burlesque revolution ; the great, new 
menace of Socialism has swollen prodigiously under our eyes in most civil- 
ized countries; the Eldest Daughter of the Church, to the horror of all 
Catholics, has turned upon her Mother to rend her; anti-clericalism has 
fastened its tentacles deeper and deeper upon many European countries, and 
especially upon the Eternal City itself, adding a new and most imminent 
danger for the Papacy. 

But the most striking manifestation of the last decade in the religious 
world has certainly been the development, outbreak, and suppression of 
Modernism. On that momentous night, ten years ago, it had not yet given 
itself a name, but it called the new century its own and struck the stars with 
its sublime head. It was to have seven years to take a definite shape and a 
definite name and then to wake up one morning to find itself shrivelled and 
old. The first decade of the twentieth century has seen the central govern- 
ment of the Church wisely reformed; several hundreds of dioceses trans- 
ferred from the missionary status, under the jurisdiction of Propaganda, to 
the common law of the Church, the creation of an immense number of new 
Dioceses, Vicariates, and Prefectures Apostolic. The decade has revealed 
many signs of decay in some of the old Catholic countries, but many won- 
derful signs of vitality and fruitfulness in the new. When you live in Rome 
and see what is happening day by day in Italy, France, and Portugal, you 
are inclined to be a pessimist, but when you look out upon the world and 
count up the profit and loss, the balance of the decade is upon the right side. 
. . . It is legitimate to draw some important deductions from the course 
of events during this first decade of the twentieth century. And one of them 
is this; When you look around you and observe how the forces of irreligion, 
socialism, anti-clericalism, and freemasonry have been consolidating their 
forces in the Latin countries, how their attacks on religion have been grow- 
ing more and more openly successful, without losing anything of their malig- 
nant subtlety, and when on the other hand you see that the resistance to them 
is growing more and more feeble, aad if at the same time you have private 
knowledge that you dare not print that throws further light on the situation, 
it is impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion that the early part of the 
twentieth century is likely to be attended by events of very sinister signifi- 
cance. 



years ago, during one of the violent persecutions in Ton- 
A kin, a young French priest, The'ophane Vnard, was arrested ; 
and, after judicial sentence, was beheaded on refusal to deny his 
faith. 

In May of 1909, this young martyr, together with more than 
thirty others, nearly all of the Mongolian race, received Beatification 
honors at Rome. Had this event not been overshadowed by the 
triumph of Jeanne d'Arc, two weeks before, the blessed martyrs of 



19 1 1.] WITH OUR READERS 



143 



the Far Bast would have drawn world-wide attention and em- 
phasized the fact, too little realized, that the nineteenth century was 
one of many martyrs. 

Among all who were beatified on that occasion, no name is so 
well known as Thophane Vdnard's. His letters, which have been 
published in French, English and Italian, are charming in their re- 
velation of a soul full of human sympathy based on love for God. 

We have often regretted that in the lives of our saints, the hu- 
man element has been, as a rule, quite eliminated. We need to 
touch occasionally at points of human interest if we would soar aloft 
with the blessed. When their flight is constantly in the realms of 
the supernatural, we are liable to lose heart and fall back to earth 
in our efforts. 

Th6ophane Vnard was human. His letters reveal a tender 
affection for his family and friends. They draw a sympathetic reader 
at once into the intimate circle, out of which he will not pass. 

These letters were gathered originally and prepared for publica- 
tion by the martyr's brother, Eusebius, to whom several of them 
had been addressed. Lady Herbert translated many into English 
and a few years agoja new edition of her work, revised and enlarged 
under the title of A Modern Martyr -, was edited by Father James 
Anthony Walsh, of Boston, a personal friend of the martyr's brother. 
More than five thousand copies of A Modern Martyr are already in 
circulation. 

We are now in receipt of a new French edition (Paris, Pierre 
T6qui) , prepared since the beatification, also by Canon Eusebius 
V6nard. This edition contains facts and interesting details brought 
out in the Apostolic process and published for the first time. 

After a brief rtsumt of the early life, it carries the reader at once 
to the mission field, relating in detail Thophane Vdnard's labors, 
his capture and martyrdom in Tonkin. 

This is supplemented by a history of the Beatification process 
and a record of the several feasts which followed the declaration it- 
self. It has several illustrations. 



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THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. MAY, 1911. No. 554. 

THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE. 

BY WILLIAM TURNER, S.T.D. 

IIDE by side with the rationalizing tendency to 
explain spiritual truth in terms of human thought, 
and to render the mysteries of faith acceptable 
by showing in a scientific manner the grounds 
for believing, there has gone on in the Christian 
Church from the very beginning the tendency to represent 
revealed truth by the devices known to the plastic artist. 
The catacombs and the early Christian basilicas, the specimens 
of ecclesiastical art and the few samples of church utensils 
which have come down to us from the first century, bear 
evidence of the faith which the first Christians professed in 
the divine nature of Christ, in the teaching authority of His 
Church, in the reality of His presence in the Eucharist, in the 
superior prerogatives of Mary the Mother of God. This, it 
may be said, in passing, is not an unimportant line of apolo- 
getic proof which often supplements the effort of the theo- 
logian and the historian to establish the continuity of Christian 
belief. 

In representing spiritual subjects by means of material de 
vices such as painting, sculpture, and the silver and goldsmith's 
art, the Christian artist encountered a difficulty not unknown 
to religious artists in other forms of religion. The purely 
spiritual eludes material representation. A soul cannot be 
portrayed in its immaterial essence. A virtue, such as justice, 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. XCIII. 10 



146 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

can neither be painted nor sculptured nor carved in wood nor 
chiselled even in the finest gold. Much less could any Chris- 
tian artist hope to put on canvas or on church apse or clere- 
story the light that sheds its effulgence around the triune God; 
and when he traced its participated splendor radiating round 
an angel or a saint, he felt the inadequacy of his skill and 
ths disproportionate inferiority of the materials at his disposal. 
There was only one expedient available. That was to use 
material things as signs or emblems of things spiritual. Thus 
Christianity was forced to adopt symbolism. In so doing, it 
met a demand of human nature. Deep down in the heart of 
humanity was the need of conventional representation. By 
custom, almost universal, a crown or mitre signified a king, a 
sword was the symbol of a warrior, a crooked staff was the 
emblem of a shepherd, and the presentation of earth and water 
was the sign of submission to a conqueror on the part of a 
vanquished city or province. Christianity, with its wealth of 
new spiritual ideas, felt the need of conforming to this tend- 
ency, and it did so, freely and generously both along the line 
of Christian art and along the parallel line of Christian devo- 
tion and liturgical practice. 

Christian art was content at the very beginning with por- 
traying the person of Christ and the well-known traditional 
features of the great saints, such as St. Peter and St. Paul. 
Almost at once, however, the need of symbolism was felt. 
Christ, the Redeemer was painted on the walls and vaults of 
the catacombs as the Good Shepherd carrying the lost sheep 
on His shoulders, or as Orpheus drawing the world towards 
Him by the power of His redeeming grace or as the fy6u<;, 
the mystic fish, a sign which only the initiate understood. The 
soul was represented as a dove an emblem probably bor- 
rowed from Egyptian mythology and the rich and beautiful 
symbolism of the Eucharist was introduced the grapes, the 
bread, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the water turned 
into wine at Cana, the offering of bread and wine in the un- 
bloody sacrifice of Melchisedek. Then came the introduction 
of emblems, the lion of St. Mark, the eagle of St. John, the 
pilgrim's staff of St. James, the gridiron of St. Lawrence. 
These served to identify the saint or to indicate the mode of 
martyrdom, as in the case of the wheel of St. Catherine. 
Mare urgently still was the need of symbolism felt when the 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 147 

Christian artist came to depict abstract qualities or spiritual 
entities. The lily of purity, the red rose of charity, the 
sword and scales of justice, the anchor of hope, the laurel 
wreath or palm of martyrdom are familiar instances. Ad- 
vancing a step farther, Christian art came to attach to natural 
colors a fixed spiritual significance : white signifies light, purity, 
innocence, candor, joy and triumph; red means love, fervor, 
and martyrdom; violet or purple is the color of penitence; 
green is the emblem of growth, life and hope; gold or yellow 
signifies splendor and magnificence ; and blue is the color of 
heaven, truth, consistency and wisdom. Numbers, too, ac- 
quired a spiritual meaning: one stands for the unity of God, 
two for the mystery of the Incarnation, three for the Blessed 
Trinity, four for the evangelists, and so on. By the time we 
reach the end of the Middle Ages, Christian art has built up 
an elaborate and most beautiful system of signs or symbols by 
which the immaterial, the spiritual and the supernatural are 
rendered capable of representation in painting, sculpture and 
architecture. 

Of equal importance, however, for our present purpose, is 
the parallel development of symbolism in Christian liturgy 
and in the practice of devotion. First of all there is, of course, 
the sacramental system, in which material things not only 
convey grace to the soul but also signify the graces which 
they confer. Water, which in baptism washes away the stain 
of original sin, is the natural symbol of cleansing. The oil 
used in Confirmation and in Extreme Unction typifies the 
process of strengthening and healing. The ring which, though 
only an accessory to the sacramental ceremony, is part of the 
liturgical celebration of marriage, is, according to some, an 
emblem of the perpetuity of the nuptial contract, though, ac- 
cording to others, it signifies exclusive possession. The sym- 
bolism of the Eucharist and of Holy Orders, especially in the 
solemn ceremonies connected with these, is beautiful, elaborate 
and full of spiritual meaning. In the sacramentals, too, there 
is constant and almost essential use of symbolism. Holy 
Water, the Sign of the Cross, the use of liturgical bells, the 
use of light and fire, incense, palms, ashes, medals, rosaries, 
scapulars and agnus deis, all these are, as Catholics under- 
stand them, instances of the employment of material things 
for the sake of a spiritual efficacy and meaning which they 



148 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

are believed to possess. Needless to say, during the Ages of 
Faith, these or those of them which were then recognized 
were not only in general use among the faithful, but were 
generally understood, and their meaning appreciated. 

Thus did Christian art and Christian practice tend to estab- 
lish and maintain an elaborate system of symbolism in which 
material things represented or conveyed to the mind things 
spiritual. And we should not underestimate the educational 
value of all this. The medieval Christian lived in an atmo- 
sphere of art, and could not help being educated by his en- 
vironment. He knew his Bible far better than many a modern 
Bible Christian. Old and New Testament were spread out 
before him on the magnificent facade of his village church ; 
scenes from the Scriptures were carved on the choirstalls, 
sculptured on the rood screen, or frescoed on the walls and 
vaults of the sacred building. By these same means the sym- 
bolism of ecclesiastical art was brought to bear on his every- 
day life, and even though he heard no sermon, his visit to 
the House of God had an uplifting effect on his mind and 
character. The mention of preaching brings us to one more 
point which must be touched on before we come to the 
symbolism of Dante. 

The principle underlying all symbolism, namely, the use of 
material things to represent spiritual subjects, was an acknowl- 
edged canon of sacred oratory during the Middle Ages. It was 
recognized that in order to make spiritual truths intelligible, 
and especially in order to bring them home to the minds of 
the rude and unlearned, the best device is to convey them in 
the form of natural truths which symbolize them. As a four- 
teeenth century writer says: "It is not possible that our wit 
or intendment might ascend unto the contemplation of the 
heavenly hierarchies immaterial, if our wit be not led by some 
material thing, as a man is led by the hand : so by these forms 
visible, our wit may be led to the consideration of the great- 
ness or magnitude, of the most excellent beauteous clarity, 
divine and invisible."* The village pastor and the wandering 
friar were obliged in their sermons, to come down to the level 
of the agricultural laborer and the rural artisan. They did so 
by presenting spiritual truth in the form of animal stories. 
The demand gave rise to a supply of very peculiar literature. 

* Medieval Lore. Ed. Steele (London, 1893). Prologue by Trevisa, p. 12. 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 149 

There sprang up a number of writers who composed little 
treatises on animals, plants, and minerals, for the use of the 
village preacher to supply him with illustrations for his ser- 
mons. The original source of all these was a Greek treatise 
known as Physiologus, which was early translated into Latin, 
and in time done into English, French, and Italian, according 
as the need arose. This is the origin of the so-called " Besti- 
aries" or "Beast-books' 1 of the later Middle Ages, which, as 
contributions to natural history are wonderful productions, in- 
deed. The following are a few specimens : " If elephants see 
a man coming against them that is out oj (has lost) the way 
in the wilderness, for they would not affray him, they will draw 
themselves somewhat out of the way, and then they stint (stop) 
and pass little and little before him, and teach him the way. 
And if a dragon come against him, they fight the dragon and 
defend the man."* Again: "The lion spares them that lie on 
the ground and suffers them to pass homeward that were pri- 
soners, and come out of thralldom." f Any lover of dogs will 
believe Fra Bartholomew, when he says: "We have known 
that hounds fought for their lords against thieves, and were 
sore wounded, and that they kept away beasts and fowls from 
their masters' bodies dead/' But, it taxes our faith in the 
good Franciscan naturalist, when he adds : " And that a hound 
compelled the slayer of his master with barking and biting to 
acknowledge his trespass and guilt."! The truth is, the writers 
of such books as Fra Bartholomew's On the Properties of 
Things cared little whether the incident or the description 
was true to nature ; their aim was to show the instinct of pro- 
tection in the elephant, the generous disposition of the lion, 
and the unswerving fidelity of the dog. This was the medieval 
view of the animal kingdom. The world of animal life was a 
great repertory of moral and spiritual lessons. This was St. 
Francis' view of the matter, as is well known even to those 
who know little else about St. Francis. And it was as we, shall 
see, Dante's view. 

Dante, then, fell heir to all the symbolism which the Catho- 
lic Church had built into a system. He fell heir to the sym- 
bolism of Christian art, which he understood and felt without 
any special training, just as a child in modern Italy or Spain 
understands it spontaneously and naturally, because it comes 

* Op cit., p. 127. [\Op. cit., p. 131. \ Op. cit. t p. 122. 



THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

to him like the atmosphere which he breathes. Dante fell heir 
to the symbolism of the Christian liturgy and of devotional 
practice, and this, too, in a manner direct, not reflexive, spon- 
taneous, not critical, na'ive, childlike, and soul- compelling, not 
self-conscious, mature, and half-hearted. Fortunately, he ap- 
peared before the Christian Church was broken into the rival 
sects of Protestantism ; he was innocent of any knowledge of 
comparative religions ; he took the Catholic Church for granted, 
with its vast and splendid ceremonial and its picturesque prac- 
tice of piety. Finally, he was born into, and always lived in, 
the medieval view that the world of nature is subordinate to 
human nature, and human nature esssentially ordained for God. 
His world, like the Gothic cathedral, that other gteat product 
of medieval times, is heaven-pointing ; man looks towards God 
as his destiny, and animal and plant look, as it were, in the 
same direction, pointing the way to heaven. One has only to 
contrast him with Milton to see how much he gained by this 
inheritance. The poet of Puritanism shared the spirit of those 
who distrusted art because it led to idolatry, condemned ritual 
as mummery, and shut their eyes to the symbolism of nature, 
so anxious were they to concentrate their attention on their 
own conscience and its rigorous demands. Milton was the 
oracle of the party that despoiled the Church and overturned 
the throne ; and his world, as a consequence, is to Dante's 
what a confiscated cathedral without altars, statues, and other 
Catholic emblems, is to the interior of St. Peter's in Rome when 
the Supreme Pastor of Christendom, amid all the pomp and 
solemnity of a state occasion, comes down to the tomb of the 
Apostles to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice. There is a spiritual 
grandeur in Milton that is owing to this severity ; but there is 
a more imposing completeness of spirituality about Dante that 
is due to the warmth and color of his Catholic tradition. 

By symbolism, then, in general, is meant the employment 
of material objects or concrete personages to convey a spir- 
itual meaning. To enumerate particular instances of this would 
be to recite a very great portion of the Divina Commedia. A 
few examples will suffice. At the very outset of his journey, 
Dante finds himself in the " wildering wildwood," the " selva 
selvaggia" This, as all the commentators agree, is a symbol 
of the sinful state of soul in which he found himself at one 
stage of his life. It is a symbol, too, of the state of the sin- 



i9ii.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 151 

ner in general a wild, trackless wood in which the wanderer, 
shut out from sight of the sky above, finds no path to guide 
him, no voice to direct him. To Dante then appear the three 
beasts, the panther, the lion, and the she- wolf, emblems of 
worldly pleasure, ambition, and avarice, which bar the way to 
true repentance. How Virgil, the symbol of human reason, 
was sent by Beatrice, Divine Revelation, to save him from this 
plight we shall instance later as another kind of symbolism. 
All through the Inferno and the Purgatorio there runs a sym- 
bolic meaning in the modes of punishment: "the carnal driven 
to and fro by ceaseless winds, the gluttons lashed by rain, 
homicides plunged in boiling blood, schismatics rending their 
own flesh, flatterers immersed in filth, hypocrites wearing cowls 
of gilded lead, pride sustaining heavy weights, the intemperate 
tantalized with fruit they cannot reach. 1 '* The details of his 
descriptions are often full of spiritual meaning; for instance, 
his description of the gate of Purgatory : 

Thither did we approach; and the first stair 
Was marble white, so polished and so smooth, 
I mirrored myself therein as I appear. 
The second, tinct of deeper hue than perse, 
Was of a calcined and uneven stone, 
Cracked all asunder, lengthwise and across. 
The third, that uppermost rests massively, 
Porphry seemed to me, as flaming red 
As blood that from a vein is spirting forth. 
Both of his feet was holding upon this 
The Angel of God upon the threshold seated, 
Which seemed to me a stone of diamond. 

(Purg. IX., 95 tf.) 

Here we have what Symonds well calls the finest allegory, 
combining, as it does, most perfect subtlety and fitness with 
the dignity and splendor of a picture striking to the mental 
eye. " The white and polished marble is purity and sincerity 
of soul, perfect candour, without which all penitence is vain. 
The dark slab, dry and rugged, represents a broken and a con- 
trite heart: its rift is crosswise, indicating the length and breadth 
and depth of sorrow for past sin. The sanguine- coloured por- 

* Introduction to Study of Dante. Symonds. 



152 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

phry is love, red as heart's-blood, and solid for the soul to 
stay thereon. Upon the last step, the threshold itself, of ada- 
mant, which signifies the sure foundation of the Church, the 
angel sits as on a throne. In his hands are two keys the 
golden is said to mean authority, the silver the science of the 
confessor and absolver."* If we turn now from the Inferno 
and the Pur gator io to the Paradise, we find there a symbolism 
softer, sweeter, more befitting the scenes of joy and gladness. 
One of the most beautiful occurs in Paradiso, XXIII., i ff. 

Even as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves, 

Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood, 

Throughout the night that hideth all things from us, 

Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks 

And find the food wherewith to nourish them, 

In which, to her, grave labors grateful are, 

Anticipates the time on open spray 

And with an ardent longing waits the sun, 

Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn: 

Even thus my Lady standing was, erect 

And vigilant. 

What a picture of waiting in hope ! How exact, how deli- 
cate, how exquisite in feeling, how vivid in effect. It is like 
one of those fine miniatures in the corner of some illuminated 
initial in a medieval manuscript. And yet, some say the Mid- 
dle Ages had no true sympathy with nature! This portrayal 
of a state of mind by means of a scene from nature is not 
peculiar to Dante. What is peculiar is the elaborateness of 
detail and the striking fitness of the comparison. In the Pur- 
gatorio he gives two images of the instability and worthless- 
ness of fame : 

Naught is this mundane rumor but a breath 

Of wind, that comes now this way and now that, 

And changeth name because it changeth side. . . . 

Your reputation is as the colored herb 

Which comes and goes, and that discolors it (the sun) 

By which it issues green from out the earth. 

(Purg. XI., 100-117.) 

* Symonds, op % cit,, p. 119. 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 153 

What is most characteristic of Dante, is the elaborate pa- 
geants which he introduces, in which historical personages, 
mythical heroes, and emblems and signs pass before us in 
procession, all of which have a definite spiritual or moral 
meaning. The best example of this is contained in the con- 
cluding cantos of the Purgattrio. There, Dante, nearing the 
end of his journey through the region, " Ove Vumano spirito si 
purga" is at last brought face to face with Beatrice the type 
of divine revelation. She is seated on a chariot signifying the 
See of Peter, which is drawn by the mystic gryphon, whose 
twofold nature of eagle and lion represents the divine and 
human natures of Christ. On her right are three virgin 
forms, Charity, Hope and Faith. 

Three maidens at. the right wheel, in a circle 
Came forward dancing; one so very red 
That in the fire she hardly had been noted. 
The second was as if her flesh and bones 
Had all been fashioned out of emerald. 
The third appeared as snow but newly fallen. 

(Purg. XXIX., 121 ff.) 

On the left are the four cardinal virtues: 

Upon the left hand, four made holiday 
Vested in purple, following the measure 
Of one of them with three eyes in her head. 

(Pur*. XXIX,, 



The lady thus endowed with more than a pair of eyes is 
Prudence, who sees past, present and future. The chariot is 
proceeded by twenty-four elders, crowned with lilies, who, 
marching two and two, represent the books of the Old Testa- 
ment. Immediately after the chariot are the four mystic crea- 
tures mentioned by Ezechiel, emblems of the four evangelists. 
Last of all comes St. John of the Apocalypse, rapt in pro- 
phetic vision. What distinguished company for the Lady 
Beatrice ! Incongruous, the modern critic exclaims. And yet, 
for Dante it was perfectly natural. He had seen many a pa- 
geant in Florence and elsewhere in Italy during his exile, in 
which the same subjects were represented symbolically ; and 



154 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

neither he nor his contemporaries saw anything incongruous 
in them. In the manuscripts which he was so fond of read- 
ing, he could see the virtues and the sciences represented as 
women, each somehow conveying by looks or dress or gesture 
the subject she represented. A lively faith demands clear-cut 
mental images, and the definite always calls for pictorial rep- 
resentation. Fortunate for us, in any case, that Dante believed 
so profoundly and saw so clearly. His poem would be robbed 
of much of its power to please if, like some petty anti- clerical 
sindac, he forbade the Church to come out and display the 
grandeur of its ceremonial and the richness of its symbolism 
in solemn pageants. The scene that is here described, in part, 
is really a compendium of the Church's history, as Dante saw 
it, and of his conception of the whole divine economy. 

These "instances, however, are what we may call examples 
of minor symbolism. There is in Dante a major symbolism 
which is not introduced for the purpose of ornamentation, nor 
in order to add picturesqueness and vividness to the narrative 
or the doctrine, but is essential to the action of the poem and 
furnishes the key to the understanding of its meaning and 
purpose. We should remember that Dante intends above all 
to teach moral and spiritual truth, and secondly, though no 
less essentially, to exalt his lady-love and honor .her as no 
woman had been honored before. In accordance with the 
first part of this plan he enters in vision the "city dolent," 
comes up through the mountain of suffering, and finally as- 
cends to the limits of the light that sheds its radiance round 
the Godhead. And all this in order to show the consequences 
of sin, the nature of penance and the joys of blessed immor- 
tality. In accordance with the second portion of his plan, he 
makes Beatrice to be the emblem of Divine Revelation, his 
guide to a vision of heavenly beatitude. Virgil, human rea- 
son, can direct the poet's steps through the Inferno and Purg- 
atorio, but when Dante comes to the threshold of Paradise he 
turns to her of whom he wrote : 

From the first day that I beheld her face 
In this life, to the moment of this look, 
The sequence of my song hath ne'er been severed. 

(Parad. XXX., 28.) 

The Blessed Virgin, the Mater misericordice, is the emblem 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 155 

of pity, and is moved at the sight of his wretched state in the 
"wildering wildwood"; St. Lucy, the type of illuminating 
grace, bears the poet away in sleep to the gates of purga- 
tory, where he is to expiate his sins; but his chief guides are 
Virgil and Beatrice. 

The reasons why Dante chose Virgil to typify human rea- 
son and to be his guide through the lower regions are not 
far to seek. Virgil was the poet whom Dante most admired 
and imitated, the master of whom he wrote: 

Thou art my master, and my author thou, 
Thou art alone the one from whom I took 
The beautiful style that hath done honor to me. 

(Inf.. I., 87 ff.) 

Besides, he was the poet of the Latin world, who saw in 
vision the future greatness of the Empire, the restoration of 
which was Dante's fondest hope. He exalted the power and 
dignity of the Emperor, and, above all, as Dante thought, he 
foretold, though unconsciously, the coming of Christ. More- 
over, he had descended once before in fancy to the world 
below, and was on that account an expert, so to speak, in 
the matter. He knows now much more than he knew then ; 
with sorrow he confesses how much he feels the fact that like 
Plato and Aristotle, he did not live in the light of revelation. 
Through it all, he preserves his identity as a poet and as a 
man. He is for Dante "Leader, Lord and Master" (Tu duca, 
tu signore e tu maestro). He honors every art and every sci- 
ence (Tu che onori ogni scienza ed arte)\; he is "the height of 
virtue" (O virtu somma), "the sun that healeth every troubled 
vision" (O sol che sani ogni vista turbata) ; he is hailed as 
"the sea of all- wisdom" (// mar di tutto il sennd) "my com- 
fort " and " my sweet teacher " (il mio conjorto, il dolce peda- 
gogo), " our chief muse," " our wise counsellor," " Virgil, sweet- 
est father, Virgil to whom for my salvation I gave myself" 
(Virgilio dolcissimo padre, Virgilio a cui per mia salute die'mi). 
"Towards this great master," writes Dean Church," the poet's 
whole soul is poured forth in reverence and affection. To 
Dante he is no figure, but a person with feelings and weak- 
nesses overcome by vexation, kindling into wrath, carried 
away by the tenderness of the moment. He reads his schol- 



156 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

ar's heart, takes him by the hand in danger, carries him in 
his arms and in his bosom, like a son more than a compan- 
ion, rebukes his unworthy curiosity, kisses him when he shows 
a noble spirit, asks pardon for his own mistakes. Never were 
the kind, yet severe, ways of a master, or the disciple's dif- 
fidence and open-heartedness drawn with greater force or less 
effort."* 

It was no easy task to present a consistentfpicture of Virgil. 
He was at once a symbol of reason, the messenger of Beatrice, 
the teacher of Dante, the pagan poet, the panegyrist of the 
Empire, and the historical person Virgil. Yet all these views 
of him are harmonized, synthesized, and presented with a 
naturalness and force of conviction that not only compel ad- 
miration but also strike our vision with a vividness and an in- 
tellectual satisfaction as if we saw a real person before us, 
taking Dante by the hand, answering his queries, soothing his 
fears, dissipating his doubts and dispelling his ignorance. The 
symbol is just as convincing as the personage, and the union 
of both is effected with rare psychological insight and the 
highest poetic skill. 

The same is true, only in a higher degree, of Beatrice, the 
symbol of Divine Revelation. This celebrated lady has been 
the subject of much discussion among the critics and com- 
mentators of the Divina Commedia. Some have even doubted 
that such a person ever existed except in the mind of the 
poet. Others not only admit that she existed but go so far 
as to refer to her prosaically as Frau Bardi, the wife of Simone 
Bardi. The consensus of opinion now is that Beatrice was a 
real person. All that we know of her is briefly told. She 
was the daughter of Folco Portinari, a Florentine and a neigh- 
bor of the Alleghieri family. When she was eight years old 
and Dante was nine, they met at a family gathering, a wed- 
ding-feast, probably, and, the effect on his youthful mind was 
instantaneous and lifelong. Dr. Dollinger says, " Dante's re- 
lation to Beatrice, to this combination of the earthly and the 
heavenly, of abstract symbolism with the most living personal- 
ity, is something quite unique, unexperienced in any other 
human life,"f or as Dr. Moore expresses it, it was "an effort 
to anticipate that ideal state where they neither marry nor 

* Essay on Dante. Reprinted in Dinsmore's Study of Dante, p. 376. 
t Studies in^European History, p. 92. 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 157 

are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. " 
Dante met her on one or two subsequent occasions, chiefly at 
wedding feasts. A few years after their first meeting she was 
married to Simone Bardi and in 1291 or 1292 Dante himself 
was married to Gemma Donati. The death of Beatrice in 1290 
plunged Dante at first into inconsolable grief; then, all at 
once, in the Vita Nuova she begins to appear as the " young- 
est of the angels/' and then little by little to assume the role 
of an ideal and a symbol. As an ideal, she is, naturally, the 
embodiment of all womanly perfection, the inspiration of his 
poems, what Laura was to Petrarch, and in general what the 
"donna gentil" was to all the troubadours. The last reference 
to this ideal is the determination to honor her as no other wo- 
man had been honored, and that determination is the source 
of the Divina Commedia. In the Commedia itself she is, so to 
speak, present always and everywhere in the threefold charac- 
ter of a person, an ideal and a symbol. Dante refers to her 
as the one " who saw me as I am," " Her from whom no care 
of mine could be hidden," "The sun which first warmed my 
heart with love," "The sweet guide who smiling burned," 
"The sun of my eyes," "That pious lady who guided the 
pinions of my wings," "O love of the first lover (i. e. 9 beloved 
of God), O goddess" (O amanza del primo amante, diva\ 
As a symbol she stands for divine revelation, the grace of 
faith and the beatific vision. In this character she sends Vir- 
gil, that is reason, to Dante's aid to free htm from the dangers 
of the forest, lead him through suffering and penance to the 
gates of Paradise through which she herself is his guide. To 
her, then, he owes his salvation, as he freely confesses: 

Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong, 
And who for my salvation didst endure 

In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet, 

Of whatsoever things I have beheld, 

As coming from thy power and thy goodness 

1 recognize the virtue and the grace. 

Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom, 
By all those ways, by all the expedients, 
Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it. 

(Par. XXXI., 79 ff.) 

* Studies in Dante, 2d. series, p. 120. 



158 THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE [May, 

As Divine Revelation, she possesses by intuition all the 
knowledge that Virgil has through reason and research, and 
surpasses him in knowledge of things spiritual. Thus, in Purg. 
VI., 43 and XVIII. 46-8 Virgil confesses that he cannot 
answer Dante's question and refers his pupil to her more 
comprehensive lore: 

Verily, in so deep a questioning 
Do not decide unless she telleth thee, 
Who light twixt truth and intellect shall be, 
I know not if thou understand: I speak 
Of Beatrice. 

What reason seeth here, 
Myself can tell thee: beyond that await 
For Beatrice, since 'tis work of faith. 

All during the long and dolorous journey in the Inferno 
and the Purgatorio Dante's thoughts are turned towards the 
moment when she is to appear. And when that moment comes, 
she calls to him from the sacred car, surrounded as she is by 
the virtues and the angelic host. 

Look at me well : in sooth I am Beatrice. 

(Purg. XXX. 73.) 

Enough has been said to show the symbolism of Dante as 
it really is. In almost every detail of the poem as well as 
in the grand lines of its general plan we find the poet using 
objects and persons from the world of nature around him and 
from the rich world of his own experience in order to convey 
spiritual truth. What is unique about this symbolism is its 
naturalness. The symbols are real things and real persons. 
There is, therefore, a double truth in the narrative, the truth 
of fact and the truth of allegorical interpretation. Other poets 
have created their world of symbols out of their own imagina- 
tion ; Dante takes them as he finds them in the world of nature 
and of history and uses them without apology or explanation. 
In this he is a true product of the Middle Ages, of the ages 
of faith. He saw clearly and he felt deeply. In an old 
Cornish poem on the Passion of our Lord it is stated that the 



i9i i.] THE SYMBOLISM OF DANTE 159 

bursting asunder of the body of Judas was the effort of the 
demons to drag the wretched soul from the corpse without 
bringing it through the mouth, for it could not pass through 
the lips which Christ had kissed. There are many such touches 
in Dante, touches of fine feeling, which no poet could attain 
by reflection but only by spontaneous faith. The efforts to dis- 
sociate him from the Middle Ages and to present him as the 
champion of revolt or the prophet of anti-papal Italy have 
not met with success. He belonged to the golden age of re- 
ligious insight and religious feeling. Yet, in a sense, he be- 
longs to all ages. For there is in him the divine, which is 
eternal, and the human which is of enduring interest. A line 
of Watson's poem on the "Sovereign Poet" applies with 
literal truth to him: 

He sits above the clang and dust of Time, 

With the world's secret trembling on his lips. 

He asks not converse nor companionship 

In the cold starlight where thou canst not climb. 

The undelivered tidings in his breast 

Suffer him not to rest. 

He sees afar the immemorable throng 

And binds the scattered ages with a song. 




WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM, 

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. 

]PON the gate of Notre Dame des Rockers, which 
was the gate of a fortress, someone had painted 
in red, " A bas les Voleurs ! " The summer vis- 
itors found it sinister and threatening. Not so 
Pamela L'Estrange. She had known the convent 
when it was a hive of industry, of prayer. To her the inscrip- 
tion was a cry wrung from the depths of a heart suffering in- 
tolerable wrong, intolerable injury. 

She listened to the buzz about her at the table d'hote of 
the Hotel Ragazin and smiled quietly to herself with her eyes 
on her plate. They were talking about the convent, the nuns, 
these English visitors, whose emancipation from the narrowness 
of their country people took the form of having no religion 
at all. Once or twice she lifted her eyes and contradicted a 
glaring misstatement, set right a wild conjecture. Then she 
retired into her shell again. 

She was very much out of the life at the Hotel Ragazin. 
She had come expecting to find a little inn in a fishing village. 
She found a caravansery crowded to the doors, gossip, Icve- 
making, amusements of all kinds in full swing. They amused 
themselves with a grim determination, these English people. 
They danced and sang and flirted and played billiards into the 
small hours. They dressed, how they dressed 1 Pamela L'Es- 
trange, coming for quietness, for rest, was dismayed at the 
hurly-burly into which she had dropped. 

She hardly knew why she did not go on. One could get 
away from the people. There were miles of sand-dunes, splen- 
did cliffs, on the face of them in great white letters the cry 
of the fishermen as they go out into the storms : " Notte Dame 
de la Pitie, pries pour nous!" There was no difficulty in find- 
ing a solitude. Her house-mates were on the beach when it 
did not rain, enjoying the delights of mixed bathing with an 
entire emancipation from decorum. Only the lark above her 
head to know where she was. 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 161 

And there were the churches solitary gray places, the 
gaunt crosses, blown one way by the sea-wind, creeping up to 
the gables as though for shelter, for support. 

The hotel itself was thoroughly distasteful to her. She was 
poles removed from it all. A man here and there was dis- 
posed to be friendly. One, an artist, made surreptitious sketches 
of her pure profile, of her figure as she glided past the noisy 
people in the courtyard. She dressed in cool, pale linen, with 
a wide black hat. She was in gray of evenings, filmy gray 
that gave her a twilit air. The artist drew her in silver- point, 
with a veil about her head that had a star half- hidden in it. 

Why did she not go on ? She hardly knew. She had a 
sense of waiting for something which grew with the days. She 
liked the old fortified town. It was partly because of the 
fortifications she had come. She was an artist by profession. 
Quite contrary to what one would have expected of her, her 
subject was soldiers, soldiers of all nations, in dress and undress ; 
marching, bivouacing, drilling, at play. Her ambition was to 
paint a battle picture. She was always sketching soldiers 
and horses and guns. In the old fortified town there was a 
battalion of French infantry. Fortunately for her their bar- 
rack faced the church which all the artists sketched, the church, 
and the centuries-old fountain with the magnificent lion's head, 
through the mouth of which the water flowed. Her sketch- 
book grew full of characteristic aspects of the piou piou. 

One day a shadow darkened her sketch-book as she sat. 
Someone, passing by, had looked over her shoulder. 

" I say, that's awfully good, you know. I beg your par- 
don. I couldn't help seeing. Hamilton must see it." 

She looked up and smiled into Anthony O'Grady's face. 
Most people smiled when they looked at Anthony O'Grady, 
because he was, as a questing sister had said once, " so pleas- 
ant." He had a richness in his accent when he spoke that 
prepared one for the Celtic name. He had come to the Hotel 
Ragazin the night before. She had seen him arrive in company 
with a tall, dark young man, who carried a fat, sleepy little 
boy on his shoulder. 

She had been conscious of an interest. She adored children, 
and the fat, sleepy little boy clinging to his tall father's neck, 
had delighted her. The contrast between the two men, the 
elder, swarthily dark, the younger, golden- fair, appealed to her 

VOL. XCIII. II 



162 WHAT TH* GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

artistic instincts. She had seen nothing so pleasant since she 
had come to the hotel. 

Anthony O'Grady seemed to have no mind to move away. 
He watched the soldiers in their working suits of dirty- white 
going to the fountain for water, ragging a bit, harmlessly, like 
frolicsome puppies. 

"Not as clean as our Tommies," he said, "but a better 
looking lot. That's awfully good 1 " he indicated a sketch of 
a soldier teaching a dog tricks. " Jack must see it. My cou- 
sin, who came with me last night, I mean Jack Hamilton. 
You must know his work ? " 

Jack Hamilton ? Why, of course she knew him. He painted 
in the manner of the great modern French masters, genre pic- 
tures, interiors. He could endow inanimate things with a spir- 
itual beauty. A picture she had seen this spring, just a hay- 
stack in a field, seen in half-tones of twilight or dawn, had 
conveyed the most extraordinary impression of loneliness, of 
sadness. 

" You are a countryman of mine/' she said, smiling at the 
boyish face. 

" County Limerick," he said. 

"And I, County Clare," she replied joyously. "We are 
next door neighbors." 

After that meeting Pamela L'Estrange was lonely no longer. 
She had two men at her beck and call. The hotel was very 
willing to make much of John Hamilton. The girls looked 
with an assurance of welcome at Anthony O'Grady. The two 
were not to be drawn into friendship. They spent long days 
out on the dunes, in the golden corn-fields, with Pamela L'Es- 
trange, and small Ian, that bullet-headed boy, with the color 
of the South, who was John Hamilton's darling, the one thing 
his wife had left him when she had slipped through the open 
door into another world some five years before. 

The two artists drew and painted and asked each other's 
approval of their work. Anthony O'Grady would play with 
the child or lie on his back in the hot sun, his straw hat drawn 
over his eyes, while the others under their sun- umbrellas 
sketched and talked. He had an unbounded admiration and 
affection for John Hamilton. He began to include in it Pamela 
L'Estrange. While he lay half-asleep in the heat, his hat drawn 
over his eyes, he listened to the low murmur of their voices. 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 163 

Once he lifted his hat from his eyes and saw that Jack was 
sketching the girl, little Ian asleep in her arms. He smiled to 
himself lazily as he let the hat cover his eyes again. 

There came a day when the cousins joined a couple of 
other men on a long expedition. They were gone before 
Pamela L'Estrange had come back from the seven o'clock Mass 
at the little church out on the dunes, which she attended every 
morning. They had taken Ian with them. The comfortable- 
looking Scotchwoman who was lan's nurse, must have found 
her position something of a sinecure, since Ian and his father 
were practically inseparable. 

It promised to be a lonely day for Pamela L'Estrange. 
She found that she had been learning to depend on the com- 
panionship of the two men and the child. She wondered how 
she was going to do without it when autumn should send An- 
thony back to Sandhurst, John Hamilton to Paris, herself to 
her tiny flat in a towering block of workmen's dwellings that 
overlooked the railway somewhere down Hammersmith way. 

One of the women at the hotel suggested her joining them. 
They were going over the old convent. The lady shivered with 
delightful anticipation at the thought of the convent's mysteries. 
Dungeons, walled-up nuns, uglier things even, were in her an- 
ticipations. 

Pamela L'Estrange opened wide eyes. 

" I know the convent well," she said. " My own cousin, 
Bridget Shannon, was its Reverend Mother. They were holy 
women. All you have heard is lies. They were always holy, 
the nuns : benefactors of the place and the people. Ask the 
townspeople." 

The lady was not abashed. 

" Oh, then, if you know the place you must come with 
us," she said. "You will be able to tell us what everything 
is. And, Monsieur le Maire says that if we stray from the 
guide we shall infallibly lose our way. There are miles and 
miles of it." 

"I couldn't help you very much there," Pamela L'Estrange 
said coldly. " I know, of course, only the reception rooms. 
It was very cheerful when I was there. The gardens were 
lovely behind those high walls. The whole place was so clean 
and bright. It has been empty for two years. I dare say 
there are sad changes." 



1 64 WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

She slipped away to the walled town and spent some time 
sketching the market in the place. About three o'clock, she 
had had her modest lunch of a cup of coffee and a roll at 
one, she was turning her steps towards the road that led to 
the village and the hotel. It took her round two sides of the 
convent. The convent was so dominating a fact in the little 
walled town that you could hardly get anywhere without skirt- 
ing it or its Externat. And behold, the door of the chaplain's 
house stood open ! The exploring party, she supposed, was 
gone inside. 

Something drew her footsteps within. Dear Father Michel, 
she remembered him quite well. He had been walking in his 
own little garden when she had first seen him. A very fat 
white poodle had trotted at his heels. There had been a big 
crucifix in the midst of the garden. Around it there had 
been masses of roses in bloom, beautiful pinky- white roses, 
with sharp, thick spines. He had picked a bunch of roses for 
her. Then he had invited her into his little sitting-room, and 
had given her a glass of anisette, while Reverend Mother 
stood by and smiled. A dear, benign old man. He had a 
whole flock of canaries in cages which he let free. They 
settled in a yellow cloud on his cassock and pecked crumbs 
daintily from his tongue. 

She wondered what had become of him. She knew he had 
not accompanied the nuns to their refuge in Protestant Eng- 
land. 

She was in his little hall now, which she remembered as 
having a case of butterflies hung on the wall. There had been 
an ordered neatness. Beyond was the sitting-room, which she 
remembered as light and austere. Marie, monsieur's bonne a 
tout Jaire, had looked from the kitchen, amid her shining 
pots and pans, a welcome to Mademoiselle. 

Now there was an incredible disorder. Dust and litter 
were thick under her feet. Torn papers, debris of all sorts 
was ankle-deep. The shutters were closed, but the bright 
daylight pierced the chinks revealing a disorder that was de- 
pressing, almost terrifying. The spiders had hung their webs 
from wall to wall. The grate was rusted, filled with old medi- 
cine bottles, rags of one sort or another, disgusting. The 
Republic had swept over the clean austerity she remembered, 
with a vengeance. 



191 1.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 165 

She stooped to pick a holy picture from the disorder on 
the floor. It was the Blessed Mother with seven swords 
through her heart. Some passing foot had trampled it. She 
brushed away the dried mud as well as she was able, kissed 
the picture and put it away gently into her little hand-bag. 

She went on into the chaplain's garden. It was prairie 
now. The grass had crept up the crucifix, almost enclosing 
it. Here and there the roses trailed a long branch from amid 
the grass and weeds and flung it on the path. 

She shivered with a sense of desolation. She had some 
strange sense of a presence, as though eyes were upon her. 
All around were the convent windows, the lower ones muffled 
so as not to intrude on Monsieur's privacy, the upper, long 
ranges of window after window, showing as blank as dead 
eyes. 

She shivered. In the distance she heard chattering voices 
and she turned, and went back into the chaplain's house. She 
thought of the old man with his beautiful manners, the poodle, 
as it endured with comical patience the trial of having to 
stand quietly, a canary on his head. 

She would have gone into the kitchen, anywhere to escape 
the voices coming nearer, but the kitchen door was fastened, 
the seal of the Republic upon it. The same with the little 
door that closed the foot of the stairs leading up to the chap- 
lain's bedroom. 

The voices had retreated, scattered, died in distance. She 
went back through the ruined and desecrated garden, by the 
swing door, into the convent itself. A long, long corridor 
stretched before her; at the far end, a broken door, where 
the nuns had made their last stand. 

She went on through it, looking into one room after an- 
other as she passed. This was the kitchen floor. She remem- 
bered those brown -panelled rooms with cupboards in the 
walls. They had been storerooms of many kinds, wash-houses, 
dairies, pantries. The convent had had its population of five 
hundred souls. 

Ah, there were the kitchens, which she remembered so 
warm and glowing. Now they were cold, dismal; the windows 
covered with dust and cobwebs. A starved rat smelt about in 
the rubbish on the floor and scampered at her approach. She 
peeped in the wine cellar. It was like a crypt. 



1 66 WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

She became aware that the air was heavy, stifling. Every- 
where the windows were closed and barred and the air had 
been undisturbed for ages. Probably the convent was unsani- 
tary. It was hundreds of years old and it was enclosed by a 
wall fifty feet high. Constant cleanliness, many fires, had 
kept it at least with a simulation of wholesomeness while it 
was lived in. Since the nuns left, the poisons had been im- 
prisoned, allowed to grow unchecked. 

She was glad to come upon the cloisters and to find air, 
fresh, or comparatively fresh, blowing in her face. Those who 
went before her had left a door open. She could hear them 
now in distance, their shrill voices raised in wonder, in ex- 
citement. She shrank from joining them. She imagined the 
things they would say, the foolish and ignorant profanation of 
holy things. She could not have borne it. 

She stood in the cloisters, looking about her. The open 
door gave on to such another tangled wilderness as the chap- 
lain's garden. The graves of the nuns of long ago were under 
her feet. She trod on their blackened brasses. Some of them 
bearing English names had lived and died there while yet 
Calais was English, before Mary Tudor's heart had broken for 
the loss of that with other things. 

She was glad to leave the dim cloisters for the compara- 
tive freshness of the garden, where a statue of St. Roch with 
his dog lay face downwards amid the ruin of the rockery 
which he had dominated. 

The voices again sent her flying, this time upstairs to a 
long corridor where the little doors of the nuns' cells opened 
in a long dwindling perspective. The chaff which had been 
the nuns' beds was knee deep in the corridor. She glanced 
into one or two of the cells. Nothing left except the coffin- 
like frames that had held the bags of chaff and the little pic- 
ture of the Sacred Heart on the doors, forgotten in the panic 
of flight. 

The afternoon sun shone down the long corridor as she 
left it and ascended to yet another. The lower panes of the 
windows from which one might have looked were muffled; but 
the sun came in dazzlingly through the upper panes. At the 
foot of the stairs by which she ascended and descended was 
a small arched door set deep in the wall. She pushed it; it 
was locked. She became aware suddenly that she no longer 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 167 

heard the voices in the distance. There was only the long, 
long corridor, filled from end to end with the chaff, the long line 
of open doors, the dazzling afternoon sunshine. Suddenly 
she was afraid. 

She could not have told what she was afraid of. She re- 
minded herself that here saintly women had lived and died, 
that these little cells had been nests of praise and prayer, 
that here the Blessed Sacrament had been carried to the dy- 
ing, the blameless lives been sped. But she was afraid. Per- 
haps she had been afraid all the time. The desolation of the 
place had crept into her spirit. Only the cheerful vulgar 
voices in the distance had kept it at bay. 

She went downstairs, with difficulty refraining from head- 
long flight. She listened in the cloisters for the voices. No 
sound reached her ears. The cloisters ran round four sides of 
a square. Doors opened in all directions. The cloisters were 
continued in long dark corridors, running four ways. 

There was not a sound to be heard. She had lost the 
clue of the open door to tell her which way she was to re- 
turn. It had been shut to, by the wind perhaps. There was 
a door to each side of the cloisters. She opened one and 
was again in the enclosure. It was at the bottom of a well. 
All around were ranges and ranges, one over the other, of 
the blank windows. 

She heard a door bang somewhere and turned eagerly in 
its direction. Perhaps they had gone that way. She took it, 
only to find herself after interminable wanderings in the com- 
munity-room of the nuns; beyond it the chapel, a heap of 
stones where the altar had been, the niches showing a gash 
where the statues had been torn from them, inscriptions de- 
faced, the glimmering windows high up coated with a thick 
deposit of dirt; desolation everywhere. 

If only the windows had not been out of reach. They 
looked, at least on one side of the chapel, on to the street. 
But they were very high up, quite out of reach. 

Her head began to swim. Perhaps it was the bad air. 
She thought she had been walking for hours. She was fright- 
ened and lonely and cold. The chapel was very dark. 

She climbed to the organ-loft where she could see the sky 
beyond the windows. It had become suddenly dun-colored. A 
storm was impending. While she looked the lightning flashed. 



i68 WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

She sat down on a step in the organ-gallery and covered 
her eyes with her hands. She was frightened. Just beyond 
the walls there was the cheerful bustle of the Place. If she 
could only see the life outside communicate with it. But 
she was as far away from it as though she were in her grave. 

The storm roared and rumbled. Again and again the cold, 
gray light of the place was shot through by the blue glare of 
the lightning. She sat and shivered. The place was very air- 
less, stifling ; she nodded. 

She came to herself with a jerk. Had she only nodded 
that minute or had she really fallen asleep ? The storm was 
gone by. The sky outside the window showed a cold and 
watery light. 

As though to answer her the clock in the Place boomed 
out six steady strokes and the Angelus sounded from the 
church tower. 

She started to her feet in a panic. Six o'clock ! It had 
been three o'clock when she had turned aside so easily from 
the busy Place to follow the party from the hotel into the 
convent. By this time they must have finished their explora- 
tions, unless she remembered the garden full of delicious 
fruit green figs, apricots, pears, peaches. In all her wander- 
ings she had not come upon the garden. Doubtless it would 
detain the party from the hotel for some time, if they had 
discovered it; if the fruit had not been picked. She would 
not listen to the insistent fear that knocked at her heart that 
they might be gone leaving her behind. Why they would 
have taken the keys with them she would be locked in. 
She would die there of hunger. They would find her bones 
some day. That way madness lay. She must not so much as 
think of it. 

Fear lent wings to her feet. She flew down the stairs 
from the organ-gallery back by the long corridor the way she 
had come. Now and again she paused to listen if there were 
voices. She heard only the thumping of her own heart in her 
ears. 

How dark the place was growing ! The sun would not set 
this hour yet ; but it was sinking towards the horizon. The 
fifty-foot wall of the convent brought a premature night with- 
in its shadow. 

At last the garden. An open door met her suddenly 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 169 

where she least expected it; and there was the garden be- 
yond. A deplorable place. The fruit-trees torn from the 
walls and lying across the beds. The flower-beds, the grass- 
plots, the vegetable beds indistinguishable for the growth of 
grass. The little grottoes she remembered dismantled; the 
holy statues gone from the niches in the trees. 

Everywhere there had been wanton destruction. Her feet 
stumbled in the branches of the boughs laden with green 
figs unripe. Doubtless the ripe ones had been taken away 
by the afternoon's visitors. The pear and apricot and peach 
trees in like case. She remembered the garden, a glowing 
place of fruit and flowers against a green background. Now 
it was almost as dreadful as the rest of the place. 

She said to herself that if the worst came to the worst 
she could creep into the grotto in the garden from which Our 
Lady of Lourdes used to look. It had a narrow opening in 
front. She would creep in and ask Our Lady to keep her 
from the terror that flieth by night. 

Too late she realized that she ought not to have left the 
chapel. It was close by the chaplain's house as she knew 
from the outside. If she had not gone in the opposite direc- 
tion she must have come upon it. It was her one hope of exit. 

She went back into the convent where the long passages 
were now almost dark. She turned to the left, the direction 
from which she had come, and hurried along the passages. 
The store-rooms on each side, the various closets and cellars 
and passages, were now something menacing and dreadful. A 
door slammed somewhere in the labyrinth and she was wild 
with fright. She seemed to have walked miles and had not 
come upon the chaplain's garden. Once she thought to have 
discovered it and found the graveyard of the nuns, with the 
mournful Calvary at the centre, the little crosses all but dis- 
appeared in the growth. 

She fled from it in terror. It was like being in a maze. 
She tried to find some clue, and after hurrying along innu- 
merable passages, came out at the point she had started from. 
She remembered a chance speech at the table d'hote. 

" M. le Maire says that if you were not conducted you 
would require to take a ball of string, tie it to something at 
the starting point and find your way back by means of it." 

A foolish speech she had thought it at the time. The 



1 70 WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

convent, as she remembered it, busy and happy, full of light 
and warmth, the chubby pupils, the peaceful nuns in these 
corridors and rooms, had had no suggestion of this dreadful 
labyrinth in which the darkness gathered and thickened. 

She had no illusions now about her being alone in the 
convent alone of living people, for she heard the rats scurry 
and squeal in the darkness. Of living people ! She heard the 
door bang again somewhere nearer, with a dreadful sugges- 
tion. And at last she saw quite close at hand, the Calvary, 
the glimmering, pale roses of the chaplain's garden. 

Alas, the door that led in the chaplain's house was fas- 
tened securely against her. She looked at the shuttered win- 
dows. No hope that way. The high convent walls rose on 
three sides of the enclosure, all the blank, dark window-spaces 
looking down at her full of terror. 

She beat at the door of the chaplain's house with her two 
hands. She was beside herself, distraught with fear. Some- 
where she heard a dog bark and had the delusion that it was 
Pompon, Pere Michel's poodle. 

"Let me out, Pere Michel, let me out!" she screamed, 
beating a tattoo upon the door. Only the echoes answered 
her, flung back from those gaunt walls. 

In the midst of her terror she had a thought. Why had 
she left the garden behind ? After all the wall abutted on 
the lit street with the people walking about. li she had 
screamed and screamed someone would have heard her de- 
spite the fifty-foot high wall. 

She fled back to the interior of the convent, the thought 
driving her that it was her only chance. She might scream 
herself mad in the chaplain's garden. No one would hear her. 
The sound would be thrown back, fall dead from those piti- 
less walls with their rows upon rows of windows like eyeless 
sockets, watching her misery. 

In mid-flight she paused. She looked back. She had 
reached the cloister where the nuns in the days of the occupa- 
tion had been buried. Something was coming, following her, 
hurrying. 

She had reached the limit of her endurance. She flung up 
her hands and with a soundless cry she fell down on the 
brasses of the dead nuns. 

She came to herself in a room flooded with the gold of the 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 171 

after-sunset. There was a big crucifix on the wall. Someone 
was leaning over her. She was lying on a sofa. Some furry 
thing was close to her face. As she moved she felt the un- 
mistakable lick of a dog upon her hand. 

She stared. Why it was Fere Michel. Fere Michel, with 
his air of cheerful benignity, his thin, white locks, his cassock 
and bands. And it was Fompon who was licking her face. 

"Ah, that is better, that is better," said Fere Michel. 
" Take a sip of this. The excellent Madame Delort at the 
Lion de Flandres sees that I want for nothing. It is very 
good wine. So, poor child, you were left behind, lost in the 
convent. No wonder you were frightened. See you I am 
allowed to stay here, till I die or they pull down the convent. 
M. le Maire is kind, if he is a libre penseur. His wife is a good 
woman. But all the world must not know. It would go ill 
with M. le Maire if some knew that he had bowels of com- 
passion for a poor old priest. So I creep here I hide myself. 
I break the seals of the Republic. It is dreadful down be- 
low, is it not ? But I dare not have order. I dare not work 
in my garden, for that would give away the secret. I enclose 
myself here, with Fompon for company, except when I steal 
out to Mass." 

He helped her to her feet. 

"Ah," he said, "that is better. Poor child! I am going 
to take thee home across the dunes to the hotel. You will 
not betray me, nor M. le Maire. If some folk up in Faris 
knew, why ... we might have a worse mayor. Gaston 
Remy is a good fellow though he is a libre penseur, for the 
moment." 

Suddenly there was a tremendous assault on the door down- 
stairs. The noise of it reached them in this quiet upper room 
that looked across the Flace to the fa9ade of the church. 

" It will be thy friends coming to seek thee," said Fere 
Michel. "See, thou wert not forgotten after all." 

He hurried down to open the door, and found outside it 
Jack Hamilton and Anthony O'Grady, with mine host from 
the Hotel Ragazin. 

" Ah, but it is a madman, this one," said M. Ragazin in- 
dicating Jack Hamilton. " If you had not opened, Monsieur, 
this one had had the door down. But they are mad, those 
English ! " 



172 WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM [May, 

" No more English than yourself," said Jack Hamilton, 
striding into the hall where Pamela, pale and tearful, looked 
just beyond Pere Michel's shoulder, " but a good Irishman. 
And what is more a good Catholic." 

He dropped his somewhat imperfect French as he took 
Pamela's hand. 

" My poor little girl ! " he said. " What you must have 
suffered ! Auguste who drove the party over, saw you enter 
after them. He was too stupid to remember for a time that 
he had seen you go in and had not seen you leave. Fortu- 
nately when he did remember he came round to the hotel with 
the story just at the moment when Tony and I were setting 
out in search of you. I was like a madman till M. Ragazin 
assured me that the chaplain still had his old rooms unbe- 
knownst to anyone except the town generally and a consider- 
able portion of the country. Did you think, darling, that you 
were going to be locked in all night ? " 

The "darling" was whispered in Pamela L'Estrange's ear; 
but for some reason or other the other three men began talk- 
ing to one another with a polite aversion of their gaze from 
the black head bent over the fair one in the back of the 
dreadful little hall. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hamilton, on their way back to 
England from a somewhat prolonged honeymoon, sought their 
friend, Pere Michel they found him in the upper room of the 
Lion de Flandres, with Pompon between his knees, and the 
two as disconsolate as ever were man and dog. 

The convent had been bought for the town. It was to be 
levelled; and houses and shops erected on its site; and Pere 
Michel had had to quit lest he should get his friend, the free- 
thinking mayor, into trouble for connivance at his residence 
in his old quarters. 

" Alas," said Pere Michel, " I thought, and so did Pompon, 
to spend our days in that place where we were so happy 
once. To be sure it was not the same, the good old nuns 
being gone, and my house was frightful. I had to send away 
my good Marie, and but for the gardens of the people I must 
have starved." 

"You shall come back with us to England," said Jack 
Hamilton. " We shall find your nans for you. You shall be 



i9i i.] WHAT THE GARDEN BROUGHT TO BLOOM 173 

their chaplain again if you will. It is not all fogs in England. 
No indeed ; you will be able to grow your roses and keep your 
bees and your birds in England far better than you did at 
Notre Dame des Rockers" 

Fere Michel was understood to say that his nuns were 
established in Sussex and that the Reverend Mother had 
begged him to come but he had felt himself unequal to the 
uprooting. 

" I had thought I should die of it," he said. " See you, 
I was chaplain to the convent for forty years. I have not 
died of it. Pompon and I go in and out as we will. I be- 
lieve he likes it better than to be in prison, the rascal. But 
I should dearly like to see my children again." 

Fere Michel is established in a rose- covered cottage not so 
far inland that from his windows he cannot catch a glimpse 
of the blue waters of the Channel and the distant white cliffs 
of his own land. He ministers once more to his nuns, and 
their pains of exile are sweetened by having their old chaplain. 
And Pompon runs about at will over the short flower- diapered 
grass of the cliffs and trots in and out as of old, a privileged 
pet with the nuns and their pupils. Fere Michel has confided 
to John Hamilton, who has a bungalow on the cliff close at 
hand, to which he and Mrs. Hamilton go and come: 

" Notre Dame des Rockers I thought to have died there as 
I had lived. I was broken, see you, my friend, by those vio- 
lent changes. I thought I could not endure to be transplanted 
at my age. If I had stayed there I should very soon have 
been in the next world. And the nuns need me never shall 
I forget their joy when I came. Old! Sixty- five is not so 
old. I shall live to see many a one down. It was our Lady 
herself who sent Madame that never to-be- forgotten afternoon. 
Her Son had work still left for me to do on earth. Is it not 
so, my friend?" 




NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY. 

BY WILLIAM HENRY SHERAN. 

JOHN RUSKIN in a celebrated passage of the 
Fors Clavigera, writes as follows: "after care- 
ful examination, neither as adversary nor as 
friend, of the influences of Catholicism, I am 
persuaded that reverence for the Madonna has 
been one of its noblest and most vital graces, and has never 
been otherwise than productive of holiness of life and purity 
of character. There has, probably, not been an innocent home 
throughout Europe during the period of Christianity, in which 
the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity 
to the duties and comfort to the trials of men and women. 
Every brightest and loftiest achievement of the art and 
strength of manhood and womanhood has been the fulfillment 
of the prophecy made to the humble Lily of Israel 'He 
that is mighty hath magnified me.' " 

One characteristic of the remarkable man, John Henry New- 
man, to whom English Catholicism and English letters owe so 
much, is the warm devotion invariably shown through his long 
life, toward the Blessed Mother of God. As a rule, the English 
convert does not readily grasp the true meaning, nor does he 
easily respond to the true spirit, of this Catholic devotion. It 
may be explained in part as a result of the ingrained prejudice 
which Protestantism planted and developed in the human 
breast toward the Blessed Virgin a prejudice so hard to 
overcome. It may also be ascribed in some measure to the 
natural temperament of Englishmen; for their attitude toward 
woman is not so chivalrous as it might be; certainly not as 
chivalrous as that of the Latin race. They are accustomed to re- 
gard woman as a creature of inferior rank, a creature whose ac- 
tivities should be confined strictly to the home circle, and while 
the highest respect and honor are shown to woman as queen 
of the household, there is nevertheless a strong tendency to 
carry out the wishes of St. Paul who counseled in her behalf 
a very salutary restraint. The present struggle of English 
women to assert their rights and to gain a larger measure of 



i9i i.] NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY 175 

freedom is in fact a rebellion against the old Teutonic instinct 
still strong in the Saxon breast the instinct on the part of 
man to rule woman with an iron hand and an iron law. 
Without discussing this problem in any detail, it is only fair 
to state that Englishmen are, perhaps, a little too stern and 
uncompromising; just as many Americans are apt to be too 
lenient and too prone to make dangerous concessions to fem- 
inine fancy. Here as elsewhere the golden mean is, the dic- 
tate of right reason and of sound judgment. But this attitude 
of Englishmen is an attitude almost hostle to any ideal exal- 
tation of woman and explains much of the reluctance which 
an English convert feels when he is invited to kneel at our 
Lady's Shrine and recite the Rosary. If we add thereto the 
prejudice of creed, already noted, we have a full explanation 
of his difficulty. For from childhood he was doubtless accus- 
tomed to listen to blasphemous attacks upon the mother of 
God; by a strange perversion, the very mother perhaps who 
bore him was loudest in her denunciation of the "supersti- 
tious" Catholics who honor the Queen of Heaven, in her 
blind bigotry overlooking the fact that Catholicism in the ex- 
altation of Mary has done more to exalt true womanhood 
throughout the world, than any other living institution. 

But in the case of Cardinal Newman, strange to say, there 
was no such antipathy. From the beginning of his conver- 
sion he took kindly to such Catholic prayers and customs as 
cluster round the shrine of our Lady. He was proud to be 
enrolled among her most devoted children. In his letters, 
sermons and public addresses covering a period of more than 
forty years, he refers, time and again, to the Virgin Mother 
and pays to her the homage of a devoted heart ; her name is 
charmingly associated with that of the Blessed St. Philip Neri, 
whenever he would invoke a favor upon the little Community 
at Egbaston. " The Fathers of the Oratory," said Dr. Rider 
who was one of them, " often heard their dear Cardinal recite 
for their delight and edification the glories of Mary." And 
the story is related of him that when traveling in Sicily, 
shortly before he wrote the immortal hymn, " Lead Kindly 
Light," he took refuge, one day, from a blinding storm in the 
recesses of a large church and found himself before a shrine 
of the Virgin. A solitary taper glimmered before the statue 
and served to make more awful the gloom around. A tropi- 



i;6 NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY [May, 

cal storm with vivid flashes of lightning and intermittent 
thunder raged outside. But a wilder storm raged in his soul; 
he was tortured by doubts and fears, those fearful wrestlings 
of a human spirit turning upon a bed of pain; terribly in 
earnest about its eternal salvation and beseeching heaven to 
rend the veil. The prayer of the Grecian hero seemed to 
tremble on his lips: "Give me to see, and Ajax asks no 
more." The modern hero who was to shake or rather restore 
a nation's faith, sat silently before the Madonna and the calm 
beautiful face carved in the richest Carrara, lit by the taper's 
glow, seemed to be gazing as from another world. 

He looked up at that winsome countenance, as countless 
mortals in trouble have done before, but not as yet with the 
eye of Catholic faith. It was the taper at her feet that sug- 
gested the title of his hymn the "Kindly Light" that came 
through her favor to enlighten those who sit in the valley of 
the shadow of death. 

There is a large amount of writing scattered through the 
many volumes written by Cardinal Newman writing which 
deals with the manifold graces and virtues of the Mother of 
God. It was the celebrated Thomas of Aquin who wrote: 
" In us justice is not without warfare ; but in Mary justice 
consisted in perfect peace" And the wonderful philosopher of 
a past age goes on to explain how Mary sanctified justice by 
suffering and although a greater sufferer than all the saints 
put together, never allowed her sorrows to disturb for an in- 
stant the perfect peace which possessed her soul. One may 
easily see how a storm-tossed mariner like Newman who had 
sailed so long the uncharted seas, who had been for years 
tossed hither and thither by the winds and the waves of every 
doctrine; one may easily see how, as he came to harbor, he 
would choose the type of perfect peace for special veneration 
and esteem. It is strongly asserted by the most profound 
students of the spiritual life such authors as Saint Alphonsus 
Liguori, Saint Teresa and others that, after years of trial 
and suffering, the finest flowering of the spiritual state results 
in a serene contentment and the exaltation of soul a peace 
which no worldly trouble can reach or impair. It seems to 
be a foreshadowing of that confirmation in grace, which marks 
our entrance into heaven. Newman after a hard novitiate 
reached the peaceful goal which the Blessed Virgin had at- 



191 1.] NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY 177 

tained on the day of her birth. For us sinful and weak 
mortals who follow the saints hand equis passibus, sometimes 
with scarcely the grace of attrition, it is almost impossible to 
realize the spiritual exaltation of those favored children of 
God. We are dwellers in the valley, and our gaze is short- 
ened by mist and shadow; whereas they enjoy the proud 
advantage of the clear upper air on the mount of vision. . 

Together with a most gentle and amicable nature Newman 
possessed in later years the sweet serenity of soul which he 
admires so much in Mary, and refers to it as one of her 
crowning gifts. " On Calvary," he writes, " her heart was 
pierced with the sword of the most poignant sorrow; yet we 
do not read that she wept or swooned away; she uttered not 
a word, but suffered in silence. She stands calm and motion- 
less, fearing not the rudeness of the soldiers nor the rage of 
an infuriated populace. The most terrible anguish that could 
afflict a human being, does not disturb the sweet serenity of 
her soul" In his book of Meditations, the Cardinal writes : 

The storm does not last always ; darkness does not always 
overspread the earth. The hour of adversity passes away. 
To the most bitter winter succeeds a cheerful spring. After 
the most fearful tempest comes a most restful and gentle calm. 
If now thou pinest in the prison of the flesh, beset and tor- 
mented with many afflictions, look up to Mary, the Mother of 
peace and consolation. Ask from her the peace that this 
world cannot give, the blessed peace given to her, first, by 
Our Divine I,ord and afterward to His Apostles the peace 
which she has so often sent down from heaven to wounded 
human hearts. 

Over and over again the great Cardinal turns this fruitful 
idea in his matchless prose. 

Another point that linked the soul of Newman to Mary 
was the virtue of humility. The true scholar is always humble; 
and the deeper his scholarship, the more profound is his hu- 
mility. The important lesson which he tries to teach a shallow, 
noisy world is found in the language of the Great Teacher: 
" learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart." And so 
the Cardinal dwells upon the humility of Mary: 

She kept apart from her divine Son when He went out to 
preach to the world ; she seated not herself in the Apostolic 
chair ; she took no part in the Priest's office ; she did but 
VOL. xcm. 12 



1 78 NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY [May, 

humbly seek her Son in the daily Mass of those who though 
her ministers in heaven, were her superiors in the Church on 
earth. She did not ask her Son to publish her name to the 
ends of the world or to hold her up to the world's gaze. It 
became her as a creature, a mother and a woman to stand 
aside and make way for the Creator, to minister in all humil- 
ity to her Son and to win the world's homage by sweet and 
humble persuasion. It became Him who redeemed mankind, 
to be enthroned in His Temple, for He was God ; it became 
his Virgin Mother to remain out of the world's sight, the 
lowly and humble maid of Nazareth. 

A careful examination of the lives of the saints reveals a 
similar humility in Saint Philip Neri who of all other saints 
was chosen for a patron by the English scholar and recluse 
chosen, we may hazard the conjecture, because he practised 
so rigidly the virtue f humility, exemplified, as never before, 
in the Handmaid of the Lord. Newman with unrivalled liter- 
ary skill contrasts Philip with his celebrated contemporary 
Savonarola. It is necessary to have a dark background; for 
as Lord Bacon affirms, light colors look best upon such a 
canvas. Now there can be no objection to the painting of 
Philip as an Angel of light, but the peculiar rhetorical arrange- 
ment does scant justice to the great Dominican. However, 
there was a sharp contrast between the fiery orator, ever in 
the public eye, thundering against a city " wholly given to 
idolatry; whose chalices were gold but whose prelates were 
wooden ; whose people were in bondage to the world the 
flesh and the devil " a sharp contrast between him who ruled 
Florence for ten years and burned her monumental folJy in 
the public square amid the groans and the tears of a repentant 
populace a sharp contrast between him and the gentle mild- 
mannered stranger who worked a similar but more successful 
reformation from the dark catacombs and recesses of Rome. 
As Newman declares : 

It was the whisper of a gentle air after the wind, the earth- 
quake and the fire ; his look was hidden and despised and 
men esteemed him not ; when he preached he did not contend 
nor cry out, nor break the bruised reed, nor quench the 
smoking flax. He sought not golden mitre or jewelled cope 
under high arches and painted windows, but the secluded 
unfurnished chapel and the rude crucifix. Meditation and 
prayer, quiet communion with God and His saints, the 



i9i i.] NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY 179 

humble hidden life that brings the soul nearest to God ; such 
were the characteristics of Philip ; and in those acts of lowli- 
ness and self-abasement which * ' fell like dew upon the herb 
or gentle drops upon the grass," he most resembles the 
humble Mother of God ministering to her household in seclu- 
sion and retirement. Because she " pondered in her heart " 
and spent her days and nights in prayer and meditation, and 
loved to be unknown, therefore Saint Philip loved her and 
followed her example. 

I linger upon this point because St. Philip was in New- 
man's eyes the ideal saint, the very incarnation of humility. 
And it is the shining virtue that links the souls of both to 
the Lily of Israel. On one occasion at Birmingham he ad- 
dressed his brethren of the Oratory as follows: "we, the 
children of this Oratory, would that we were able to do a 
work such as his ; we have gone about the work in a way 
most like his own. We have taken without noise a humble 
place of service; we are ministering chiefly to the poor and 
lowly. We have not sought admiration for our words from 
the acute or the learned. We have determined, through God's 
mercy, not to have the praise or the popularity that the world 
can give, but, according to our saint's own precept to love to 
be unknown" 

So closely have the Fathers of [the Oratory imitated their 
patron, that the following beautiful passage regarded by some 
critics as one of the finest passages in our literature descrip- 
tive of the death of the Blessed Virgin, might be used ap- 
propriately at a funeral service in the Oratory: 

And therefore (as she lived in obscurity) so she died in 
private. It became Him who died for the world, to die in 
the world's sight ; it became the Great Sacrifice to be lifted up 
on high, as a light that could not be hid. But she, the lily 
of Eden, who had always dwelt out of the sight of man, fitting- 
ly did she die in the garden's shade and amid the sweet flowers 
in which she had lived. Her departure made no noise in the 
world. The Church went about her common duties, preach- 
ing, converting, suffering ; there were persecutions, there was 
fleeing from place to place, there were martyrs, there were 
triumphs ; at length the news spread abroad that the Mother 
of God was no longer upon the Earth. Pilgrims went to and 
fro ; they sought for her relics but found them not ; did she 
die at Ephesus ? or did she die at Jerusalem ? Reports varied, 
but her tomb could not be pointed out, or if found, it was open, 



i8o NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY [May, 

and instead of her pure and fragrant body, there was a growth 
of lilies from the earth. So; inquirers went home and waited 
for further light. 

The remaining links that bound the soul of Newman to 
our Blessed Lady were purity and holiness. In a letter to 
Aubrey De Vere he enclosed a favorite sonnet from the pen 
of an Elizabethan a member of the Society of Jesus: 

Mother most pure; thou clear from any show 
Didst ever live of any sinful stain, 
'Gainst all the assaults of our accursed foe 
Thy very thoughts did victors still remain. 
From actual sins and from original 
Thy soul alone, and none but thine was free; 
Yea, the profoundest doctors, where they fail 
To speak of sin, rejoice to mention thee. 
Thy soul and body now rejoiced to shine 
Next to thy greatest Son, by much more pure 
Than cherubim or other Powers divine 
Endeavor, most pure Mother, to procure 
That when our souls with sins we taint, we may 
With flood of tears wash all the stain away. 

The art of poetry is a conspicuous failure in representing 
the august personality of the Mother of God, although volumes 
of verse have been written in her honor since the dawn of the 
Christian era. The reason is not far to seek. What God has 
idealized can be reproduced by the creative human artist only 
in an imperfect copy, owing to the imperfect symbolic langu- 
age or medium in which he works. Newman who knew so 
well the limitations of his art, has left but little verse relating 
to the Peerless Queen. "Songs of May " which are pretty and 
very musical, share the same fate as other similar attempts. 
Here are perhaps the best lines: 

I know of one Work 

From God's infinite Hand 
Which special and singular 

Ever must stand, 
So perfect so pure 

And of gifts such a store, 
That even Omnipotence 

Ne'er shall do more. 



i9i i.] NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY 181 

Again he writes: 

Thy loveliness can never fade; 

With stars above thy brow, 
And the pale moon beneath thy feet 

For ever throned art thou. 
O Mary pure and beautiful 

Thou art the Queen of May, 
Undying garlands deck thy hair 

And strew thy spotless way. 

It will be noted that there is no attempt in Newman's 
verse to depict the Blessed Virgin; her purity and loveliness 
are mentioned and suggested by a few of the choicest symbols, 
such as moon, stars, and flowers, while the imagination is left 
free regarding form, outline, and feature. Dante makes a fatal 
mistake in striving to depict definitely spiritual beauty and 
grandeur by means of the exact material image. 

Newman, like Milton, employs the suggestive method both 
in his "Songs of May" and "The Dream of Gerontius." It 
would bring me too far afield to pursue this thought further ; 
but readers who are interested in it will find the work of Newman 
and Milton far superior to that of Dante in this regard, while 
the Italian poet eclipses both in his grand synthesis and totality 
of vision. It answers our present purpose to observe that the 
purity of the Blessed Virgin is the keynote of his artistic work. 

On this basic quality, as on a pedestal, rests not only the 
august figure, but out of it springs the incommunicable charm 
of the spiritual life personal sanctity and holiness. The knight 
whose strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was 
pure lived again in St. Philip, who drew souls as a magnet 
draws steel. He lived again in Cardinal Newman, whose writ- 
ings to-day are drawing thousands of souls to Christ, because 
they discover, as it were by intuition, behind the written word, 
not only a cultured and urbane, but a sanctified personality. 
In his religious exercises and sermons at the Oratory, Newman 
emphasized continually the personal sanctity and holiness of 
the Blessed Virgin. One of his most ardent disciples Father 
Faber made many notes on those instructions and afterward 
incorporated them into a volume called, Growth in Holiness. 
The whole tenor may be stated in a few words: 



i82 NEWMAN'S DEVOTION TO OUR LADY [May, 

God's house and dwelling-place are holy ; His first taber- 
nacle of flesh was sacred and holy beyond any example or 
comparison. No limits can be assigned to the sanctity of 
Mary; her conception was immaculate in order that she 
might surpass all saints in [the fullness of her sanctification. 
How can we set bounds to the holiness of her who was the 
Mother of the Holiest ? In like manner the priesthood of 
Jesus Christ should be holy and sanctified. As the success 
of their mission depends for the most part on their personal 
sanctification ; as the Seraphim veil their faces before the 
august throne and cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of 
Sabbath ; so the world should be made to cry out : Holy, 
Holy, Holy, are the consecrated servants of the Lord, as they 
minister in the sanctuary of the Most High. 

In the mind of St. Philip and of Newman, worldliness and 
individual ambition were the great stumbling blocks in the way 
of personal sanctification. Philip often complained that the 
priests of Rome in his day were too worldly and that the 
bishops acted too frequently from worldly and ambitious motives 
" advancement of self rather than the spiritual advancement 
of the children of Jesus Christ." And he asks the pertinent 
question : " How can the laity be holy and sanctified when 
their spiritual guides are not such. How can souls be brought 
into the holy fold of Christ, if the shepherd, instead of being 
a sanctified man of God, is a proud, ambitious, self-seeking 
man of the world ? The laity have eyes, they see and act ac- 
cordingly." 

And so the " ever- womanly leads us upward forever," in a 
sense perhaps of which Goethe did not dream. The personal 
holiness of Mary, her stainless purity, her deep humility, her 
never failing serenity of soul gave to the Hermit of Birming- 
ham that spiritual shield and armor needful for the struggle. 
Through him she crushed the head of the serpent of heresy 
as she did of old at Lepanto or in the darker days of Arian- 
ism. Protestantism has received a death-wound it can never 
more command the enlightened brain and intelligence of Eng- 
land. Already the pulpits that once vomited blasphemy upon 
her sacred, spotless name are now selecting as favorite hymns, 
"My Rosary" and the "Ave Maria." Already the leaven is 
at work, and in God's own time pilgrimages will be made once 
more, not to Canterbury but to a humble tomb in Binning- 



i9i i.] THE MAID 183 

ham. And grateful hearts will utter the favorite prayer of 
him, who was their Voice crying in the wilderness: 

"O Mary! in thee is fulfilled the purpose of the Most High. 
Thy face and form, dear Mother, are like the morning star, 
which is thy emblem, bright and musical, breathing purity, 
telling of heaven, infusing peace. O Harbinger of day ! O 
Hope of the pilgrim, lead us still as thou hast led us in the 
dark night across the bleak desert, guide us on to our Lord 
Jesus guide us to our heavenly home." 



THE MAID.* 

BY KATHERINE BREGY. 

The whiteness of the lily once was thine, 
O little maid, who watched Domremy's sheep 

Thy converse with the saints, whose words occult 
Thou, like Another, in thy heart didst keep. 

And thine the whiteness of the cleaving sword, 
So blinding pure from out earth's blood-shedding, 

When, in the gloom of Rheims' imperial shrine, 
Thy lord of France was hallowed unto King. 

But now, more ardent whiteness wraps thee round, 
O martyr-saint, rejected and betrayed ! 

The sacrificial whiteness of the flame 
Is thine swift soaring, unafraid. 

The smoke is ours : its shame, its blindness too, 
And tears of the way thou valiantly hast trod. 

But thou, white warrior maid, on high art raised, 
A votive taper between us and God! 

* On May 30, 1431, Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid and Deliverer of France, was burned to death 
in the public square of Rouen. With beautiful and immortal irony, we of the Church now 
salute her as " La Bienheureuse" 




WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN. 

II. CONCLUSION. 
BY HILAIRE BELLOS. 

|N the last article we saw that some decision upon 
the fate of Britain after Central Roman govern- 
ment broke down was of paramount importance 
to oar judgment of the origins of Christendom. 
We also saw that the conventional picture 
drawn of the catastrophe was both misleading and fantastic, 
for we appreciated how slight was the documentary evidence 
and how little that documentary evidence bore out the theory 
of an "Anglo-Saxon conquest." 

Are we then to decide that our judgment upon this cap- 
ital moment in the history of the West must remain wholly 
suspended, and that we can come to no general conclusion 
concerning it ? By no means. The use of other and indirect 
forms of evidence besides those drawn from the very few and 
imperfect documents at our disposal permit us to be certain 
of one or two main facts, and a method about to be described 
will enable us to add to these half a dozen more; the whole 
may not be sufficient, indeed, to give us a general picture of 
the time, but it will prevent us from falling into any radical 
error with regard to the place of Britain in the future unity 
of Europe when we come to examine that unity as it rearose 
in the Middle Ages, partly preserved, partly reconstituted, by 
the Catholic Church. 

The historical method to which I allude and to which I 
will now introduce the reader may properly be called that of 
limitations. 

We may not know what happened between year x and year 
y, but if we know pretty well what happened and how things 
stood from year x minus m t to year x, and again from y to 
y plus n t then we have two "jumping off places," as it were, 
from which to build our bridge of speculation and deduction 
across the gulf between x and y. 

Suppose every record of what happened in the United 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 185 

States between 1862 and 1880 to be wiped out by the de- 
struction of all but one insufficient document, and supposing 
a fairly full knowledge to survive of the period between the 
Declaration of Independence and 1862, and a tolerable record 
to survive of the period between 1880 and the present year 
1911. Further, let there be ample traditional memory and 
legend that a war did take place, that the struggle was a 
struggle between North and South, and that its direct and 
violent financial and political effects were felt for over a decade. 

The student hampered by the absence of direct evidence 
might make many errors in detail and might be led to assert 
as probably true things at which a contemporary would smile; 
But by analogy with other contemporary countries, by the use 
of his common sense and his knowledge of human nature, of 
local climate and physical conditions, and of the motives com- 
mon to men, he would arrive at a dozen or so general con- 
clusions which would be just; what came after the gap would 
correct the deductions he had made from his knowledge of 
what came before it ; what came before the gap would help 
to correct false deductions drawn from what came after it ; 
his knowledge of contemporary life in Europe, let us say, or 
in western territories which the war did not reach, between 
1862 and 1880, would further correct his conclusions. 

In the ultimate result if he were to confine himself to the 
largest lines he could not be far wrong. He would appreciate 
the success of the North and how much of that success would 
be due to numbers; he would be puzzled perhaps by the 
position of abolitionist theory before and after the war, but 
he would know that the slaves were freed and he would 
rightly conclude that their freedom had been a direct histor- 
ical consequence and contemporary effect of the struggle. He 
would be equally right in rejecting any theory of the coloni- 
zation of the Southern States by Northerners; he would note 
the continuity of certain institutions, of the non-continuity of 
others, and in general if he were to state first what he was 
sure of, secondly what he could fairly guess, his brief sum- 
mary, though very incomplete, would not be off the rails of 
history; he would not be employing such a method to pro- 
duce historical nonsense, as so many of our modern historians 
have done in their desire to prove England in some way bar- 
baric in her origins. 



1 86 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

This much being said, let us carefully set down what we 
know with regard to Britain before and after the event. 

We know that before the Roman garrisons left the coun- 
try in 410, Britain was an organized Roman province. There- 
fore we know that it had regular divisions, with the town as 
the centre of each, many of the towns forming the Sees of 
the Bishoprics. We know that official records were kept in 
Latin and that Latin was the official tongue. We further 
know that the island at this time had for generations past 
suffered from incursions of Northern Barbarians in great num- 
bers over the Scottish border and from piratical raids of sea- 
farers, presumably of Germanic origin, in lesser numbers. 

Within four years of the end of the sixth century, nearly 
two hundred years after the cessation of regular Roman gov- 
ernment, missionary priests with a Roman commission land in 
Britain; from that moment writing returns and our chronicles 
begin again. What do they tell us? 

First, that the whole island is broken up into a number of 
small and warring districts. Secondly, that these numerous 
petty districts, each under its petty king or prince, tall into 
two divisions: some of these petty kings and courts are evi- 
dently Christian, Celtic-speaking and by all their corporate 
tradition inherit from the old Roman civilization. The other 
petty kings and courts are German-speaking and presumably, 
almost certainly we may say, have a German- speaking popu- 
lation under them. Thirdly, we find that these are not only 
mainly German-speaking, but in the mass pagan. There may 
have been relics of Christianity among them, but at any rate 
the courts and petty kinglets were pagan. Fourthly, the divi- 
sions between these two kinds of little states were to be found, 
the Christian roughly-speaking to the West and centre of the 
island, the pagan on the coasts of the South and the East. 

All this tallies with the old and distorted legends and 
traditions, as it does with the direct story of Gildas, and what- 
ever of direct evidence may survive in the careful compilation 
of the Venerable Bede. And the first definite historical truth 
which we must therefore conclude from this use of the method 
of limitations, is of the same sort as that to which the direct 
evidence of Gildas would have led us. A series of settlements 
had been effected upon the coasts of the South and the East 
of the island from, let us say, Dorsetshire or its neighbor- 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 187 

hood, right up to the Firth of Forth. They had been effected 
by the Germanic pirates and their foothold was good. 

Now let us use this method of limitations for matters a 
little less obvious, and ask, first, what were the limits between 
these two main groups of little confused and warring states; 
secondly, how far was either group coherent; thirdly, what 
had survived in either group of the old order; and fourthly, 
what novel thing had appeared during the darkness of this 
century and a half or two centuries.* 

Taking these four points seriatim , we first of all discover 
that, more than about a day's march from the sea or from the 
estuaries of rivers, we have no proof of the settlement of the 
pirates or the formation by them of local governments. It is 
impossible to fix the boundaries in such a chaos, but we 
know that the county of Kent, the seacoast of Sussex and 
the government at least of what is now Surrey, all within a 
raiding distance of Southampton Water, and of the Hamp- 
shire Avon, East Anglia, all Lincolnshire so far as we can 
judge, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Durham, the coastal part 
at least of Northumberland and the Lothians, was under the 
sway of the pirate kinglets. What of the Midlands? The 
region was a welter, and a welter of which we can tell very 
little indeed. It formed a sort of march or borderland between 
the two kinds of courts, those of the kinglets and chieftains 
who preserved a tradition of civilization, and those of the 
kinglets who had lost that tradition. This mixed borderland 
tended to coalesce apparently (the facts on which we have to 
judge are very few) under one chief. It was later known not 
under a Germanic name but under the low Latin name of 
"Mercia" or the "borderland." To the political aspect of 
this line of demarcation we will return in a moment. 

As to the second question: What kind of cohesion was 
there between the western or the eastern sets of these vague and 
petty governments? The answer is that the cohesion was of 
the loosest in either case : certain fundamental habits differen- 
tiated East from West, language for instance, and again religion. 
Until the coming of St. Augustine, the Western kinglets were 
Christian, the others pagan. There was a tendency in the 

* A century and a half from the very last Roman evidence, the visit of St. Germanus in 
447 to the landing of St. Augustine exactly 150 years later, nearly two centuries from the 
withdrawal of the legions to the same event. 



1 88 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

West apparently to hold together for common interests, but no 
longer to speak of one head. In the East there was a sort of 
tradition of headship very nebulous indeed but existant. Men 
talked of "chiefs of Britain," "Bretwaldas," a word, the first 
part of which is obviously Roman, the second part of which 
may be Germanic or Celtic or anything, and which we may 
guess to indicate headship. But and this must be especially 
noted there was no conscious or visible cohesion; there was 
no conscious and deliberate Anglo-Saxon attack against the 
Western Christians as such in the end of the sixth century, 
and no Western Christian resistance, organized as such, to the 
Germanic -speaking tribes and chieftains scattered along the 
eastern coast and midland. Each kinglet fought with each, 
pagan with pagan, Christian with Christian, Christian with pagan 
in alliance against pagan and Christian, and the cross divisions 
were innumerable. 

I have said that it is of capital importance to appreciate 
this point. It is difficult for us with our modern ideas to 
grasp it firmly. When we think of fighting and war, we can- 
not but think of one conscious nation fighting against another 
nation and this modern habit of mind has misled history upon 
the nature of Britain at the moment when civilization re- 
entered the island with St. Augustine. Maps are published 
with guesswork boundaries showing the "frontiers" of the 
"Anglo-Saxon conquest," and modern historians are fond of 
talking of the "limits" of that conquest being "extended" to 
such and such points. 

Now the men of the time would not have understood such 
language, for indeed it has no relation*to the facts of the time. 

The kinglet who could gather his men from a day's march 
round in the Thames Valley, fought against the kinglet who 
could gather his men from a day's march round to his strong- 
hold at Canterbury. Now a Germanic kinglet or at any rate 
a Germanic speaking kinglet and a pagan would be found 
allied with a Celtic-speaking kinglet and his Christian follow- 
ers; and the allies would march indifferently against another 
Christian or another pagan. There was indeed a westward 
movement in language and habit which I shall mention later, 
but as far as warfare goes there was no movement westward 
or eastward. Fighting went on continually in all directions, 
from a hundred separate centres, and if there are reliable tra- 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 189 

ditions of a Germanic kinglet commanding some mixed host 
reaching and raiding the valley of the Avon, so there are his- 
torical records of Celtic kinglets reaching and raiding the east- 
ern settlements. 

Now to the third point: What had survived of the old 
order in either half of this anarchy? Of Roman government! 
of Roman order, of true Roman civilization, of that palatium 
of which we spoke in a previous article, nothing had anywhere 
survived. The disappearance of the Roman taxing and judicial 
machinery is the mark of Britain's great wound. It differentia- 
tes the fate of Britain from that of Gaul. The West of Britain 
had lost this Roman tradition of government just as much as 
the East. The Picts and Scots and the Saxon pirates, since they 
could not read or write or build or make a road or do any- 
thing appreciably useful perhaps lost it when they settled more 
thoroughly than did the remains of the Christians, but the 
chieftains who retained the Roman Religion had lost the Roman 
organization of society thoroughly. The Roman language 
seems to have gone; the Roman method of building had cer- 
tainly gone. In the West the learned could still write, but 
they must have done so most sparingly if we are to judge by 
the absence of any remains. Religion in a truncated and 
starved form, survived indeed in the West ; it was the religion 
which a Roman population cut off from all other Roman popu- 
lations, might be expected to develop. Paganism seems to 
have died out in the West, but the mutilated Catholicism that 
had taken its place was provincial, ill-instructed, and out of 
touch with Europe. We may guess, though it is only guess- 
work, that its chief aliment came from the spiritual fervor, un- 
disciplined and tll-ordinated but vivid, of Britanny and of 
Ireland. 

What had survived in the Eastern part? Perhaps in 
patches the original language. It is a question which will be 
dealt with before the end of this article whether Germanic 
dialects had not been known in Eastern Britain long before 
the departure of the Roman legions. But anyhow, if we 
suppose the main speech of the East to have been Celtic and 
Latin before the pirate raids, then that main speech had in 
the main gone; so in the main had religion; so certainly had 
the arts, reading and writing and the rest. Over-sea com- 
merce certainly dwindled, but to what extent we cannot tell. 



190 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

It is not credible that it wholly disappeared ; but on the other 
hand there is very little trace in the sparse Continental records 
of the time of connection with southern and eastern Britain. 

Lastly, and perhaps most important, the old bishoprics had 
gone. When St. Gregory sent his missionaries to refound the 
old sees of Britain, his plan of refounding had to be wholly 
changed. Tradition was lost ; and Britain is the only Roman 
province in which this very great solution of continuity is to 
be discovered. 

One thing did not disappear, and that was the life of the 
towns. 

Of course a Roman town in the sixth or seventh century 
was not what it had been in the fourth or fifth, but it is re- 
markable that in all this wearing away of the old Roman 
structure the framework of that structure (which was and is 
municipal) remained. 

If we cast up the principal towns apparent when the light 
of history returns to Britain, we find that the great majority 
of them are Roman in origin; and what is more important, 
we find that the proportion of surviving Roman towns is just 
as large as in other provinces of the Empire which we know 
to have preserved the continuity of this civilization. Chester, 
Manchester, Lancaster, Carlisle, York, Canterbury, Rochester, 
Corbridge, Newcastle, Colchester, Winchester, Chichester, 
Gloucester, Cirencester, Leicester, Old Salisbury, Lincoln, Great 
London itself ; these pegs upon which the framework of Roman 
civilization were stretched stood firm through the confused 
welter of wars between all these petty chieftains, German, Irish 
and Scotch. 

There was no real disturbance of this scheme of towns un- 
til the industrial revolution of modern times came to diminish 
the almost immemorial importance of the local cities (Chicester, 
Canterbury, Lincoln, etc.) and to supplant their economic 
functions by the huge aggregations of the Potteries, the Mid- 
lands, South Lancashire, the coal fields and the modern ports. 

The student of this main problem in European history, the 
fate of Britain, must particularly note the phenomenon here 
described. It is the capital point of proof in our true historic 
thesis, that Roman Britain, though suffering grievously from 
the Saxon, Scotch and Irish raids, and though cut off for a 
time from civilization, did survive. 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 191 

Those who prefer to think of England as a colony of bar- 
barians in which the Roman story was destroyed, have to sup- 
press many a truth and to conceive many an absurdity in 
order to support their story, but no absurdity of theirs is 
worse than the fiction [they put forward with regard to the 
story of the English towns. It was solemnly maintained by 
Freeman and the Protestant school in general that these great 
Roman towns, one after the other, were first utterly destroyed 
by the German " colonists," then left in ruins for generations, 
and then re-occupied upon some sudden whim by the new- 
comers ! It needs no historical learning to show how laugh- 
able such an hypothesis is; but historical learning makes it 
even more impossible than it is laughable. 

Certain few towns of course perished in the course of cen- 
turies: the same is true for that matter in Spain and in Gaul 
and in Italy. Some few (as in Spain, in Gaul and in Italy) 
were actually destroyed in the act of war. There is tradition 
of something of the sort at Pevensey (the old port of Ander- 
ida) and again at Wroxeter under the Wrekin. A great num- 
ber of towns again (as in every other province of the Empire) 
naturally diminished with the effect of time. Dorchester on 
the Thames, for instance, seems to have been a biggish place 
for centuries after the first troubles with the pirates, and to-day 
it is only a village; it did not decay as the result of war. 
Sundry small towns became villages, some few sank to ham- 
lets as generation after generation of change passed over them 
but we will find just the same thing going on in Picardy 
or in Aquitaine. What did not happen was a subversion of 
the Roman municipal system. 

Again, the unwalled settlement outside the walled town 
often grew at the expense of the municipality within the walls. 
Huntingdon is an example of this, and so is St. Albans, and 
so, probably, is Cambridge. But these also have their paral- 
lels in every other province of the West. Even in distant 
Africa you find exactly the same thing. You find it in the 
northern suburb of Paris itself Paris, which is perhaps the best 
example of Roman continuity in all the North* 

The seaports naturally changed in character and often in 
actual site, especially upon the flat, and therefore changeable 
Eastern shores and that was exactly what you find in similar 
circumstances throughout the tidal waters of the Continent. 



192 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

There is not the shadow or the trace of any widespread de- 
struction of the Roman municipal system. 

The phenomenon is the more remarkable when we consider 
first that the names of Roman towns given above do not pre- 
tend to be a complete list (one may add immediately from 
memory the Dorsetshire, Dorchester, Exeter, Dover, Bath, 
Doncaster, etc.), and secondly that we have a most imperfect 
knowledge of the total list of Roman towns in Britain. A 
common method among those who would belittle the continuity 
of our civilization is to deny a Roman origin to any town in 
which Roman remains do not happen to have been noted as 
yet by antiquarians. Even under that test we can be certain 
that Windsor, Lewes, and twenty others, were seats of Roman 
habitation, though the remaining records of the first four cen- 
turies tell us nothing of them. But in nine cases out of ten 
the mere absence of catalogued Roman remains proves nothing. 
The soil of towns is shifted and reshiited continually generation 
after generation. The antiquary is not stationed at every dig- 
ging of a foundation or sinking of a well, or laying of a drain, 
or paving of a street. His methods are of recent establish- 
ment. We have lost centuries of research, and even with all 
our modern interest in such matters the antiquary is not in- 
formed once in a hundred times of chance discoveries, unless 
perhaps they be of coins. When, moreover, we consider that 
for fifteen hundred years this turning and returning of the soil 
has been going on within the municipalities, it is ridiculous to 
pretend that such a place as Oxford, for instance a town of 
capital importance in the Dark Ages had no Roman root sim- 
ply because the modern antiquary is not yet possessed of any 
Roman remains recently discovered in it. 

One further point must be noticed before we leave this 
prime matter: had there been any considerable destruction of 
the Roman towns of Britain large and small, we should expect 
it where the pirate raids fell earliest and most fiercely. The 
historical truth has no relation to such a supposition. Wroxeter 
and Anderida were, ii we may trust tradition, destroyed in 
war; Anderida is just where the pirates would first strike, but 
Wroxeter is right away in the West and in the heart of the 
country which the raids failed to reach. Lincoln, York, New- 
castle, Colchester, London, Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, Chi- 
Chester, Dover, Portchester, Winchester, the very principal ex- 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 193 

amples of survival, are all of them either right on the eastern 
and southern coast within striking distance of it. 

As to decay, the great garrison centre of the Second 
Legion, in the heart of a country which the pirate raids never 
reached, has sunk to be little Caerleon upon Usk, just as surely 
as Dorchester on the Thames, half way to the eastern coast, 
has decayed from a town to a village, and just as surely as 
Richboro, right on the pirate coast itself, has similarly decayed. 
As with destruction, so with decay, there is no increasing 
proportion as we go from the West eastward towards the Teu- 
tonic settlements. 

But the point need not be labored. The supposition that 
the Roman towns disappeared a supposition upon which the 
whole " barbaric " school depends is no longer tenable, and 
the wonder is how so astonishing an assertion should have 
crept into sober history at all. The Roman towns survived, 
and, with them, Britain, though maimed. 

Fourthly, what novel things had come in ? To answer that 
is of course to answer the chief question of all, and it is the 
most difficult of all to answer. I have said that presumably 
on the South and East the language was new. There were 
Germanic troops in Britain before the legions disappeared, there 
was a constant intercourse with Germanic auxiliaries; some 
have even thought that "Belgic" tribes, whether in Gaul or 
Britain, spoke Teutonic dialects; but it is safer to believe 
from the combined evidence of place names and of later tradi- 
tions, that there was a real change in the common talk of most 
men within a march of the eastern sea or the estuaries of its 
rivers over a belt of country, here twelve, there fifty, and even 
(where two estuaries came near enough for a day's march from 
each to intercept the country behind) one hundred miles broad. 

This change in language, if it occurred and we must pre- 
sume it did, though it is not absolutely certain, for there may 
have been a large amount of German speech among the people 
before the Roman soldiers departed this change of language, 
I say, is the chief novel matter. The decay of religion means 
less, for when the pirate raids began, though the Empire was 
officially Christian, the Church had taken no firm root in the 
outlying parts. 

As for those institutions, the meetings of armed men to 
decide public affairs, money compensation for injuries, the or- 
VOL. zcin. 13 



194 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

ganizing of society by " hundreds/' etc., which historical guess- 
work has been so prone to ascribe to " Anglo-Saxon " traditions, 
and to a Germanic origin, a little knowledge of contemporary 
Europe will teach us that there was nothing novel or peculiar 
in them. They appear universally among the Iberians as among 
the Celts, among the pure Germans round the Rhine, the mixed 
Franks and Batavians upon the delta of that river, and the 
geographically attached lowlands of the Scheldt and the Meuse ; 
even among the untouched Roman populations; everywhere 
you get, as the dark ages approach and advance, (though under 
different names) the meetings of armed men in council, the 
chieftain assisted in his government by such meetings, the 
weaponed assent or dissent of the great men in conference, 
the divisions into hundreds, the " wergild," and all the rest 
of it. 

Any man who says (and most men of the last generation 
said it) that among the changes of the two hundred years' gap 
was the introduction of novel institutions peculiar to the Ger- 
mans, is speaking in ignorance of the European unity and of 
that vast landscape of our civilization which every true historian 
should, however dimly, possess. The same things, talked of in 
Germanic terms between Poole Harbor and the Bass Rock, were 
talked of in Celtic terms from the Land's End to Glasgow; 
the chroniclers wrote them down in Latin terms everywhere 
from Africa to the Grampions and from the Balkans to the 
Atlantic. The very Basques, who were so soon to begin the 
resistance of Christendom against the Mohammedan in Spain, 
spoke of them in Basque terms. But the actual things the 
institutions for which all these various Latin, Basque, German, 
and Celtic words stood, were much the same throughout the 
body of Europe. They will always reappear wherever men of 
our European race are thrown into small, warring communities, 
avid of combat, jealous of independence, organized under a 
military aristocracy and reverent of custom. 

Lastly, let the reader consider the curious point of language. 
No more striking simulacrum of racial unity can be discovered 
than a common language or set of languages; but it is a 
simulacrum, and a simulacrum only. It is neither a proof nor 
a product of true unity. Language passes from conqueror to 
conquered, from conquered to conqueror, almost indifferently. 
Convenience, accident, and many a mysterious force which the 



191 1.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 195 

historian cannot analyze, propagates it, or checks it. Gaul, 
thickly populated, organized by but a few garrisons of Roman 
soldiers and one army corps of occupation, talks Latin univer- 
sally, almost within living memory of the Roman conquest. 
Yet two corners of Gaul, the one fertile and rich, the other 
barren, Amorica and the Basque lands, never accept Latin. 
Africa, colonized and penetrated with Italian blood as Gaul 
never was, retains the Punic speech century after century, to 
the very ends of Roman rule. Spain, conquered and occupied 
by the Mohammedan, and settled in very great numbers by a 
highly civilized Oriental race, talks to-day a Latin just touched 
(in a few words but much more in certain affixes and accents) 
by Arabic influence. Lombardy, Gallic in blood and with a 
strong infusion of repeated Germanic invasions (larger than 
ever Britain had) has lost all trace of Gallic accent, even, in 
language, save in one or two Alpine valleys, and of German 
speech retains nothing whatever. The plain of Hungary and 
the Carpathian Mountains are a tesselated pavement of lan- 
guages quite wholly dissimilar, Mongolian, Teutonic, Slav. 
The Balkan States have, not upon their westward or European 
side, but at their extreme opposite limit, a population which 
continues the memory of the Empire in its speech ; and their 
speech is not the Greek of Byzantium, which civilized them, but 
the Latin of Rome! 

The most implacable of Mohammedans under French rule 
in Algiers, speak and have spoken for centuries, not Arabic 
in any form, but Berber, and the same speech reappears be- 
yond a dense belt of Arabic in the far desert to the south. 

The Irish, a people in permanent contrast to the English, 
yet talk in the main the English tongue. 

The French-Canadians, accepting a nominal unity with 
Britain, retain their tongue and reject English. 

Look where we will, we discover in regard to language 
something as incalculable as the human will, and as various 
as human instinct. The deliberate attempt to impose it has 
nearly always failed. Sometimes it survives as the result of 
a deliberate policy. Sometimes it is restored as a piece of 
national protest Bohemia is an example. Sometimes it 
" catches " naturally and runs for hundreds of miles covering 
the most varied peoples and even the most varied civiliza- 
tions with a common veil. 



196 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

Now the so-called "Anglo-Saxon Conquest" of Britain 
has, as we have seen, no historical basis. The Roman towns 
were not destroyed, the original population was certainly not 
exterminated even in the few original Teutonic settlements. 
Such civilization as the little courts of the Teutonic chieftains 
maintained was degraded Roman or it was nothing ; but the 
language, the group of German dialects which may have taken 
root before the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the East 
of Britain, and which at any rate were well rooted there a 
hundred years after, tended to spread westward. 

Once civilization had come back and had come back by 
way of the South and East, this tendency of the Teutonic 
dialects to spread as being the language of [an organized offi- 
cialdom and now of proper armies and courts of law, was im- 
mensely strengthened. It soon and rapidly swamped all but 
the western hills. But of regular colonization, of the advance 
of a race, this extension of language is no proof at all unless 
other proofs could be found to support it. And those other 
proofs are absent; or rather, the facts we have negative any 
such supposition. 

What we know, then, of Britain when it is re-civilized, we 
know of it through Latin terms or through the Teutonic dia- 
lects which ultimately and much later merge into what we call 
Anglo-Saxon. An historic King of Sussex bears a Celtic 
name, but we read of him if not in the Latin then in the 
Teutonic tongue, and his realm, however feeble the proportion 
of Teutonic blood in it, bears a Teutonic title "the South 
Saxons." 

The mythical founder of Wessex bears a Celtic name, but 
we read of him if not in Latin then in Anglo-Saxon. Not a 
cantref but a hundred is the term of social orgnization in 
England when it is re-civilized ; not a eglwys but a church is 
the name of the building which new civilization hears Mass 
in. The ruler, whatever his blood or the blood of his sub- 
jects, is a Cynning, not a Reg nor a Prins. His house and 
court are a hall, not a plds. In a word we get our whole 
picture of renovated Britain after the Church is restored col- 
ored by the Teutonic speech. But the Britain we see thus 
colored is not a Teutonic Britain; still less is it barbaric. It 
is a Christian Britain of mixed origin, of ancient municipali- 
ties cut off for a time by the pirate occupation of the South 



i9i i.] WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN 197 

and East, but now reunited with the one civilization whose 
root is in Rome. 

We are now in a position to sum up our conclusions upon 
the whole matter: 

Britain, connected with the rest of civilization by the nar- 
row and 'precarious neck of sea- travel over the Straits of 
Dover had, in the last centuries of Roman rule, often fur- 
nished great armies to usurpers or Imperial claimants, some- 
times leaving the island almost bare of regular troops. But 
with the advent of peace these armies had returned, and the 
rule of the central government had been fairly continuous un- 
til the beginning of the fifth century. At that moment in 
410 A. D. the bulk of the trained soldiers again left upon a 
foreign adventure, the central rule of Rome was breaking 
down ; these regulars never returned though many auxiliary 
troops may have remained. 

At this moment when every province of the West was 
subject to disturbance and the overrunning of barbarian 
bands, small but destructive, Britain particularly suffered. 
Scotch, Irish and German barbarians looted her on all sides. 

These last, the Saxon pirates, brought in as auxiliaries in 
the Roman fashion, may already have been settled in places 
upon the eastern coast, their various Germanic dialects may 
already have been common upon those coasts, but, at any 
rate, after the breakdown of the Roman order, permanent set- 
tlements under little local chiefs were made. The towns were 
not destroyed, and save in actual fighting we cannot believe 
that either the women or the slaves, or for that matter the 
greater part of the free population, fell; but wealth declined 
and all civilization ; and side by side with this ruin came the 
replacing of the Roman official language by the various Ger- 
manic dialects of these little courts. The new official Roman 
religion certainly the religion of a small minority almost or 
wholly disappeared in these eastern settlements. The Roman 
language similarly fell in the many small principalities of the 
western part of the island; they reverted to their original Cel- 
tic dialects. There was no boundary between the hotchpotch 
of little German-speaking territories and the Celtic territories 
to the west of them. There was no common feeling of West 
against East or East against West; all fought indiscriminately. 
After a time which would be covered by two long lives, dur- 



198 WHAT HAPPENED IN BRITAIN [May, 

ing which decline had been very rapid, and as noticeable in 
the West as in the East throughout the island, the full influ- 
ence of civilization returned with the landing in 597 of St. 
Augustine, and the missionaries sent by the Pope. 

But the little Teutonic courts happened to have settled on 
coasts which occupied the gateway into the island ; it was thus 
through them that civilization had been cut off, and it was 
through them that civilization came back. On this account: 

(1) The little kingdoms tended to coalesce under the united 
discipline of the Church. 

(2) The united civilization so forming was able to advance 
gradually across the island. 

(3) Though the institutions of barbarism were much the 
same wherever Roman civilization had declined, though the 
council of magnates surrounding the King, the assemblies of 
armed men, the division of land and people into " hundreds," 
and the rest of it was common to Europe, these things were 
given, over a wider and wider area of Britain, Teutonic names 
because it was through the Teutonic type of language that civili- 
zation had returned. The kinglets of the East, as civilization 
grew, were continually fed from the Continent strengthened 
with ideas, institutions, arts, and the discipline of the Church ; 
politically they became more and more powerful, until the 
whole island except the Cornish peninsula, Wales, and the 
Northwestern Mountains, was more or less administered by 
kinglets mainly of Germanic descent and wholly of Germanic 
speech, while the West, cut off from this Latin restoration, de- 
cayed. 

By the time that this old Roman province of Britain re- 
arises as an ordered, Christian land in the eighth century, its 
records are kept not only in Latin, but in the Teutonic dia- 
lects. Many place names, and the general speech of its in- 
habitants have become Teutonic, and this, a superficial but a 
very vivid change, is the chief result of the slow transforma- 
tion that has been going on in Britain for 300 years. Britain 
is reconquered for civilization and that easily ; it is again an 
established part of the European unity, with the same sacra- 
ments, the same morals and all those conceptions of human 
life which bound Europe together morally even more firmly 
than the old central government of Rome had bound it. And 
within this unity England was to remain for 800 years. 




HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

BY MARY V. HILLMANN. 

JINCE knowledge of an author's personality is es- 
sential to a correct interpretation of his work, 
it is unnecessary to apologize to lovers of Haw- 
thorne for a discussion of his attitude towards 
Transcendentalism. This movement, as a liter- 
ary impulse, must have affected our great American novelist ; 
for, notwithstanding his assigning to M. de 1'Aubepine mani- 
festly the author himself "an unfortunate position between 
the Transcendentalists and the great body of pen-and-ink men 
who address the intellect and sympathy of the multitude," * 
the frequent references in Hawthorne's works to topics of in- 
terest to his reformative contemporaries, attest the part he 
took though indirectly in the discussion and criticism result- 
ing from the general ferment. 

What his relation was, however, to the philosophical and 
practical sides of Transcendentalism, is a question occasioning 
some difference of opinion in various quarters. It will be 
remembered that on its practical side, Transcendentalism dis- 
played itself in the attempts of its agents to establish such 
communities as Fruitlands and Brook Farm, in the active labors 
of its representatives in the anti-slavery cause, in their efforts 
to promote other reforms, and in their attraction to "new 
things" such as phrenology, mesmerism, and spiritualism. 
To forestall the possible objection that the Transcendentalists 
were not in sympathy with many of the minor practical 
reforms of the day, it is only necessary to mention Margaret 
Fuller's agitation of the woman question, Alcott's vegetarian- 
ism, and Emerson's trial of the same theory of dietetics 
together with his abortive attempt at introducing in his own 
home a patriarchal system of living. 

Concerning the philosophy of Transcendentalism it seems 
impossible either to obtain or to formulate any satisfactory 
definition. Such explanations as that it asserted the " poten- 

* Rappacini's Daughter. Introduction Mosses frem an Old Manse, p. 107. 



200 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

tial perfectability of man," that it was "an assertion of the 
worth and dignity of man," that it was " a reaction against 
the moral and political scepticism which resulted from the 
prevailing philosophy of sensation," are inadequate, since they 
are applicable to Christianity, and since, although they touch 
upon one of the striking features of the Transcendental phil- 
osophy, namely, its reprobation of the^Calvinistic doctrine of 
total depravity, they do not include the characteristics which 
made Transcendentalism not merely a rejection of Calvinism, 
but a creed with distinct tenets of its own. The one point 
upon which the Transcendentalists agreed if Emerson, Parker, 
Alcott, and Margaret Fuller are considered typical representa- 
tives of the movement in its philosophical aspect, was their 
disregard of all external authority and of tradition, and their 
consequent repudiation of Christianity. On other points there 
was variety of opinion among them. The fact that Haw- 
thorne was contemporary with these visionary thinkers has 
led many writers rather unadvisedly to name him among the 
Transcendentalists; his real attitude toward the movement, 
however, may be perceived by a careful study of the several 
influences that affected his rather uneventful life. 

The first operative factor in Hawthorne's life was New 
England Puritanism. Of course, the author of such strictures 
as appear in The Scarlet Letter was never actually a Puritan 
in doctrine. In his boyhood days, it is true, he may have 
shuddered, like Parker and Channing, as he sat in that " frozen 
purgatory" of his childhood, the New England meeting house, 
and listened to the terrifying sermons which the predominant 
theology required. There is no reason to believe, however, 
that Puritanic rigors were enforced in his home. Certainly, 
the picture of his crouching on Sundays, " hour after hour 
over Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress " scarcely indicates that he 
felt the restrictions of the old-time Sabbath. His letters 
written from college, too, show his aversion to compulsory 
church attendance. The twelve years of comparative solitude 
which he spent after his graduation from Bowdoin immedi- 
ately preceded the strongest wave of ' religious " Transcend- 
entalism. During this time, his chief concern was with litera- 
ture; he was working and toiling for that fame which some 
years later, as he had the satisfaction to record, he won. 
Although he may not have been deeply moved by what he 



i9i i.] HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 201 

called the religious earthquake, he was not indifferent to 
religion. It is true that he had revolted from Puritanism ; it 
is also true that he stood aloof from all forms and sects of 
Protestantism to the extent of abstaining from church member- 
ship. Catholicism he simply ignored, undoubtedly sharing in 
the prejudice characteristic, as O. B. Frothingham tells us, 
of the intellectual class of New England, which regarded the 
Catholic faith of the ages as the religion of Irish laboring 
people and of the ignorantly superstitious. Though forced to 
discard the creed of his ancestors, Hawthorne did not fail to 
cherish the spiritual ambitions of his nature. Feeling deeply 
the religious necessities of the soul, he longed for a religion 
that, without contradicting the dictates of reason, would answer 
to all the desires of the human heart. 

The little sketch, Sunday at Home, written in 1837, throws 
some light on his attitude toward religion at the end of his 
twelve years of solitude. He sees a beauty in the Sabbath 
sunshine. "And ever let me recognize it," he writes. "Some 
illusions, and this among them, are the shadows of great 
truths. Doubts may flit around me, or seem to close their 
evil wings and settle down; but so long as I imagine that 
the earth is hallowed, and the light of heaven retains its 
sanctity on the Sabbath while that blessed sunshine lives 
within me never can my soul have lost the instinct of its 
faith. If it have gone astray, it will return."* In the same 
sketch he expresses a kind of compunction for his delinquency 
in failing to attend the services : " O, I ought to have gone 
to church ! The bustle of the rising congregation reaches my 
ears. They are standing up to pray. Could I bring my heart 
in unison with those who are praying in yonder church, and 
lift it heavenward with a fervor of supplication, but no distinct 
request, would not that be the safest kind of prayer ? ' Lord, 
look down upon me in mercy ! ' with that sentiment gushing 
from my heart, might I not leave all the rest to Him?" Fi- 
nally he asks: "Was it worth while to rear this massive 
edifice, to be a desert in the heart of the town and populous 
only for a few hours of each seventh day?" and answers, "O, 
but the church is a symbol of religion. May its site, which 
was consecrated on the day when the first tree was felled, be 
kept holy forever, a spot of solitude and peace, amid the 

* Sunday at Home ( Twice- Told Tales] . p. 34. 



202 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

trouble and vanity of our week-day world ! There is a moral, 
and a religion, too, even in the silent walls. And may the 
steeple still point heavenward, and be decked with the hal- 
lowed sunshine of the Sabbath morn ! " Such enthusiasm is 
surely quite opposed to the spirit of at least one Tran- 
scendentalist who maintained that religion put "an affront 
upon nature." 

After his period of retirement Hawthorne's immediate con- 
nection with the Transcendentalists began through his acquaint- 
ance with the Peabody family. In a short time be found 
himself involved in the Brook Farm enterprise. Possibly the 
result of his experience with the dreamers determined his 
attitude toward the whole movement. 

The fact that Hawthorne spent a few months of his life at 
Brook Farm has frequently been adduced as a proof of his 
sympathy with the Transcendentalists; even a casual reading 
of the American Note Books, however, reveals the experimental 
nature of his connection with the Farm. Rather significant of 
this experimental disposition is a little parenthesis in a letter 
written to Sophia Peabody upon his arrival at the home of 
the new community. "I laud my stars," he writes, "that you 
will not have your first impression of (perhaps) our future 
home on such a day as this."* In this sentence, indeed, there 
is implied the true reason for his associating himself with the 
radicals, in a poetic, possibly in a transcendental fashion, he 
was house-hunting. Deeply expressive, moreover, of his un- 
sympathetic feeling toward the Brook Farmers, is the fact 
that, in spite of the material loss he incurred by withdrawal, 
he left the community with emotions of joy, asssured that he 
was not one of the elect. In his letters and in the journal 
entries written toward the end of his sojourn with the reform- 
ers, there is a decided note of discontent. References to 
" these people," " this queer community," " their enterprise," 
imply his aloofness from the whole plan. Attention is called 
by Professor Woodberry to the "unmistakable note of relief" 
in the introduction to The Scarlet Letter where Hawthorne 
mentions his timely abandonment of a "fellowship of toil and 
impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethern of Brook 
Farm." 

Although the " Note Book " entries are sufficiently illumina- 

* American Note Books, p. 227. 



i9i i.] HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 203 

ting, The Blithedale Romance throws additional light upon the 
subject of Hawthorne's relations with the Brook Farm com- 
munity. Through the "Romance" as through the Brook 
Farm entries in the "Note Books" there flows a gentle, kindly 
satire. The significant little " perhaps " of the first entry is 
echoed in Coverdale's account of his arrival at Blithedale. 
To him and to his friends came "cold, desolate, distrustful 
phantoms" to warn them "back within the boundaries of or- 
dinary life."* The purpose of the community is characterized 
as generous and " absurd in full proportion with its generos- 
ity ; " f its position in regard to society at large is described 
as one of "new hostility rather than new brotherhood." The 
tone of the "Romance," indeed, is almost identical with that 
of the notes on Brook Farm. The playful humor, the latent 
satire in both force upon the reader the conviction that the 
writer's view of the whole affair was quite the reverse of seri- 
ous. His attitude is summed up in the words of Coverdale, 
when, from his grapevine hermitage the same that appears in 
the "Note Books" he gazes upon the scene of the new en- 
terprize : " Our especial scheme of reform . . . looked so 
ridiculous that it was impossible not to laugh aloud. "J 

Hawthorne's sceptical view of the Brook Farm project does 
not, of course, conclusively prove his want of fellow-feeling 
with such Transcendentalists as took no active part in that 
attempt at communistic living. More convincing, perhaps is 
his conduct in connection with other practical reforms. In 
the anti-slavery agitation he was conspicuous for his conserva- 
tism. On the problem of woman's rights he gave utterance 
to opinions not at all " transcendental." Indeed, he asserted 
that, if it were possible for woman to undergo the mighty 
change which would be necessary before she could take ad- 
vantage of a reformed system of society, " the ethereal es- 
sence, wherein she has her truest life" would be found "to 
have evaporated." His wife's attraction to spiritualism caused 
him frequently to express his views on that much discussed 
topic of his time. He was strongly opposed to the practices 
of the spiritualists from "no want of faith in mysteries" but 
from "a deep reverence of the soul." As a matter of fact, 
he was interested in spiritualism, as in other contemporary 

* Blithedale Romance, p. 341. t Ibid, p. 242, 

t Ibid. p. 434. 



204 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

" new things " with a view chiefly to the use he might make 
of it as material for his stories. 

It is sometimes asserted, however, that although Haw- 
thorne may not have been a practical reformer, his want of 
reverence for the past attests his sympathy with the Trans- 
cendentalists. Yet surely such arraignments of antiquity as 
occur in The House of the Seven Gables and in the English 
Note Books are expressions of a single mood. The American 
consul felt it his duty not to be too enthusiastic over the an- 
tiquity of a country from which his forefathers had revolted; 
nevertheless, he could not have given that country a more 
affectionate title than he did when he called it " Our Old 
Home. 1 ' And after all, he admitted that "the new things are 
based and supported on the sturdy old things."* In refer- 
ence to Holgrave's attacks upon the past in The House of the 
Seven Gables, the same comment may be made that should be 
made upon the sentiments expressed by any character they 
need interpretation. The author's own remarks upon the 
character of Holgrave certainly should prevent rash conclu- 
sions on the part of the reader. Hawthorne is of the opinion 
that it was well for Holgrave to cherish such ideas. "This 
enthusiasm, infusing itself through the calmness of his charac- 
ter and thus taking an aspect of settled thought and wisdom, 
would serve to keep his youth pure, and make his aspirations 
high. And when with the years settling down more weightily 
upon him his early faith should inevitably be modified by ex- 
perience, it would be with no harsh and sudden revolution of 
his sentiments. He would still have faith in man's brighten- 
ing destiny, and perhaps love him all the better, as he should 
recognize his helplessness in bis own behalf; and the haughty 
faith with which he began life would be well bartered for a 
far humbler one at its close, in discerning that man's best di- 
rected effort accomplishes a kind of dream, while God is the 
sole worker of realities." f We are reminded of the Trans- 
cendental doctrine of self-reliance, also of the fact that Emer- 
son, toward the close of his life, " resumed the habit of going 
to church," $ a tacit admission that the " new faith " which he 
had attempted to promulgate was not entirely satisfying. It 
is moreover noticeable that Hawthorne represents Holgrave 

* English Nate Books, p. 588. f House of the Seven Gables, Ch. XII., p. 216. 

\ Woodberry, Life of Emerson, p. 182. 



HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 205 

as becoming eventually a conservative, with an admiration for 
the venerableness of the past and an appreciation of the " im- 
pression of permanence" which he considers "essential to the 
happiness of any one moment." 

As to the advisability of associating with such radicals as 
the youthful Holgrave, Hawthorne wrote in The Blithedale 
Romance \ "No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity if 
he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, 
without periodically returning to the settled system of things, 
to correct himself by a new observation from the old stand- 
point."* The "old standpoint" always appealed to Haw- 
thorne as the safest from which to view the progress of the 
world. In Earth's Holocaust he satirized . in his usual quiet 
way the enthusiasts of his time who were expecting the great 
wonder of the Age, the American Scholar, to dazzle the world 
with something entirely new in literature. A typical repre- 
sentative of the Transcendentalists appears in 'the Christmas 
Banquet, "one of a numerous tribe, although he deemed him- 
self unique since the creation a theorist who had conceived 
a plan by which all the wretchedness of the earth, moral and 
physical, might be done away, and the bliss of the millenium 
at once accomplished." f Whatever Hawthorne's philosophy 
was, he was decidedly not in sympathy with the practical re- 
forms of Transcendentalism. 

A discussion of Hawthorne's attitude toward the philoso- 
phy of Transcendentalism involves, as a matter of course, a 
consideration of his relations with Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 
high priest of the movement. Although Hawthorne admired 
Emerson, there was no bond of fellow-feeling between them, 
especially on subjects that vitally affect the human heart and 
mind. The American Note Books contain unexpectedly few 
references to the " sage of Concord." One or two touch 
upon his attractive personality. The wording of one corrobo- 
rates the opinion that Hawthorne did not regard himself as a 
literary Transcendentalist. He speaks of a Mr. T from 
Newburyport, " a man of natural refinement, and a taste for 
reading that seems to point towards the writings of Emerson, 
Thoreau, and men of that class."! The account of a " pedes- 

* The Blithedale Romance, Ch. XVI., p. 480. 
t The Christmas Banquet (Mosses) p. 342. 
\ American Note Books, p. 234. 



206 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

trian excursion with Mr. Emerson " is rather interesting as 
indicating that Hawthorne did not greatly feel the spell of 
Emerson's influence. Of the two days' excursion, Hawthorne 
recalls nothing except that his companion had a theological 
discussion with two Shaker brethren, " the particulars of 
which," Hawthorne writes, " have faded from my memory. I 
recollect nothing so well as the aspect of some fringed gen- 
tians, which we saw growing by the roadside and which were 
so beautiful that I longed to turn back and pluck them. 91 
The picture suggested is irresistible Emerson talking up in 
cloudland, and Hawthorne characteristically turning to "things 
that are." 

Oa questions concerning God and the soul, moreover, Haw- 
thorne and Emerson differed radically. "Religion," Emerson 
wrote, " includes the personality of God. Ethics do not. 
They are one to our present design. They both put nature 
under foot. The first and last lesson of religion is: ' The things 
that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are 
eternal ! ' It puts an affront upon nature ! " * To Hawthorne 
religion meant simply the relation of the soul to the Infinite. 
The God to Whom Hawthorne prayed, in Whom he trusted, 
was a personal Being. At the very time when the Transcen- 
dentalists were fondly discussing "impersonality," "streams 
and tendencies," Hawthorne was writing to Sophia Peabody, in 
connection with his mother's calm acceptance of the news of 
his engagement: "God has quietly taught her that all is good. 
. . . God be praised ! I thank Him on my knees and pray 
Him to make me worthy of the happiness you bring me."f 
Of course, the passages in Hawthorne's works that undeniably 
prove his belief in the personality of God are too numerous to 
quote. In none of his writings is there the slightest trace of 
those pantheistic notions to which many of the Transcenden- 
talists, with Emerson as leader, succumbed in their extravagant 
efforts to magnify man. Mr. Garnett, in his Life of Emerson, 
mentions Mr. Julian Hawthorne's " injudicious" restoration of 
a passage in his father's notebooks which described Emerson 
as "stretching his hand out of cloudland in the vain search for 
something real."J In the Mosses from an Old Manse, Hawthorne 

Nature (Idealism). Ch. VI., p. 62. 

t Quoted in Life of Hawthorne by Woodberry, p. 113. 

\ Garnett, Life of Emerson, p. 99. 



191 1.] HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 207 

clearly and emphatically expresses his feeling toward Emerson 
as a spiritual leader : " I admired Emerson as a poet of deep 
beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him 
as a philosopher." 

The Mosses from an Old Manse, with its autobiographical 
preface, did not appear until 1846. In 1842, Hawthorne had 
married Sophia Peabody, and they had settled at Concord. 
There they occasionally received visits from Transcendental 
neighbors. Transcendental conversations, of course, were un- 
avoidable. The concluding words, however, in an account in 
the " Mosses " of a day's boating with Thoreau show how 
foreign to Hawthorne's nature were what he called the "specu- 
lative extravagances" of his acquaintances. "And yet how 
sweet as we floated adown the golden river at sunset, how 
sweet was it to return within the system of human society 
not as to a dungeon or a chain, but as to a stately edifice, 
whence we could go forth at will into a statelier simplicity." 
By 1843 Hawthorne had so dissociated himself from Transcen- 
dentalism as to satirize it rather severely in The Celestial Rail- 
way. In this modern adaptation of Pilgrim's Progress he repre- 
sents Transcendentalism as a giant who " makes it his business 
to seize upon honest travelers and fatten them for his table 
with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, 
and sawdust." * As the travelers rushed past the cavern's mouth 
they caught a glimpse of this " huge miscreant," who looked 
"somewhat like an ill-proportioned figure, but considerably 
more like a heap of fog and duskiness." From a passage in 
The Intelligence Office, published in March, 1844, it is evident 
that Hawthorne, independently of the new philosophers, in his 
own 'quiet way, was seeking the truth. "She [Truth]" he 
wrote, "flits before me passing now through a naked solitude, 
and now mingling with the throng of a popular assembly, and 
now writing with the pen of a French philosopher, and now 
standing at the altar of an old cathedral, in the guise of a 
Catholic priest performing the High Mass. Oh, weary search ! 
But I must not falter; and surely my heart- deep quest of 
Truth shall avail at last."f In 1846, Hawthorne completely 
severed his connection with the Transcendentalists by removing 
from Concord to Salem. 

* The Celestial Railway (Misses), p. 224. 
t The Intelligence Office (Mosses), p. 379. 



208 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

Before passing to the third important influence in his life, 
it is necessary to mention the period of his consulate in Liver- 
pool. His consular experience on the whole was not congenial 
to spiritual growth. Nevertheless, it was in England that he 
received that inspiration of the beauty of Christian faith, which 
he afterwards expressed in 7 he Marble Faun : " Christian faith 
is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing 
without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; 
standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of un- 
speakable splendors."* In the English Note Books he had 
written: "It requires light from heaven to make them [the 
sacred pictures] visible. If the Church were merely illuminated 
from the inside that is, by what light a man can get from 
his own understanding the pictures would be invisible or wear 
but a miserable aspect." t 

The influence of Rome, however, was most effective in de- 
veloping and confirming Hawthorne's belief in Christianity 
a belief that must inevitably distinguish him from the Tran- 
scendentalists. "Transcendentalism," to use the words of one 
of its advocates, "deliberately broke with Christianity."! 
Neither with Emerson nor with Parker representatives of two 
opposing views in their conception of the Deity was Christ 
ever the Redeemer, the Savior. Parker, indeed, openly asserted 
that the New Testament was mythological ; Emerson's early 
repudiation of the Communion service proves that he did not 
regard the New Testament as an authoritative document. 
Hawthorne, on the contrary, always showed a deep reverence 
for the Bible. In Earth's Holocaust he had remarked that the 
pages of the Holy Scriptures " instead of being blackened into 
tinder " by the flames into which certain reformers had thrown 
them, " only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the finger 
marks of human imperfection were purified away" the fire 
did not destroy "the smallest syllable that had flashed from 
the pen of inspiration." A natural result of his reverence 
for the Bible was his faith in Christ as the promised Messiah. 
In no one of his works does he deny the divinity of Christ. 
In The Blithedale Romance, indeed, if it is assumed that he 
speaks on this matter as it is generally agreed that he does 

* Marble Faun, Ch. XXXII., p. 352. f English Note Books, May, 1856. 

\ O. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England, Ch. VIII., p. 204. 
Earth's Holocaust, p. 453. 



i9i i.] HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 209 

on other matters, through Miles Coverdale, there is a distinct 
affirmation of Christ's divinity. Speaking of woman, Coverdale 
says : " He [God] has endowed her with the religious senti- 
ment in its utmost depth and purity refined from that gross 
intellectual alloy with which every masculine theologist save 
only One who merely veiled Himself in mortal and masculine 
shape, but was in truth divine has been prone to mingle." * 

The sentiments expressed in reference to Christ in the 
Italian Note Books and in The Marble Faun, are, to say the 
least, " untranscendental." The passages wherein Christ is 
called " our Redeemer," " our Savior," are too numerous and 
too familiar to quote. A description of Sodoma's picture of 
our Lord is particularly striking : f " You behold Christ deserted 
both in heaven and earth ; that despair is in him which wrung 
forth the saddest utterance man ever made : ' Why hast Thou 
forsaken Me?' Even in this extremity, however, He is still 
divine. The great and reverend painter has not suffered the 
Son of God to be merely an object of pity, though depicting 
Him in a state so profoundly pitiful. He is rescued from it, 
we know not how by nothing less than a miracle by a celes- 
tial majesty and beauty, and some quality of which these are 
the outward garniture. He is as much, and as visibly our 
Redeemer, there bound, there fainting and bleeding from the 
scourge, with the cross in view, as if He sat on His throne 
of glory in the heavens! Sodoma in this matchless picture, 
has done more towards reconciling the incongruity of Divine 
Omnipotence and outraged suffering Humanity combined in one 
Person than the theologians ever did." 

Hawthorne was a Christian, then, and nominally, at least a 
Protestant, if his own words are to be believed. He frequently 
spoke of "our religion," "our churches," "our own formless 
mode of worship," in contradistinction to the religion, churches, 
and mode of worship of Catholicism. The fact that he did not 
profess any particular creed scarcely justifies the inference that, 
with the Transcendentalists, he was hostile to creeds. It is 
true that he censured impartially whatever seemed to him de- 
serving of censure in all churches; yet the impression conveyed 
by his strictures is not that he would do away with all creeds, 
but that he would find the one which most truly represents 

* Blithedale Romance, Ch. XIV., p. 458. 
t The Marble Faun, Ch. XXXVII., p. 387. 
VOL XCIIl . 14 



2io HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May, 

Christianity. He has not been "able to accept the gloomy 
teaching of his hereditary religion, Puritanism. In general, he 
found Protestantism unsatisfactory it needed, as he wrote, "a 
new apostle to convert it into something positive." * Although 
he unconsciously manifested a sympathy with certain doctrines 
of the Catholic Church, he was not familiar with its teachings. 
He clearly admitted the need of confession by the famous ex- 
ample of Hilda in The Marble Faun; nevertheless, he stum- 
bled ludicrously in his attempt to interpret the Catholic doctrine 
of absolution. His reverence for \ the Mother of our Lord 
come under the head of what his daughter calls his " con- 
scienceless Catholicity;" yet his Puritanic prejudice sometimes 
led him into the error of supposing that Catholics pay divine 
homage to the Blessed Virgin. 

It is a noticeable fact, however, that he nowhere expresses 
opposition to the dogmas of Catholicity usually repugnant to 
the Protestant mind. In the very city of Rome he fails to 
attack the doctrine of papal infallibility. His objections to the 
Catholic Church are, on the whole, superficial. He finds fault 
with priests in the popular fashion ; he yields to the popular 
notion that Catholic worship is wholly comprised of rites and 
ceremonies meaningless to the worshippers. His attitude to- 
ward Catholicism was not based on profound inquiry. He be- 
lieved implicitly all he had been accustomed to hear about the 
corruptions and superstitions of Catholicism; the apparent de- 
generacy of many Italian Catholics strengthened his prejudice, 
and, as a matter of course, he did not look further than the 
surface to learn whether or not he was mistaken. He did not, 
then, reject Catholicity; he ignored it. His attitude toward 
this particular form of Christianity, therefore, is simply worth- 
less as an argument in supporting the assumption that he was 
hostile to creeds. His refraining from committing himself to 
any special creed indicates his doubt as to which was the right 
one, not necessarily his hostility to all. At any rate, he did 
not, with the Transcendentalists, manifest opposition to that 
Christianity which regards Christ as the promised Messias of 
the Old Law. Far away from the influence of Channing, Parker, 
Emerson, and Alcott, Hawthorne's faith was strengthened and 
came to expression in the religious atmosphere of the Eternal 
City, Rome, 

* Italian Note Books, p, 184. 



i9i i.] HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM 211 

On his return to America, he was devoid of even such slight 
transcendental sympathies as he might have had in 1837 when 
his acquaintance with the Peabody family plunged him into 
the movement. His conduct in the political situation of 1862 
was that of a cool, critical observer. In his article, "Chiefly 
About War Matters," published in July of that year, there is 
hardly a note of enthusiasm. His passionless comment on John 
Brown, whom he calls a " blood-stained fanatic/ 1 is character- 
istic. In connection with his attitude toward the philosophy 
of Transcendentalism near the close of his life, Mr. Moncure 
D. Conway, one of his biographers, has the following inter- 
esting passage : " I have heard, indeed, that when Emerson 
visited his friend in his illness, and spoke of man's resources 
of strength as lying in himself, altogether ignoring the future, 
Hawthorne was rather depressed than cheered by the inter- 
view.* " And naturally he would be, for he was not a be- 
liever in the Transcendental doctrine of self-reliance. In his 
Italian Note Book he had written concerning the Laocoon: 
"It is such a type of human beings, struggling with an in- 
extricable trouble, and entangled in a complication which they 
cannot free themselves from by their own efforts, and out of 
which Heaven alone can help them." f 

In conclusion, then, it is reasonable to say that Hawthorne's 
attitude toward Transcendentalism, in both its practical and 
philosophical aspects, was undoubtedly sceptical. He was by 
no means a reformer. The judgment he passed on the Brook 
Farm experiment, his conservatism in connection with the anti- 
slavery agitation, his generally satiric comments on the efforts 
of radical reformers, all prove his want of sympathy with that 
phase of the movement which appeared in attempts to make 
practical application of theory to life. As to the philosophy 
of Transcendentalism, it may be admitted that in the beginning 
Hawthorne was attracted by the New England Idealism with 
its appeal to what was highest and best in man. He was only 
one of a large number who, for a time, were implicated in the 
movement. Mrs. George Ripley, Isaac T. Hecker, William D. 
Wilson, Orestes A. Brownson, J. T. Tuckerman, and others, it 
will be remembered, emerged from the giddy vortex of Trans- 
cendentalism to embrace a creed. Hawthorne, convinced of 
the delusion of the " new philosophy," yet not securely pledged 

* Life of Hawthorne, p. 210. \ Italian N0te Books, p. 132. 



212 HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM [May. 

to anything else, set out alone to search for the truth. His 
belief in a personal God was in direct opposition to Emerson's 
idea of the Deity. His attitude toward Christianity alone was 
sufficient to exclude him from the ranks of the Transcenden- 
talists. Finally, his own conscious attitude was not " trans- 
cendental." He never assumed the part of a divinely inspired 
teacher of the people; if he had difficulties in believing, he did 
not deem it necessary to ventilate them for the edification of 
the community in which he moved. He was entirely free from 
intellectual self-sufficiency. "Man's accidents are God's pur- 
poses. We miss the good we sought, and do the good we 
little cared for,"* "Providence is wiser than we are,"f were 
some of the tenets of his creed. George P. Lathrop, in his 
Life of Hawthorne, says: "He cherished a deep, strong, and 
simple religious faith, but never approved of intellectual dis- 
cussion concerning religion. "| Many passages in his writings 
bear evidence to this faith, and to a firm, childlike trust in 
the " Kindly Light " that would surely lead him on. In Night 
Sketches, he had written, " And thus we night wanderers, through 
a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the lamp of Faith, en- 
kindled at a celestial fire, it will surely lead us home to that 
heaven whence its radiance was borrowed. " 

t Letter to Horatio Bridge quoted in Lathrop's Life of Hawthorne, p. 542. 

* Chiefly about War Matters, p. 332. 

\A Study of Hawthorne, p. 156. 

$ Night Sketches ( Twice- Told Tales') p. 484. 




RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING. 

BY WILLIAM J. KERRY, PH.D. 

jT is well to hold one's country to her promises, 
and if there are any who think that she is for- 
getting them it is their duty to say so even to 
the point of bitter accusation. 1 ' William Dean 
Howeiis writes these words in reference to Low- 
ell's poem on Agassiz from which the poet, at the earnest in- 
sistance of friends, expunged a line calling the United States 
"The Land of Broken Promise." Howells, nevertheless, re- 
cords his conviction that it is unwise to look upon "faith in 
insubordination as a means of grace." 

Is America "The Land of Broken Promise?" 
Among those who are conservative whether by tempera- 
ment, conviction, interest or position, the view prevails that 
our country has kept her promises. They believe that the 
ordinary and reasonable obligations which fall to government 
have been fulfilled with a fidelity which honors the country 
and with an efficiency which places her high among the na- 
tions. Among those who are radical whether by temperament, 
conviction, interest or position, the feeling prevails that our 
country has broken her promises, that our political institu- 
tions have been shamefully inefficient, and that our leaders in 
public life have departed from the paths of loyalty, duty and 
service, to follow the ways of selfishness and the lure of 
worldly power. There are of course, many degrees of con- 
servatism and many degrees of radicalism. The radical who 
is a Socialist is distinct from all others in the unqualified de- 
spair with which he reviews conditions and in the impulse to 
fundamental change which he so strongly feels. Less radical 
fault-finders, while equally severe in criticism, at least find 
resources in our institutions, and still believe in their promise 
of response when the conscience of government is sufficiently 
aroused and guided. The process of thinking, in the sense of 
looking for a way of reform, practically closes when a mind 
embraces Socialism. Socialism is accepted as a final reform. 
Since it appears to the Socialist that much is as wrong as it 



214 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May, 

can be and everything tends to become as wrong as it can 
be, he abandons hope, indulges himself recklessly in the emo- 
tional luxury of despair, absolves himseli from the duty of 
patriotism, stifles the faith that makes of the flag the conse- 
crated emblem of justice, and proclaims to the world the 
dawn of the new social order in which all promises will be 
kept. It is a gentle pleasantry to call Socialism, as a recent 
contributor to the Atlantic Monthly did, a combination of "a 
weak head, a warm heart and a desire to shirk." But Social- 
ism is more, very much more than that. 

An effort was made in a preceding study to describe with- 
out flinching from the unpleasantness of the task, the socialist 
criticism of things as observed by an onlooker. The attempt 
was made so to present the matter as to call attention to 
those features of that criticism which seem to constitute its 
enduring power. There is about it a comprehensiveness, a 
simplicity, and a specious aptness that commend it highly to 
those for whom it is intended. It appeals particularly to the 
suffering classes because it seems to explain their daily lives 
to them in terms that they understand and it gives expres- 
sion to the emotions and attitudes which they feel most 
keenly and which constitute the basis of much of their con- 
versation. The awakened mind always craves explanations. 
Minds are awakened everywhere nowadays. Demand for ex- 
planations practically accounts for all mythology. There is 
probably as much of it to-day in political, industrial and so- 
cial worlds as there was religious and political mythology in 
the days of old. One charm of Socialism is that it explains 
everything or seems to. One difficulty of conservatism is 
that it hesitates; it doubts, investigates, draws tentative con- 
clusions and follows policies in practical government of whose 
outcome it is frequently extremely uncertain. There is no 
doubt that the conservative has his own myths as well as the 
radical. But that is beside the point. 

Three points of view may be taken of any fault-finding 
which occasions controversy. We may ask : Is the charge true 
at all? We may ask further: To what extent is it true? 
And finally, we may ask: What is the meaning of the facts 
which we admit? How are they to be interpreted? 

There is practically no controversy between conservatives 
and radicals as to the general statement that abuses exist in 
modern society. Hence, adhering to the form in which the 



i9ii.] RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING 215 

socialistic criticism was described, we may say that capital has 
been guilty of industrial tyranny and of usurpation of politi- 
cal authority. There is no need to delay further on this 
phase of the situation. It is doubtful if we could discover 
any statement concerning the extent to which these evils 
exist, which would be acceptable to all conservatives and radi- 
cals. The difficulty of social investigation is great, the stand- 
ards on which facts are classified are so varied that it would 
be difficult to devise a form of description which would be 
generally acceptable. However, it seems beyond question 
that these evils have existed to such an extent as to have 
constituted a most acute social problem and to have invited 
very drastic action. The following facts may be cited as 
showing that these evils have been important enough to oc- 
cupy the attention of modern society. 

First: The extent of industrial tyranny has made neces- 
sary the creation of a very extensive code of labor laws, the 
aim of which has been to protect the elementary human rights 
of the laboring class against the carelessness and abuse of tke 
power of capital. Now, laws are remedial. In our individual- 
istic civilization, they are usually not enacted until a condition 
becomes a public question and the demand for remedial laws 
has behind it power enough to overcome constant and highly 
intelligent opposition. Thus, legislation has simply aimed to 
give to labor the protection that capital might have offered 
but in fact refused. Second : The survival of organized labor 
and the vindication of its essential policies is proof that these 
evils have been very extensive. Organized labor is now an 
organic part of our civilization and recognized as a moral 
power with a unique mission. It has survived misrepresenta- 
tion, studied opposition, the indifference of the public, its own 
excesses, blunders, demagoguery and internal dissensions. It 
would scarcely have done this had there not been in the con- 
dition of things a justification for its existence. Third : The 
vast quantities of reports of investigations, of admissions from 
conservative sources, the endless literature that has been 
poured out in the last half century, all seem to bear converg- 
ing testimony to the effect that the industrial tyranny of capi- 
tal had become unbearable. 

Much the same may be said concerning the charge of usur- 
pation of political authority. Abuses had become so great 
that practically another code of legislation was made necessary 



216 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May, 

in order to hinder bribery, to put an end to the control of 
elections and to drive back the representatives of capital from 
odious interference in the process of iawmaking and of gov- 
ernment. The investigations that have been made, the facts 
that have been brought out concerning interference by the 
representatives of capital in these matters, bear evidence to 
the effect that these political abuses had become a matter of 
national concern. Furthermore, the actual history of the leg- 
islation that has been enacted to curb the liberty of capital 
and protect the public welfare gives evidence of the activities 
of capital in the process of Iawmaking to which Socialism 
dramatically invites attention. 

Reforming by law has been made to look very much like 
hurdle racing wherein in many cases capital set the high ob- 
structions which had to be cleared to win the race. An effort 
to pass a law in the interests of the laboring class would not 
be made until at the cost of great pains and expense the 
public had been brought to believe that the law was necessary. 
Then, when presented to a legislature it had to meet the studied 
and shrewd opposition of employers and of their learned coun- 
sel. If it survived these vicissitudes and was reported favorably 
it had to meet the further opposition that debate presented. 
If passed and enacted as a law, the employer was able to raise 
doubts as to its constitutionality and delay for further years the 
advantage which it promised to the laboring class. When the 
courts threw out such laws as unconstitutional the triumph of 
the employer set back progress in that line for many years. If, 
however, the law stood the test of constitutionality, there 
next arose doubts as to its interpretation and scope. Once 
interpretation was fixed, the sociological value of the law de- 
pended on the good faith of those who should execute it. 
At every point in this process the representatives of capital 
might appear within the limits of their legal rights to make 
opposition. It is not easy to draw the line between the legit- 
imate and the illegitimate intervention that capital may have 
exercised, but the suspicion obtains in very wide circles which 
are far from radical that this intervention has been only too 
often illegitimate and purely selfish. 

It would seem, then, that the evils of industrial tyranny and 
of interference by capital in the process of law-making and 
law-executing have been extensive enough to have constituted 
for us a national problem and to have taxed the wisdom of 



i9".] RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING 217 

the nation in placing the power of capital under reasonable 
check. Stated in a form something like this conservative and 
radical might accept tl\e proposition. The conservative, how- 
ever, will be slow to admit the facts, while the radical will 
admit them readily. The radical will admit a statement if it 
pleases his imagination, while the conservative will not wish 
to admit it until it satisfies his reason, that is, his critical 
sense. A point worthy of note is that in conservative circles, 
that is among churchmen of every degree of authority and 
power, among scholars, leaders in our political parties and 
executives; in a word, among thoroughly orthodox conserva- 
tives, very violent and far-reaching criticism of social conditions 
is heard with appalling frequency. This is so true that one 
might often have difficulty in distinguishing between the fault- 
finding of an intelligent Socialist and that of an accredited 
leader in a conservative party. 

For instance, when Governor Wilson, a man whose words 
are heavy with the authority that mind, erudition, and experi- 
ence confer, speaks in the following manner, it is difficult to 
deny that a sensible Socialist might have spoken in exactly 
the same manner. The press reports Governor Wilson as say- 
ing this : " Great organizations of business seem to play with 
the states, to take advantage of the variety ot the laws, to 
make terms of their own with one state at a time, and by 
one devise of control or another to dominate whatever they 
chose because too big to be dominated by the small process 
of local legislation," The following grave charges were made 
in the Senate recently by Senator Owen: 

The need for the initiative and referendum is imperative 
because the government of the States, especially the govern- 
ment of the Eastern, Northern, and Western States, have been 
slowly drifting toward a condition of corruption in both the 
legislative and administrative branches. 

The initiative and referendum is almost the only means 
available for putting a speedy end to corruption in govern- 
ment, as I shall immediately show. 

The great corporations of this country the railway sys- 
tems, the gigantic commercial combinations, the so-called 
Protective Tariff league, and other commercial conspiracies 
having discovered the value ol the governing business from 
a money standpoint, have not hesitated to secretly engage in 
political activities in nation, state, and municipalities. They 



218 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May, 

have controlled cities and towns for the purpose of making 
money out of street railways, telephone and telegraph com- 
panies, electric-light companies, water companies, municipal 
activities, street paving, building, sewerage systems, and so 
forth. They have undertaken the control of larger muni- 
cipalities, of cities from New York, Pittsburg, St. I/ouis, and 
Denver, to San Francisco, and with what results ? 

The hideous exposures of crime, of graft, of municipal 
knavery, of vice, and the other results of such government 
have become an appalling national calamity. 

It is not from a Socialist fault-finder but from a writer in 
the Atlantic Monthly, a dignified organ of American culture, 
that the following words come: "While political scandals, 
graft and greed have always existed, there never has been a 
time when low standards in business and politics have so 
assailed the honor and integrity of the people as a whole by 
tempting them through fear of loss to acquiesce in the dis- 
honesty of others." It is no agitator but rather a distinguished 
German scholar, Professor Munsterberg who says "Amer- 
icans themselves everywhere re-enforce the widespread notion 
that the financially weak man cannot find justice in America 
against the powerful influence of rich corporations.' 9 It was 
one of the most renowned of the younger members in the 
United States Senate, Mr. Dolliver, and no Socialist, who de- 
clared, as reported by the press a year ago, that the main 
business of the American constitution is to hinder the American 
people from getting what they want. 

A former Attorney- General, Mr. Bonaparte, gives evidence 
in a review of his public service, of the studied interference 
of capital in the administration of his office and of its methods 
of abuse and misrepresentation employed in fighting him. Mr. 
Bonaparte declares it to be his conviction " That the present 
method of attempted control through the courts of our vast 
aggregations of capital is altogether too cumbrous, dilatory, 
expensive and uncertain to be satisfactory." The review in 
question describes also the use which capital makes of the 
newspapers which it owns in manufacturing public opinion for 
the purpose of affecting the administration of the law. 

It was not at a Socialist gathering but at a recent ban- 
quet closing a convention of the American Bar Association, 
that according to reports, the following words were uttered: 
" Cities have been saved from further sacking by aldermen 



i9i i.] RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING 219 

and states rescued from confiscation at the hands of their own 
legislators while the nation has been saved from official thieves, 
state and national, who emulating Crassus of Rome and Fagin 
of Dickens, would have stolen every accessible object from a 
post office letter-box to an empire of land." 

, It is not a Socialist but a lecturer who stands very high in 
thoroughly conservative circles, who is reported in a Socialist 
paper to have spoken not long since as follows: "There are 
many who talk of our great prosperity but we all know that 
there are ulcers on our social body that threaten its very ex- 
istence. We all know what conditions exist but somehow we 
are afraid to say so. We are afraid to make such a confession. 
We want to keep things in the background. We want some- 
how to feel that the people are not disturbed." A former 
Cabinet officer, Mr. Wanamaker, is reported as having de- 
clared when in the Cabinet, that the four reasons which pre- 
vented the American people from profiting by the advantages 
of the parcel post, were the four great Express Companies. 

One of the most conservative members of the United States 
Senate, Mr. Root, recently spoke as follows on the Senate 
floor: "The necessity for a readjustment of the relations of 
government to the great properties that constitute and con- 
tinually create wealth, to the great enterprises through which 
that wealth is gained and is continued the necessity for a 
readjustment of the relations of government to these new con- 
ditions has led to a control over our state legislatures in many 
cases which is abnormal, which is to be condemned, and which 
has been practically and substantially the cause of all of the 
evils that underlie the desire for reform. That control has 
been exercised, in part, through a form of political organiza- 
tion which grew up under simpler conditions and is in many 
respects outgrown by our people, and in part by the direct 
application of wealth which was seeking to save itself from 
destruction in the readjustment of conditions, to influence the 
action of legislators." Grover Cleveland said in Chicago in 
1903: "Public life is saturated with the indecent demands of 
selfishness." " Corruption has reached the frightful propor- 
tions of malevolence." 

Instances like the above might be multiplied indefinitely to 
show the widespread character of the fault-finding which marks 
modern society. We are compelled, therefore, to find the dis- 
tinguishing line between radical and conservative fault-finding, 



220 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May, 

not so much in the fault found, and with restrictions, not in 
the extent to which it is alleged to be true, but rather in the 
interpretations placed on the facts. 

When our conservatives find fault and state it honestly, the 
initial impulse felt is to look for the cause and to find the 
remedy in and under present institutions. They believe funda- 
mentally in the resources of our institutions and advocate re- 
forms through law, through education and re- enforcement of 
spiritual and moral agencies. This very hopefulness in the 
vitality of our institutions leads them possibly to be a little 
braver in their fault-finding than might otherwise be the case. 
The Socialist, on the contrary, finds in the faults to which he 
calls attention, reason for complete despair of our institutions, 
for the abandoning of all hope in their resources and for ad- 
vocating the radical rearrangement of institutions for which he 
is well known. The social evils, known and admitted, there- 
fore, act inversely on the two types, stimulating the one to 
hope and careful reconstruction, the other to despair and re- 
volution. The conservative is stimulated by the progress that 
has actually been made in the direction of the ideals in which 
he believes, while the radical is driven by the work which re- 
mains to be done into the belief that it can not be done at all 
except through the overturning of the present institutions of 
property and government. .Hence, the fundamental differ- 
ence between the two is initially one of atmosphere rather 
than of doctrine, one of direction, spirit and tone rather than 
of principle. 

Hope is not produced by argument and despair is not 
healed by abuse. The instincts of the people must be reached 
for and won over. To a certain extent our conservative leaders 
have lost their power of appealing to the instinct of the 
masses, and the radicals have found it and are using it. Hence, 
there is heavy work for thoughtful men if they would meet 
adequately the propaganda of despair on which Socialism re- 
lies and support the propaganda of hope in our institutions on 
which any successful campaign against the real dangers of 
Socialism must rest. 

A brief reference to some of the tactical advantages which 
radicalism now enjoys may help to make this clear. Our 
radicals have succeeded in introducing into current discussion 
an ideally perfect government by which to judge the actual 
efficiency of our present government. The features and pro- 



i9ii-] RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING 221 

cess of a perfectly governed people, the joys and comforts 
that perfect government would give to man and woman and 
child are the commonplaces of conversation in the circles 
which the radical has won. It requires far less leisure, far less 
mental keenness and imagination to picture a perfect govern- 
ment than to picture an imperfect one. Radicalism has taught 
its lesson and repeated it day and night, up and down the 
country. It has sent its orators to harangue the laborers while 
they ate their noon-day lunch; it has followed them into 
their homes; it has brought them together into its lecture 
halls and it has drummed the lesson into the willing ears of 
hearers until they know it by heart and believe it by heart. 
It is not easy to take away this alluring picture of perfect 
justice and social peace. Until conservatism does destroy it, 
it can make but little headway with these classes. This un- 
happy success of radicalism is little short of tragic in view of 
the limitations of human institutions as we know them. Con- 
ditions are such that radicalism appears to be fighting for 
justice and peace, while conservatism is forced to argue primarily 
for stability and caution. The contrast is to our disadvantage. 

Radicalism has succeeded in bringing into the zone of 
actual doubt, the moral and historical foundations of the social 
order. Where will the masses obtain the learning, the caution, 
the instinctive understanding of the long logic of political mis- 
takes which are necessary to those who would safely debate 
the foundations of a social order? It is not well to have the 
masses actually questioning the sanctions of civil authority and 
of property. That, they must trust to their leaders. But 
radicalism has also succeeded in discrediting our public leaders. 
The persistent criticism, the shrewd interpretations, the pic 
turesque language, vehement emotion and the careful exploit- 
ing of facts in hand, have served well so to envelope our whole 
generation of public leaders in suspicion, accusation and de- 
nunciation that they are as a class discredited before the masses. 
Radicalism has also created a body of traditions, a vocabu- 
lary, a set of emotional attitudes and a literature which are 
handed down in the weaker classes and which express their 
experience of life and their instinctive questions far more sympa- 
thetically than any that the conservative can offer. 

In addition, conservatism has made mistakes which have 
not been without their effect. Government has been shown 



222 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May, 

undoubtedly, to be inefficient in facing many situations. The 
policies that government has followed have been uncertain, 
and that uncertainty has too often paralyzed the arm of the 
law. Conservatism has been indiscriminate in confounding all 
agitation with unreasonable agitation. It has been so persist- 
ent in fighting for its traditional privileges that it has been 
slow to see and slower to admit the justification for much of 
the complaint that we have heard. Conservatism has found 
itself entangled by technicalities that have hindered justice 
and promoted evil ends. Complaint is heard everywhere that 
this is the case. Another Dickens might write another Bleak 
House to show it. Conservatism has held'aloof from the masses 
until these no longer found it to be their satisfactory repre- 
sentative, and hence, they have tmrned in numbers toward the 
radical movements which have expressed their deeper feelings. 
This holding back of conservatism has permitted the radical 
movements to build up a class consciousness against capital, 
and has convinced the masses of the inherent antagonism be- 
tween the masses and the classes, whose outcome can be but 
one of two, either the overthrow of the classes or the indefi- 
nite enslavement of the masses to them. 

The conservatism held in mind is that which is lodged in 
the industrial and political leaders who have exercised social 
authority, and in the spirit and aims of our political parties. 
The radicalism held in mind has been that expressed by Social- 
ism, but to a great extent also that to be found in organized 
labor and in the free criticism of conditions which itself has 
produced a great and distinctive literature. Differences be- 
tween the radicalism of organized labor and that of Socialism 
are more largely those of policy than of principle. But, un- 
fortunately, the methods of American politics appear to have 
had their part in bringing about the despair of our institutions 
and leaders, which is the avenue of admission into Socialism. 

Taking things as we find them, the whole business of the 
Republican leaders in the country seems to be to convince 
the people that all of the efficient scoundrels in the nation 
belong to the Democratic party, that its policies threaten ruin 
and its wisdom is totally inadequate to meet the problems of 
national life. The main business of the Democratic leaders in 
the country, by way of retort courteous, is to convince the 
people that all of the efficient scoundrels in the nation belong 



i9ii.] RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING 223 

to the Republican party, that its policies threaten ruin and its 
wisdom is totally inadequate to meet the problems of national 
life. For confirmation, the reader is referred to the utterances 
of candidates for the presidency, to the campaign literature and 
speeches, and to the methods of the partisan American press. 
Of course, we are accustomed to these tactics, and with no 
inconsiderable good nature we discount the pompous indictment 
to empty rhetoric. May we blame the busy, hard- working, 
and on the whole, healthy- minded masses, if they believe with 
the Democrats that the Republican leaders are scoundrels, and 
with the Republicans that the Democratic leaders are scoun- 
drels? May we blame them further if they conclude that our 
leaders are all practically scoundrels and not to be trusted ? 
If, then, other leaders appear who whisper to them that Social- 
ism is a protest against all of the villany of politics and all of 
the treason of political parties, is it wonderful that they incline 
to believe and to follow ? If, furthermore, Socialism appearing 
in this wise, fosters collectively the emotions and impressions 
that the multitudes feel individually ; if its literature expresses 
them and their aspirations, and the literature of the two great 
parties fails to do so, is it not remarkable that they do not 
flock to Socialism ? The way to Socialism is paved by con- 
tempt and mistrust of public leaders, and then by doubt of the 
efficiency of institutions. Methods in American politics con- 
tribute not a little to the impressions whose outcome is sympathy 
for Socialism, if not surrender to it. 

In order to build up the atmosphere of hope which is essen- 
tial to the stability of institutions, and to any intelligent share 
in their operation we have need of a campaign of virtue- 
finding ; that is, we need to take stock of the resources of our 
institutions and to place the fault for evils exactly where it 
belongs. The vitality that undeniably exists must be manifested 
and the progress that may reasonably be hoped for, must be 
shown. It is really not so much a question of argument as it 
is of imagination. Conservatism in proclaiming the resources 
of our institutions as well as their present efficiency must do 
so in a manner which will speak to the imagination of the 
masses who are being misled. If it cannot do this, it has no 
prospect of reclaiming them, for radical propaganda has, to a 
great extent, the control of their imagination now. Arguments 
against Socialism have their value for the people who do not 



224 RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE FAULT-FINDING [May. 

need them because they would not in any case become Social- 
ists. Argument may have some value for those who are hesi- 
tating and are attempting to reason themselves away from 
Socialism or toward it, but for the larger number, what is 
needed is not argument but imagination, not doctrine but at- 
mosphere, not philosophy but faith and hope. There are libra- 
ries and libraries of learned refutations of Socialism. There is 
not a fundamental position that it takes that has not been 
assailed successfully time and again, as far as logic and history 
count. The powers of the world have acted against it ; the 
scholars of the world have reasoned against it; the Christian 
Churches have declared against it ; and yet it grows. But its 
growth will stop the moment that the powers of the world 
and its scholars and its religious leaders regain control of the 
imagination of those who have been led astray, and bring back 
to them the faith and the hope from which all social institu- 
tions must derive their authority and endurance. 

Recurring to the general Socialistic indictment of things, it 
is to be observed that refutations as such abound. But their 
efficacy in combating Socialism is not entirely proven. They 
have their undeniable value. But may it not be well for us to 
learn how widely, beyond the confines of Socialism, criticisms 
as radical and searching are found? One might construct an 
indictment of conditions from non-socialistic sources which 
would be quite as disheartening as that described. Is a man 
still hopeful of our insititutions ; still profoundly convinced 
that if we awaken they may be efficient, then he is conserva- 
tive. Does he despair of justice, of uplift for the masses, of 
pure government, of controlling capital, then he is prepared 
for the Socialistic interpretation. Despair and hope are both 
matters of impression rather than reasoning. We may check 
Socialism by a propaganda of hope in our fundamental insti- 
tutions; by undermining the despair on which it is entirely 
conditioned. Modern society pauses while conservatism pre- 
pares its reply to this supreme challenge. Leo XIII. said that 
a remedy must be found quickly. Has it been found anywhere 
more wisely formulated, more reasonably balanced, than by 
Pope Leo himself? Measuring our conservatism by Leo's 
standard, must we not confess that it has not yet measured 
up to its duty. 




THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT. 

BY BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE, M.D., F.R.S. 

|T is no part of the purpose of this article to tell 
once more the tale of the destruction of Ire- 
land's industrial prosperity by England's short- 
sighted and inequitable policy in the past. That 
tale has often been told, and by none more fully 
or more carefully than by Miss Murray in her Commercial 
Relations Between England and Ireland. It will be sufficient to 
remind the readers of this article of the iniquitous Navigation 
Acts by which the carrying trade of the country was so utterly 
crushed that, as Swift in his Short View of the State of he- 
land put it : " The conveniency of ports and harbors which 
Nature has bestowed so liberally upon this kingdom, is of no 
more use to us than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in 
a dungeon." 

Nor must they be allowed to forget the manner in which 
the great woollen industry was destroyed because it was in- 
convenient to the makers of that commodity in England. It 
is true that, when destroying it, the English Government did 
something to set up a linen industry in its place, but that was 
solely because the latter conflicted in no way with English 
interests. Those, however, who talk about the comparative 
prosperity of the North of Ireland as compared with the South 
often do so in utter ignorance of the influence of selfish Eng- 
lish laws in causing this disparity of manufacturing prosperity. 
From time to time, as the country temporarily lifted its 
head after one or other of the violent blows struck at her 
prosperity, spasmodic efforts, more or less successful, were made 
to bring about a better state of affairs in the industrial condi- 
tion of the country. 

One recalls Swift's bitter words and his injunction to Irish- 
men to " burn everything that came from England except its 
coal." Moreover, it is on record that the Irish House of Com- 
mons had in the sessions of 1703, 1705, and 1707 passed reso- 
VOL. xcni. 15 



226 THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL RE VIVAL Mo VEMENT [May, 

lutions declaring that it would greatly benefit the kingdom if 
the people used none but the manufactures of their country, 
and had agreed to set an example themselves in that way. 
It does not, however, appear that these declarations had any 
very marked effect upon the industrial prosperity of the island. 

Nor was it until 1779 that any real effort was made in this 
direction. In that year and as a result of the failure of Lord 
North's proposals of the previous year, were formed the first 
of the famous Non-Importation Leagues, pledged by voluntary 
effort to shut out from the country those various objects of 
English manufacture, which had been fostered by the wanton 
destruction of the home trade. 

It will not be forgotten that these associations sprang up 
at a time of great national revival when the Volunteers were 
also being enrolled, when the hopes of every patriot were high 
and an outburst of genuine patriotism and national spirit made 
all things seem to be possible. Galway which has perhaps 
suffered more from former English policy than any other city 
in the island was the first to accept the Non- Importation 
policy. A famous meeting in Dublin, at which Catholics and 
Protestants joined in complete harmony, unanimously adopted 
a resolution that " we will not, directly or indirectly, import 
or use any goods or wares, the product or manufacture of 
Great Britain, which can be produced or manufactured in this 
kingdom, until an enlightened policy . . . shall appear to 
actuate the inhabitants of certain manufacturing towns there, 
who have taken so active a part in opposing the regulations 
proposed in favor of the trade of Ireland, and that they shall 
appear to entertain sentiments of respect and affection for their 
fellow-subjects of this kingdom." 

Further steps were taken by the ladies of the land, and 
everybody must have heard of the celebrated resolution passed 
and adhered to so it is said by large bodies of Irishwomen, 
" that we will not wear any article that is not the product or 
manufacture of this country, and that we will not permit the 
addresses of any of the other sex who are not equally zealous 
in the cause of this couutry." 

These resolutions were not, as so many resolutions were, 
mere forms of words voted by men and women never intend- 
ing to pay the slightest attention to them. They were passed 
and adhered to in solemn earnest, and " the transactions of all 



i9i i.] THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT 227 

traders were rigorously observed, and any merchant who hap- 
pened to import British goods had his name printed in the 
Dublin newspapers, and was held up to execration as a traitor 
to Ireland. The consequence was that the few merchants who 
at first had the temerity to continue their importation of Brit- 
ish goods soon ceased to do so, as it was difficult to find any- 
one willing to purchase from them, more especially as conceal- 
ment of such purchases was impossible" (Miss Murray, p. 
204). 

Into the effects and results of these Non-Importation Leagues 
space will not permit us to enter. The subject has been intro- 
duced in order to show that efforts hare not been wanting in 
the past to discourage foreign and encourage home manufac- 
tures, and what is more that such efforts were and still could 
be abundantly successful when, and if the people of this island 
are really united and determined, a state of affairs which has 
not again arisen since the times of the Volunteers. 

Since those spacious times occasional outbursts of energy 
have occurred whether due to the writings of eminent men or 
to the holding of exhibitions. It is a source of satisfaction to 
any person holding the post now occupied by the writer of 
this article to reflect that two of the most important works 
on the industrial resources of this country have come from 
the pens of two of his predecessors, Sir Robert Kane, the first 
President of the Queen's College at Cork, and the distin- 
guished and lamented W. K. Sullivan who was his immediate 
successor. The exhibitions of 1853 and 1862 gave rise to the 
publication of reports more or less stimulating to Irish trade 
and it was, it may be supposed, the effect of the latter which 
produced the short-lived Irish Industrial Magazine which I 
mention here chiefly because the copy lent to me by Mr. E. 
J. Riordan, the centre and mainspring of the present indus- 
trial movement, bears the inscription " Charles Stewart Parnell, 
from mama." It may be supposed that this was presented to 
the future Irish leader in 1866 when he was twenty years of 
age. One wonders whether he ever read the book, which has 
many most interesting articles between its covers, or whether 
like so many other gift-volumes it was placed on a shelf and 
forgotten. 

The present movement which has done so much and may, 
if it is not allowed to die out by foolish indifference, do so 



228 THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT [May, 

much more, was also an outcome of an exhibition held in 
Cork some ten years ago. After it had closed its doors, and 
before its stimulus had quite passed away some gentlemen in 
Cork determined to start, and actually did start the " Cork 
Industrial Development Association" the parent of all the 
similar institutions at present in existence in the island. In 
one thing at least they were astoundingly successful and that 
was in the selection of their first secretary. It is no ex- 
aggeration to say that whatever has been done in the way of 
industrial development in this country during the past ten 
years and much has been done is due in overwhelming 
measure to Mr. Riordan's labors, labors for which his fellow- 
countrymen can never be sufficiently grateful, labors, moreover, 
which many of them have so far by no means recognized. 
What may be called the bed-rock of this Association was a 
very simple proposition and one so it might be imagined 
which would commend itself to any Irish mind. It was this; 
" We will not buy any foreign goods if we can obtain a simi- 
lar article as good and as cheap of Irish manufacture. 1 ' 
Around these words " as good and as cheap " a great deal of 
controversy has raged. It was claimed by many that the 
more sweeping resolutions of the Non- Importation Leagues 
should be adopted and that the pledge should be that Irish 
goods should have a preference even if there were a differ- 
ence in price over those of foreign countries. It will be 
noted that no question arises as to comparative excellence. 
Whatever things we do make in this country are "good 
goods " and may be relied upon. But that there may be at 
times a difference in price is no more than to say that the 
"dumper" is with us here as well as in the neighboring island. 
The promoters of the movement, wisely as the present 
writer thinks, were content with the original pledge, leaving 
the question of an actual cash preference to the individual 
consciences of purchasers. Little by little the idea gained 
ground and new associations were formed in different parts of 
the country. Some of these have died out, some are still ac- 
tive, some half-dormant. Belfast, almost the latest to enter 
the field, Belfast which at first took little or no part in the 
Industrial Conferences of which more has to be said, Belfast 
having come into the movement is now forging ahead, with 
characteristic Northern vigor, and bids fair to outshine even 



i9i i.] THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT 229 

the parent Association of Cork in the wideness of its concep- 
tions. 

That the Associations have effected a great deal no man 
can deny. It is only within late years that the enlightened 
policy of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Edu- 
cation has given us Irishmen an opportunity of knowing what 
Irish trade as apart from that of the other island really 
amounts to. Everybody has been astonished to find how 
great is its volume. In 1909 the last year for which figures 
are available, it appears that the Irish exports were $308,- 
643,460 whilst the imports amounted to $319,735,775. The 
Economist commenting upon these figures recently, has stated 
that excepting Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and New Zea- 
land, the external trade of Ireland is greater, in proportion to 
her population, than that of any other country in the world. 
How much of this prosperity is due to the Industrial Asso- 
ciations no man can say since these bodies were formed and 
at work before separate Irish statistics of trade were available. 
There can, however, be little doubt that the Associations count 
for much in this matter. A member of a firm concerned with 
one of the most flourishing of Irish industries, one, too, which 
has been largely pushed by the Industrial Associations, in an 
unusual burst of confidence, admitted to the present writer 
that "so long as it lasted the present movement was as good 
as any tariff to his business " and the same must be true of 
many others. 

All this makes it the more remarkable that the movement 
has been so badly supported by the Irish manufacturers whose 
interests are so largely concerned and who would, so one 
would have imagined, have seen how valuable an advertise- 
ment was placed at their disposal. Truth must out and the 
fact has recently been made public that the Cork Association 
is not paying its way and this solely because of the miserable 
support which it is receiving from those who should have 
been its most generous helpers. This is one of the difficulties 
from which the movement has suffered and no doubt courage 
and energy will gradually surmount it, as they have to some 
extent surmounted the other two great difficulties which stood 
and, to some extent still stand in the path of the Associa- 
tions. The first of these was it is to be feared one must add 
still is the apathy or worse of the purchasing public. There 



230 THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL RE VIVAL Mo VEMENT [May, 

are those, it must be admitted with some shame, who think 
that it confers a social cachet upon them not to be clad in clothes 
of Irish manufacture nor to use Irish goods in their houses. 
Such persons, it is to be feared, must be looked upon as 
almost hopeless but there are others whose languid interest 
might be roused by really energetic work and to some extent 
is being roused. "Why," such persons are asked, "should 
you use English matches, soap, starch, candles," the list of 
articles need not be, as it might be, almost indefinitely pro- 
longed " when you can get the same thing ' as good and as 
cheap ' of Irish manufacture ? " The reply to this really leads 
up to the consideration of the second difficulty. The ordinary 
individual who goes into a shop to make a purchase rarely, far 
too rarely, asks to be supplied definitely with something "made 
in Ireland." He or she far too commonly asks for an article of 
commerce and takes whatever the retail dealer chooses to sup- 
ply. To induce that dealer to put Irish goods in the fore- 
ground was and is one of the great difficulties of the Associ- 
ations and until that difficulty is surmounted no overwhelming 
success can be looked for. That much has been done in this 
direction cannot be denied but that more, far more, remains to 
be done is indisputable. In this connection it may be noted 
how important it is to secure the co-operation of the ladies 
and how comparatively little has yet been done in this direction 
to rouse in them the spirit of their ancestors of the time of 
the Volunteers. Most of the household purchasing is done by 
the mistress of the house and if she is determined to have 
Irish goods a stimulus to manufacture will be given, the im- 
portance of which cannot be over- rated. In this respect the 
Limerick Ladies Association has set an example to the 
country. 

Eppur si muove / The movement goes on and the fact 
that there is an Irish Industrial Journal may its reign be 
longer than that of its predecessors 1 alone shows that the 
movement is still progressing and gaining ground. Further 
the publication by the Cork Association of their Directory of 
Irish Manufactures takes away the excuse often made at the 
inception of the movement that people had no way of ascer- 
taining what goods, required by them, could really be had of 
Irish manufacture. 

It remains to say something concerning the Industrial Con* 



i9i i.] THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT 231 

ferences which take place annually. The first of these was 
held in Cork in 1905 and the present writer, who was hon- 
ored by being permitted to preside at it, well remembers 
the anxiety with which it was proposed and prepared for. 
The result surprised its promoters. Delegates from all parts 
of Ireland, of all kinds of politics and of every form of reli- 
gion met in Cork and debated matters of prime importance 
to the prosperity of their common country. Amongst the 
most important matters discussed was the adoption of a National 
Trade Mark but that matter requires and will receive separate 
consideration. Suffice it to say that this and other weighty 
questions were considered and that Industrial Conferences have 
since been held annually in other cities, the turn of Cork 
coming round again in this present year when the present 
writer was again honored by an invitation to preside and did 
preside over a very remarkable assemblage containing amongst 
its numbers a large and important contingent from Belfast 
headed by the Lord Mayor of Belfast who left his important 
duties in the Northern City to show the essential solidarity of 
North and South in industrial matters. On that occasion it 
was possible to take stock of what had been done and espe- 
cially in connection with the Irish Trade- Mark. Prior to the 
meeting in 1905 the Houses of Parliament had passed an Act 
enabling the setting-up of general or National Trade- Marks in 
contradistinction to those so long in use by private businesses 
or firms. The first to take advantage of this Act was the 
Irish Association and the present writer may perhaps be per- 
mitted the pleasure of claiming that he had some part in sug- 
gesting this course of action. A Committee was set up and 
after the necessary steps had been taken, the Irish Trade- Mark, 
of which a facsimile is given at the end of this article, was 
registered. Its design is Celtic, as will be seen, and the in- 
scription when translated means " Made in Ireland." What has 
been effected? The following brief statement taken from that 
submitted to the last Conference will give some idea of the 
work done by the Association which controls this matter. 

The Trade-Mark has been available for a period of between 
three and four years. In that space of time nearly five hun- 
dred Irish manufacturers, large and small, have applied to be 
permitted to use the Trade-Mark and have received that privi- 
lege. It may be added that the privilege is jealously guarded 



232 THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REV. VAL MOVEMENT [May, 

by the committee annually appointed to conduct the business 
of the Association which carefully investigates all claims and 
rigorously excludes all those which do not come up to the 
high standard required. The Trade-Mark on any goods is, 
therefore, an absolute proof that the articles on which it is 
placed are of genuine Irish manufacture and the old difficulty 
which existed of knowing whether the things which one bought 
were of Irish make or only pretended to be such is now at 
an end. As a result goods bearing the Irish Trade-Mark are 
now being exported all over the world, and it has been found 
necessary to register it in a number of countries, including the 
United States of America. Canada, France, the Argentine Re- 
public, and Australia. Nor has the work of the Association 
by any means reached its limits, for every month fresh appli- 
cations for the use of the Trade-Mark come under considera- 
tion. But the Association has and exercises other beneficent 
powers on behalf of Irish goods. Everybody must have been 
familiar with the "Shamrock Match" made by the artless 
Scandinavian who had no idea, of course, that the herb in 
question had any particular significance, but who nevertheless 
poured his wares in huge and increasing volume into that 
land where the shamrock grows in every field. Everybody 
has also come into some kind of contact with the Brian 
Boroighme suit made of English shoddy on English looms; 
of the Erin-go-Bragh cap made by those who did not even 
know how to spell Irish ; of the Rory O'More tie ; of the 
Bryan O'Lynn breeches, and all the other things which have 
masqueraded under titles suggestive that the articles which bore 
them were racy of the Irish soil. Further, some, at least, 
were aware of still more deliberate frauds in the shape of 
pseudo-Donegal tweeds and sham Irish linen and other like 
things which were palmed off on an unwary and too often 
apathetic public as articles of Irish manufacture. They not 
only sold instead of the real goods, but did those goods a 
double injury, since the quality of the sham article was such 
as to deter those who had bought it in the belief that it was 
Irish from ever again embarking on similar purchases. 

Hence when the Trade-Mark Association was securing in- 
corporation, those who directed its work took power to pro- 
secute those persons who were detected in the act of misre- 
presenting foreign goods as Irish. Subsequent events have 



i9i i.] THE IRISH INDUSTRIAL REVIVAL MOVEMENT 233 

shown the wisdom of this policy. The Association has found 
itself obliged to institute about thirty prosecutions in England 
and in Ireland against persons offending in this manner. That 
these prosecutions have been undertaken wisely and after full 
sifting of the facts is abundantly proved by the results for in 
no one case has the Association been defeated in the courts. 
In fact so uniform has been their success that nearly two 
hundred other firms in all parts of the world have not ventured 
to come into court on the matter but have given binding un- 
dertakings to the Association, without resort to legal proceed- 
ings, that they will cease applying Irish titles and Irish em- 
blems to goods manufactured outside our country. All this, 
within the brief period above alluded to, is a very striking ex- 
ample of success and it may be confidently expected that within 
a short time we shall see and hear no more of the flagrant 
frauds which formerly hampered the success of Irish manu- 
factures. 

Such, then, are some of the works accomplished by the 
recent Industrial Development Movement; such its difficulties. 
That it may continue its beneficent work for the advance of 
our country must be the constant hope of all who love the 
Island of Saints ; that it can and will do so is certain if it 
obtains that very moderate amount of support which it can 
fairly claim from those who have already so greatly benefited 
by its labors. 





HIS OUTSTRETCHED HAND 

BY WALTER ELLIOTT, C.S.P. 

Let nothing trouble thee, 

Let nothing affright thee ; 

All things pass away ; 

God alone never changes ; 

Patient endurance gains everything; 

He that possesses God lacks nothing. 

OW tranquil an air breathes into our souls from 
these maxims of St. Teresa, found after her 
death in her own handwriting, placed as a marker 
in her breviary. They are the buoyant, coura- 
geous utterance of a spirit to whom the words 
"nothing" and "everything" meant respectively creatures and 
God. 

I. 

Hope is a divine virtue, one of "these three; but the 
greatest of these is charity 1 ' (I. Cor. xiii.-is). Love is thus 
supreme. As warmth is the essential quality of fire, so faith 
is love's firelight, and hope is the fuel for love's flame. 

The old-time Catholic poet Richard Crashaw, calls hope 
" Queen regent in young love's minority." We may add that 
when love is full grown and becomes queen regnant, hope is 
major domo in her royal palace. Yet many a Christian pre- 
fers humility to hope, a moral virtue to a divine one, favoring 
pious timidity at the expense of trustfulness towards God. 
A devout scare has its uses, but these must fall short of reli- 
gious panic. Beware of so much as piously mouthing such 
expressions as, " O, I fear I shall never be saved." What is the 
one dread mystery of religion ? Predestination let us trem- 
blingly own it. But how does God command us to solve it? 
By trusting Him, trusting Him blindly, trusting Him against 
appearances. Much of our spirituality must consist in chang- 
ing the virtue oi love into that of hope. 

II. 

It is a comfort to feel that I owe my salvation to Christ 
alone, and that by an act of mercy entirely absolute His 
pardon is pure clemency. Any other spiritual comfort is like 



.] His OUTSTRETCHED HAND 235 

a blossom in a vase, sure to wither and die, and its seed to 
die with it. Trust that is rooted in God is a blossom on the 
living tree of hope, that only changes its bright leaves for the 
ripened seed of eternal life. It was so on the tree of the 
cross, when Jesus Crucified dignified this virtue of hope by 
His farewell utterance: "Father, into Thy hands I commend 
My spirit " (Luke xxiii. 46). This was His answer to the still 
lingering terrors of the Garden and the still echoing taunts of 
its demons there, as well as the mocking voices of the rabble 
upon Calvary. 

Do my past sins cast me down ? Yet nothing can give 
me greater confidence of dying happily (O, what a joy !) than 
the recollection of all that God has patiently borne from me. 
His purpose has always been and is now a happy death for 
me. The maxim, " look to the end," may be unheeded by me, 
never by Him ; God, Who is the beginning, always looks to 
the end. He will make a complete work of mercy in my case. 
Can I doubt that this frame of mind is pleasing to Him? 

What is that God who withers up my soul with fright? 
where is He, what is He doing ? Taking God as most uni- 
versally present, He is the Spirit in every man's soul pleading 
for him " with unspeakable groanings " (Rom. viii. 26). He is 
God the Son on every altar in Christendom, bestowing even 
Himself without reserve indiscriminately upon the least and the 
most worthy. He is the infinitely pitiful Father, breathing 
out His pardoning love in the tribunal of mercy, the con- 
fessional. Where is the God who threatens? He is at dis- 
tant Sinai. And where is the God who affectionately invites ? 
He is everywhere! and He is our God. 

III. 

Theologians teach the difference between the certainty of 
faith and that of hope. The certainty of faith is seated mainly 
in the intelligence, being a divine light by which one is able 
to exclude doubt or question concerning the truths of religion ; 
and the inspiring motive is God's truthfulness in revealing 
Christ's doctrine. But the solidity of hope is fixed mainly in 
the will, a grace by which one excludes fear of damnation, 
a trustfulness whose motive is God's purpose and promise and 
power to save us. As faith's certainty is called infallible, 
infallibilitas, so hope's firmness is said to be incapable of dis- 
appointment, infrustrabilitas. Neither is above the reach of 



236 His OUTSTRETCHED HAND [May, 

temptation ; but it is always in our power to hold fast to our 
serenity of divine light by the grace of faith, and sweetness 
of trust in God by the grace of hope. " For when He grant- 
eth peace, who is there that can condemn ? " (Job xiv. 29). 
God has set a limit to justice and condemnation, none to 
mercy. I am forgiven my sins by God, and He is the court 
of last resort. From that decree there is no appeal against 
me, none possible or conceivable. There never shall be a 
new trial of my dreadful case, never for all eternity. I am 
forgiven now and forever more. "The Lord is my light and 
my salvation, whom shall I fear?" thus for my faith; "The 
Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid ? " 
(Ps. xxvi. i) thus for my hope. 

God forgives our sins and forgets them. But this is not all : 
He forgets His past favors to us. He begins over again as if 
He had heretofore done nothing. In our espousals with His 
Spirit the honeymoon is perpetual. Every day of His friend- 
ship is like the first. God is willing to forego a thousand 
threatenings of justice, but He has never been known to break 
a single promise of love. " The Lord is faithful in all His 
words, and holy in all His works. The Lord lifteth up all that 
fall, and setteth up all that are cast down. The eyes of all 
hope in Thee, O Lord " (Ps. cxiv. 13-15). 

IV. 

God has outlined this divine virtue in granting us a natural- 
ly hopeful temperament. Among the kinds of men we know, 
none is more lovely than he who has a particularly hopeful 
character. He looks on the bright side what side but that 
is God's side. As we hear that the darkest cloud has its 
silver lining, so must we say that God always sees that side, 
for He is enthroned beyond the clouds. " Heaven's door is 
iron on our side and golden on God's side," says Wiseman by 
one of his characters in Fabiola. 

In religious activities the busy, pushing man is the hopeful 
man; and he is the thriving man. He alone has daring plans 
for God's cause. Difficulties do not daunt him, because his 
temperament and his grace make sacrifices easy. A supine 
soul has no place in a saint's following. Cowardice never takes 
counsel of an energetic friend it seeks out a minimizing con- 
fidant for its perplexities and a temporizing negotiator for its 
scruples. Insead of abounding in plans it overflows with ex- 



i9i i.] His OUTSTRETCHED HAND 237 

cuses. Reasons for not acting are abundant in proportion to 
the vacancy of hopefulness. A safe man, such a one is some- 
times called: safe he is because he keeps at a safe distance 
from the firing line. He can boast that he has never been 
knocked down for he is always lying flat on the ground. 

One says of an evil that called for remedying, " I was afraid 
to make matters worse, and so I quietly withdrew." Another 
kind of a man says, " I had little hope, to be sure, but I 
could not help doing something and I did my best." God 
does not always give a victory to such a one, but he always 
comforts his conscience with inner approval. 

" Among all the virtues, hope is distinguished for activity 
and energy," says Father Chaignon. Indolence murmurs : 
" What's the use, success is impossible " with a secret dread 
of labor and sacrifices and conflicts. Hope says : " Let us fight 
with cheerfulness the battle of Israel ' " (I Mac. iii. 2). The 
spirit of a valiant disciple is content with a postponed success : 
" And in doing good let us not fail, for in due time we shall 
reap, not failing" (Gal. vi. 9) in due time; later on; in the 
person of our successors, who shall reap where we have sown ; 
in God's chosen time. Is there any better time? His be the 
choice of time, as His has been the choice of me to do the 
work, and the choice of the work itself. It is related of 
Blessed Joan of Arc, that when the English armies had over- 
run nearly all France, and her king, nobles and people were in 
dark despair, they enlarged to her upon the great power of 
the enemy and his vast numbers. But she calmly replied: 
"If there were a hundred thousand more Goddams (as the 
English were called by the French) among us, they should 
not have this country." 

V. 

For hopefulness is a workaday virtue. A Christian should 
undertake his Master's work in a bold, confident spirit and 
persist in it resolutely. When St. Paul of the Cross had re- 
ceived repeated inspirations from God to establish the Order 
of Passionists, he opened his whole mind to his bishop and 
obtained his approval. Then with his encouragement he jour- 
neyed on foot to Rome to beg the Pope's blessing on his un- 
dertaking. But the chamberlain in attendance turned him away. 
He looked scornfully at the meek figure, clad in a curious and 
very poor habit, without a single friend to introduce him, 
muttering something about founding a new religious order. 



238 His OUTSTRETCHED HAND [May, 

As he turned him off he cried out after him: "How many 
tramps do you suppose want to see the Pope every day ? " 
Paul went his way, but he came again. He never faltered, 
no, not for a moment, during long years filled with various 
such misadventures. His final success was due as much to his 
steadfast trust as to his divine inspirations. 

Contradictions to imprudent undertakings, or untimely ones, 
above all to those which lack true Catholic flavor, are a natu- 
ral sign of God's disapproval. But it is a curious thing, yet 
spiritual writers agree upon it, that to a work of God all timely 
and beneficent, contradictions are a mark of divine favor 
more; they are a pledge of final success. " Believest thou 
this ? " Therefore, " Son, when thou comest to the service of 
God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for 
temptation" (Ecclus. ii. i). 

How shall we destroy the religion of Christ, asked its ene- 
mies, after they had put St. Stephen to death. Scatter His 
apostles, so that they may wander in exile, hindered from work- 
ing in unison, their organization destroyed. How shall we build 
up the religion of Christ, it was asked in the counsels of 
heaven. Scatter His apostles, develop their organization by 
distributing its leaders, show its universality. One or two are 
enough for the Jewish nation, let the others preach the Gospel 
to every creature, offer His all-clean Oblation among every 
people, everywhere from the rising to the setting ; sun for lo, 
Christ is with them in all lands and to all ages. How singular 
the identity of means and diversity of aim among the enemies 
and friends of God's Church. How futile to consider means 
and ends according to man's view, when there is question of 
a work of God. 

VI. 

Did you ever hear of a really important work of God 
which did not cost many tears, great trials, and long protracted 
waiting ? " Great designs are not accomplished save by means 
of patience and the lapse of time. Things which grow in one 
day, decay in another " (Letters of St. Francis de Sales U Per- 
sons in Religion, Mackey Edition, VI). This rule of Provi- 
dence, so invariable and so trying, is established to purify 
motives, to demonstrate that God is the author of the work, 
to secure a better time, place, and other advantages later on, 
and to enhance the merit of the servants of God who undertake 
His cause. Failure on the part of an unhopeful temperament 



i9i i.] His OUTSTRETCHED HAND 239 

produces gloomy disappointment and sourness of manner; but 
a hopeful temperament is stung by defeat to undertake an im- 
mediate counterstroke with renewed courage, together with dear- 
ly bought increase of prudence. 

It has been well said that a true Christian should have but 
one fear lest he should not hope enough. The vice which 
more directly antagonizes hope is despair, but presumption 
uses and abuses it. The virtue that is made to hurt hope is 
prudenee degenerated into cowardice, which also conscripts 
humility into its craven service. Discouragement apes humility ; 
and timidity, like a man without any appetite who boasts of 
his lenten fast, poses as discretion. 

If timid men would but refuse promotion and reject praise 
in religious organizations, they would at least have the merit 
of consistency. But how many skulkers have claimed and got 
advancement because they " never got into trouble " " ten 
years' service without a complaint against me." Yes, but what 
good have you done ? How different the meekness of an ag- 
gressive nature ! Who was the invincible leader of God's broken- 
spirited people ? " Moses was a man exceeding meek, above 
all men that dwelt upon earth " (Numb. xii. 3). 

A grievous affliction is sadness, and yet it may merit hearty 
condemnation in a servant of God. The Fathers of the Desert 
named sadness as the eighth capital sin, for it ranks high as 
a muddler of clear counsel in divine affairs, and a crippler of 
strenuous endeavor. In moments of depression abandon your- 
self absolutely to the will of God, and with every trust in His 
loving care, "drink the chalice of the Lord with your eyes 
shut," to use an expression of St. Paul of the Cross, paraphras- 
ing the stalwart utterance of the Psalmist: "I will take the 
chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the Name of the 
Lord" (Ps. cxv. 13). It may be the nectar of victory that I 
shall quaff, it may be the wormwood of defeat it is always 
the chalice of the Lord's salvation if I am doing His work. 

VII. 

It was said of the Dominican artist Fra Angelico that 
" he put a bit of paradise into everything he painted." He 
dealt with dead things and gave them undying life. I am 
called to divine works, I study and labor and practice holy 
sympathy for my neighbor; prayer and sacraments I offer to 
God, things already alive with heaven's blissfulness. Shall I 



240 His OUTSTRETCHED HAND [May, 

not permit them to pour the paradise of God into my soul? 
Shall I block the way of heavenly hope with the effigy of 
prudence and the old clothes of humility ? Of St. Catherine 
of Siena her biographer says, that even as a little child, "as 
soon as anyone conversed with her, sadness was dispelled from 
his heart." 

An atrocious sinner repents and is forgiven and then re- 
lapses; and this act of feebleness and wickedness is repeated 
many times over. But what then ? Perhaps he at last repents 
finally and forever. If so, it is because he did not lose hope, 
the last anchor of the storm-beaten soul. Consider this : God 
is pleased and men are edified, when an abominable recedive 
does not abandon hope in his worst state. What then should 
be the hope of a man who, though hard pressed by tempta- 
tion, is yet never mortally overcome in a conflict of many 
glorious years' duration. 

If one feels drawn by the Holy Spirit to make an advance 
on his present spiritual state all in the ordinary line of his 
calling and yet is too feeble to obey this inward impulse, let 
him not be so much discouraged as humiliated. Self con- 
tempt is a valuable spiritual asset. And then let him say: I 
will go forward sooner or later shame on me for not doing 
it now. No bankruptcy is so lamentable as loss of heart. 
God may leave us helpless to act; He never leaves us 
empty of good-will to resolve to act in the future. What 
confounds my pride should establish my humility. We be- 
lieve that no sound is more unwelcome to the demon than 
the alleluia of hope, sung by a soul struggling valiantly with 
the ignoble fault of procrastination. 

VIII. 

" The freshness of a living hope in God," says St. John of 
the Cross, " inspires the soul with such energy and resolution, 
with such aspiration after the things of eternal life, that all 
this world seems to it as indeed it is in comparison with 
what it hopes for, dry, withered, dead, and worthless" (Ob- 
scure Night, Bk. II. Ch, XXI). Such a soul cannot be absorbed 
in worldly things ; its sole anxiety is about God. " My eyes 
are ever towards God" (Ps. xxiv. 15). Our Savior's bitter 
reproach to Peter was merited by his relying on human means 
to place his Master on His throne of salvation: "Jesus said 
to Peter: Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art a scandal 



i9i i.] His OUTSTRETCHED HAND 241 

unto Me, because thou savorest not of the things that are of 
God but of the things that are of men " (Matt. xvi. 23). Now 
the foremost of the men on whom Peter foolishly relied was 
his own raw, headlong, blundering self. Is it otherwise with 
any of us, who dreams of spiritual gains being anything else 
than divine favors? 

Men read volumes and volumes of travels in strange coun- 
tries where they never expect to go. Why have they so little 
interest in the realm of eternal joy, the kingdom of Christ 
beyond the skies, whither they one and all trust to go and to 
live forever? It is because they do not cultivate the virtue 
of hope, that " hope that was laid up for them in heaven " 
(Col. i. 4), and which projects the joys of present love into 
the endless years of future love. O God of eternal youth, 
Thou givest to Thy children a share in Thy own attribute of 
perpetual peace : " I have said : ye are Gods, and sons of 
the most High " (Ixxxi. 6). Mayest Thou grant me with the 
jubilant energy of youth to grapple with the tasks Thy Provi- 
dence lays upon me. "For which cause we faint not; for 
though our outward man is corrupted, the inward man is re- 
newed day by day " (II Cor. iv. 16) renewed by hope. 

Indeed the true Christian never grows old. No matter 
how sadly decayed his bodily force, his spiritual part is en- 
dowed with a divine youthfulness, courage to begin any good 
work, fortitude to recover quickly from any failure the glor- 
ious hopefulness of his Master in his soul and in his conduct, 
expressed by the Psalmist in that renowned war cry of holy 
progress: "I have said: now have I begun; this is the 
change of the right hand of the most High" (Ixxxvi. n). 

A dreamer and a visionary is nicknamed a " rainbow 
chaser." But in a real sense every Christian must be that, 
or the clouds of despondency will darken his whole life. I 
must look upwards with the divine instinct of holy hope, 
searching the misty future for God's sign manual on the sky, 
His covenant that He "will no more destroy every living 
creature," "I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be 
a covenant between Me and between the earth. And when I 
shall cover the sky with clouds, My bow shall appear in the 
clouds, and I will remember My covenant with you " (Gen. ix. 
13-15). 

VOL* XCIII. 1 6 



flew Boohs. 



A ROMAN DIARY AND OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATING TO 
THE PAPAL INQUIRY INTO ENGLISH ORDINATIONS, 1896. 
By T. A. Lacey. New York : Longmans, Green & Co, 
$3 net. 

41 This volume can hardly be called a book ; there is much in 
it that gives little satisfaction, much that is trivial, some evi- 
dences of bad temper, and some unpleasant indications of 
ignorance " (Preface pp. IX, X). Such a frank confession of 
a book's shortcomings is well calculated to disarm at the out- 
set the most hostile critic. Still as the writer was not editing 
an original document of some old chronicler of the middle 
ages, but giving to the world a personal diary of his two 
months stay in Rome some fourteen years ago, he could very 
well have omitted whatever was trivial or irrelevant (pp. 49, 
56, 74, 75) or gave evidence of rudeness and bad temper 
(pp. 19, 23, 42, 50, So). His own defense is rather a lame 
one: "The Diary is intended to show what was done, what 
was said, and what was thought; to indicate also, by its 
silences, what was not done. For this purpose it must be 
produced as a whole ; excerpts would be useless. Severe de- 
mands are therefore made on the patience of the reader " (X). 
We regret to state that the author's object has not been at- 
tained. We have read carefully his introduction, his diary, 
and the score or more of letters written at the time, and had 
we not learned the facts from members of the Papal Com- 
mission like Abbot Gasquet and Mgr. Moyes, we would still 
be utterly in the dark as to what was really accomplished by 
those who were studying most carefully the facts and princi- 
ples involved in the complex question of the validity or in- 
validity of Anglican Orders. 

Of course a diary of this kind is rather interesting as a 
study in psychology or as a bit of subjective history. It gives 
us a pretty good insight into the mental make-up of Mr. Lacey 
and his friends, and enables us to grasp at once the stand-off 
attitude of the Anglican Bishops, and the firm, uncompromising 
position of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. 

Neither side would be apt to put much confidence in men 
no matter how sincere who gave so false a picture of the 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 243 

past or present history of the Church of England (pp. 195. 
209), who were guilty of so many slips in logic and theology 
(pp. 12, 258, 277, 294, 300, 323, etc.), or who stated so in- 
accurately what was happening at the very moment of their 
stay in Rome (pp. 21, 135, 114). 

Naturally, no one would expect an outsider to know all 
the private happenings of a Papal Commission. All Mr. 
Lacey's information was second-hand at best and, therefore, 
his comments and views are for the most part misleading as 
Mgr. Moyes has pointed out in three late numbers of the 
London Tablet (Jan. 14, Jan. 21, Feb. 4, 1911). 

It may be good to recall in a few words the facts that led 
to the reopening of the question regarding the validity of 
Anglican Orders. In the winter of 1889-90, Lord Halifax 
met in Madeira the French Lazarist, the Abbe Portal, pro- 
fessor in the seminary of Cahors. They became quite friendly, 
and in their walks together talked a great deal about the cor- 
porate reunion movement in England, and the position of the 
High Church party of the Establishment. The Abbe Portal, 
who had hitherto regarded the Church of England as a Cal- 
vinistic sect, became at once an enthusiastic convert to the 
idea of corporate reunion, and promised to do all in his power 
to further it. Both finally chose the question of the validity 
of Anglican Orders as a question of fact that might be re- 
opened at Rome by Leo XIII. 

In 1894, the Abbe Portal under the nom de plume of 
" Dalbus," opened the campaign with a pamphlet which, while it 
did not assert absolutely the validity of Anglican Orders, de- 
clared it an open question, well worthy of discussion on the Cath- 
olic side, and tending inevitably towards reunion with the Holy 
See. This pamphlet caused quite a stir in France, England and 
Rome. In France it was favorably commented on by Mgr. 
Gasparri, then professor of Canon Law at the Catholic Institute 
at Paris, and by Mgr. Duchesne, one of the foremost of living 
historical critics. The Revue Anglo -Romaine was started as 
the official organ of the movement, and both Catholic and 
Anglican writers were asked to contribute articles. The Eng- 
lish Catholics, better acquainted with the facts and the real 
spirit that dominated the Protestant majority of the Estab- 
lishment, were as a body perfectly content with the settled 
policy of Rome in reordaining absolutely all converted Angli- 



244 NEW BOOKS [May, 

can ministers. At Rome, Cardinal Rampolla and Pope Leo 
XIII. discussed the question with the Abbe Portal, and in 
April, 1895, the Pope prepared the way for the future dis- 
cussion by his encyclical " Ad Anglos," which was very well 
received in England. 

It was at first suggested that a joint commission of Catho- 
lics and Anglicans be selected to discuss the question, but 
this was finally abandoned in favor of a Papal Commission in 
which Catholic scholars of divergent views would meet in 
Rome and discuss fully and exhaustively the historical and 
theological aspects of the question. It will be noted that all 
the members of the Papal Commission who favored validity 
were foreigners, v. g. Duchesne, Gasparri, De Augustinis, while 
those most convinced of invalidity were English students of the 
Reformation period, like Abbot Gasquet, Mgr. Moyes, etc. 

It would take us too long to enumerate the many inac- 
curate statements that disfigure Mr. Lacey's pages. He him- 
self is continually alluding to them in the text or in the foot 
notes. It is rather wearisome and disconcerting to read: 
"My information was inexact; my impression at the time 
was incorrect; so I wrote, whether from inadvertence or igno- 
rance, etc.; this paragraph is altogether inaccurate " (pp. 32, 40, 
5i, 53, 89, 98, 99, 103, 113, 114, 129, 156, 163, 181, etc.). 
We marvel at times to find so careful and so critical a scholar 
as Duchesne being " much amused " at finding Dom Gasquet 
at fault, whereas, as we discover later on, he ought to have 
been " mueh amused" at the "extraordinary mistake" of his 
unscholarly informant, Mr. Lacey (De Hicrarchia, p. 81 ; cf. 
PP. 30, 32, 34, 98, 99. 103). 

The very fact that the writer himself admits so many in- 
accuracies, is in itself misleading, for the unthinking reader 
might be led to infer that Mr. Lacey had admitted them all. 
This is far from being the case. In his introduction he says 
"with the deliberate judgment of a later day (1910) the Com- 
mission seems to be all about Barlow" (p. 21). Why then, 
we might ask, did Cardinal Mazella tell him that the docu- 
ment he presented about Barlow "was of no importance"? 
(p. 22). As a matter of fact, Mgr. Moyes assures us that 
" the whole time which the Commission devoted to the Bar- 
low question was merely one sitting, and a part of the next 
amounting in all to about three hours" (The Tablet, Jan. 14, 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 245 

1911). It held "that his consecration was at least open to 
question, resting as it does on a general historical presump- 
tion applied to exceptional circumstances, and falling short of 
the moral certainty required for the recognition of valid suc- 
cession of orders." Even had Mr. Lacey been able to present 
the missing record of Barlow's consecration, " our case for the 
invalidity of Anglican Orders, based as it was on totally dif- 
ferent grounds (defect of form and defect of intention), would 
have remained absolutely untouched " (ibid). 

Another striking misstatement occurs on p. 135: "In the 
Commission, Cardinal Mazella refused to let the consultors go 
behind the Gordon decision; they were consultors of the 
Holy Office and were bound by all its decisions" (cf. p. 265, 
267). This is rendered still more inaccurate, by his ascribing 
this astonishing information to Mgr. Duchesne. 

Gordon had received Anglican Orders, and the decision 
asserted that he must be ordained absolutely as if he were a 
layman, a most sacrilegious proceeding had there been any 
reasonable doubt about the orders he had received. 

If, then, Mr. Lacey correctly understood his informant, the 
whole commission must needs be branded as a mere farce, 
and the sincerity of Leo XIII. questioned and denied. 

We do not wonder that Mgr. Moyes again characterizes 
this statement as "a deplorable misapprehension," "an utter 
perversion of history," and a "false accusation" of "double 
dealing and dishonesty " on the part of Leo XIII. He says : 
"The Papal Commission was not appointed merely to discuss 
the Gordon case. It was charged to examine the whole root- 
question of the validity or invalidity of Anglican Orders. 
Cardinal Mazella and all the members of the Commission were 
fully agreed from the outset that it was perfectly open to any 
member to bring forward any point of evidence which would 
in any way make either for or against the validity of Angli- 
can Orders. The Commission not only went behind the Gordon 
case to consider the case of 1685, and the action of the Church 
under Cardinal Pole, but entered minutely ab initio into these 
three possible sources of invalidity, discussing especially the 
various parts of the Anglican Ordinal, and its comparison with 
the most primitive form of ordination" (The Tabtet, January 
21, 1911). 

Mr. Lacey becomes very indignant at the answer drawn up 



246 NEW BOOKS [May, 

by Abbot Gasquet and Mgr. Moyes to his erroneous and 
fantastic memorial to the Cardinals on certain facts of the 
English Reformation, and the present status of the Establish- 
ment. " I was accused," he writes, " of deliberate fraud, of 
saying things in the ears of Cardinals at Rome, which I should 
not dare to say in the open air of England " (p. 20). 

Mgr. Moyes has stated categorically that "it was not my 
wish nor my wont to impugn the honesty of those who hap- 
pened to be our opponents" (The Tablet, February 4, 1911). 
But Mr. Lacey had written a Latin pamphlet, De Re Anglica 
(PP I 95-2O9) which would leave any one not versed in Eng- 
lish history under the impression that England had never been 
a Protestant country, and the Reformation, apart from the de- 
nial of the Papacy, had made no change whatever in the Catho- 
lic faith. The Anglican Church was depicted as ever combat- 
ting the errors of the Protestant party, or " Puritans," just as 
the Ultramontanes of France combatted the Gallicans. Beyond 
a doubt statements of this kind needed the correction that 
Abbot Gasquet and Mgr. Moyes supplied in their Riposta (pp. 
210-239). If they had been printed in English papers like the 
London Times or the Spectator, they would have elicited scores 
of dentals from Anglicans themselves. 

We read (p. 95): "So far they have established only one 
thing at the Commission that Ferrar was consecrated by the 
Pontifical." In reality they established nothing of the kind. 
Ferrar was degraded from his priesthood, which he had re- 
ceived according to the Pontifical, but not from the Episcopate 
which had been conferred by the Ordinal. Both Mr. Lacey 
and Mr, Frere "hoped to prove" (p. 105, cf. 113) that under 
Queen Mary some of the Anglican ordinands were not reor- 
dained, but he did not succeed in doing so. He tells us (p. 
33) that " Duchesne is satisfied that Pole made no distinction 
between the men ordained by the two rites," but he fails to 
say that no case has yet been produced in which it can be 
shown with certainty that any one ordained by the English 
Ordinal was permitted to exercise his ministry under Queen 
Mary without being reordained. Again, there is no warrant 
whatever for the statement that Julius III. approved the Eng- 
lish Ordinal, "formally" or "implicitly" (p. 181). 

The Bibliography mentions many articles and books of very 
unequal value, and fails to cite the most important and scholarly 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 247 

book of Abbot Gasquet and Mr. Bishop: Edward VI. and 
the Book of Common Prayer. Indeed had the writer sub- 
mitted his proofs sheets to the learned Benedictine, we might 
have been spared many a page of misleading and inaccurate 
information. We might say of the book what Mr. Lacey un- 
justly said of the bull Apostolical Curae\ "It is an ill con- 
sidered utterance" (p. 306). 

A CAPTAIN OF RALEIGH'S. By G. E. Theodore Roberts. 
Boston: L. C. Page & Co. $1.50. 

After the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh many of the 
captains who had served and loved him, openly threw off alle- 
giance to the king and, resolving to strike powerful blows in 
memory of their dead leader, took to the high seas as pirates. 
Pirates of a Robin Hood order they were, and scrupulously 
men of honor in all their hazardous, lawless life. Around 
Captain John Percy, one of this number, Mr. G. E. Theodore 
Roberts has woven an interesting tale of adventure, which he 
publishes under the title, A Captain of Raleigh's. It is a 
good yarn well spun. 

THE MAID OF ORLEANS. By Robert Hugh Benson. New 
York: Longmans, Green & Co. 20 cents. 

At the very outset we desire to congratulate Father Ben- 
son on this play, for he has written a work containing many 
beautiful ideas. In every way it is a great advance on his 
recent play, The Cost of a Crown. There are several niceties 
of situation and of diction in The Maid of Orleans, and we feel 
that if Father Benson continues writing for the stage that we 
shall get some of his best work. It strikes us forcibly that he 
is now finding himself, and we hope that he will obtain a sub- 
stantial recognition from Catholics by the rapid disposal of the 
cheap and nicely printed edition of this play which now lies 
before us. 

The work is laid out in five scenes: outside the home of 
Joan, in the court of a guard house in Orleans, in the sacristy 
of Rheims cathedral, in the prison where Joan is held in chains, 
and, lastly, at the stake. Interspersed throughout the play 
are hymns, the chiming of bells, and choruses. Of all the 
scenes, we feel drawn more towards the first because of the 
delicate touches in delineation of character which show that 



248 NEW BOOKS [May, 

Father Benson has one of those gifts that go to make a 
dramatist: that he is a keen observer of human nature in its 
many aspects. 

But all the scenes are good, and some pretty turns on 
words are done very well. One thing in particular we are 
glad to see in connection with our language. The correct, but 
tabooed pronunciation of "again" is adopted, being rhymed 
with " then " and " men." We have only one fault to find, and 
it is a small one. We should like to see modified the stage 
direction on p. 63 in connection with the conduct of the clerics 
at the death of Joan. Such callousness as the directions seem 
to imply may have historical foundation, but a representation 
of it before a modern audience may cause much harm to peo- 
ple only slightly acquainted with a knowledge of Joan's life, 
and with the history of the French people. 

PREACHERS AND TEACHERS. By J. G. Simpson, D.D. Lon- 
don: Edward Arnold. 

This book being intended for Protestants is written with 
the necessary coloring. It is of the usual order, a rather com- 
mon -place culling of extracts from Anglican preachers of 
various schools of thought. One chapter, however, is devoted 
to St. Martin of Tours, and though unobjectionable from a 
Catholic point of view contains nothing either new or valuable. 
One thing is quite evident in it : the embarrassment of the 
author, and his attempt to glide over the Catholicism of the 
saint. The same thing is also noticeable in the chapter on 
St. Augustine. In a succeeding chapter devoted to the prin- 
ciples of Butler's teaching, the author falls foul of the Catho- 
lic Church. He adopts a half-cynical, half-scoffing tone when 
speaking of Modernism and the Vatican. Under ordinary cir- 
cumstances this might be allowed to pass as a mere token of 
questionable taste, but as his remarks stand he writes himself 
down as being either totally ignorant of the questions at issue, 
or as one who hesitates not to falsify facts. We prefer to 
give him the benefit of the doubt. We cannot object to his 
Protestantism, but we can and do take strong exception to his 
colored exposition of Catholic doctrine. 

It is rather late in the day for a clergyman to try to 
arouse his readers with a playful description of a movement 
which if left to increase and delude people would ultimately 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 249 

lead back to Paganism. The author refers to Luther and sees 
in his revolt a similitude to that of the Modernists in the 
Catholic Church of to-day. But there is no parity between 
the movements, and the sooner the author learns what the 
Modernists teach the better for himself and those whose re- 
ligion is entrusted to his care. Still we have not much hope 
that his views will be changed, for one who professes (as he 
does) a contempt for theology will not take very seriously the 
deep significance that lies at the bottom of Modernistic teach- 
ing. 

IZAMAL. By Joseph F. Wynne. Detroit: Angelus Publish- 
ing Co. $i. 

Joseph F. Wynne, in his new book, Izamal, shows us Lord 
Cecil Layton, a young Englishman visiting in New York, who 
is actuated by a strange impulse to seek out religious truth. 
This search he begins one morning in the most matter-of-fact 
way by calling on the clergyman of every church that he 
happens to pass; naturally his experiences are amusing and 
enlightening. Divine grace is leading him, however, and at 
last he finds truth in the Church. After his conversion Lord 
Cecil continues his travels, going to spend Christmas in South 
America, in Izamal, which is, we are told, " a very important 
little town near the coast of Yucatan. 91 There, in the pictur- 
esque surroundings of a universal Catholic piety he makes a 
definite decision to give up his title and inheritance, in order 
to enter the priesthood. 

The book cannot fail to win the admiration of the reader. 
It has its faults, but these are forgotten in appreciation of the 
story's merits. The types of clergymen of various denomina- 
tions, their methods of life, and their spiritual conditions, are 
pictured with a masterly touch. 

HISTORY OF DOGMAS. By J. T. Tixeront. St. Louis: B. 
Herder. $1.50. 

This first volume of a History of Dogmas covers the first 
three centuries. Although no dogma strictly so called was 
formulated within that period, the very nature of dogmas 
makes this history begin at the beginning of that period. A 
dogma being "a revealed truth defined as such by the 
Church," to find that truth on its first appearance we must 



250 NEW BOOKS [May, 

go back to revelation. And this is where the History of 
Dogmas first takes us. The facts revealed by Jesus and 
through the Apostles it points out to us one after another on 
the pages of the New Testament. Then pointing to history it 
portrays the gradually increasing vision in the main of 
those facts obtained by succeeding generations. The degree 
of clearness with which an object is seen depends partly on 
the way it is set up before the eye, but principally upon the 
complexion and power of the eye itself. Throughout this 
varying clarity of sight the object of vision remains the 
same. This history lets us see where repeated handling of 
the inspired text, first for practical, then for speculative pur- 
poses, has served continuously to set the revealed facts before 
the mind's eye to better and better advantage, thus contribu- 
ting to an ever-increasing clearness of view on the beholder's 
part. But it is especially the eye that is concerned in this 
growing clarification of vision. Because of this the author 
has been at great pains to show not only the constitution 
and natural bent of the individual minds occupied upon 
Scripture, but above all the outside influences to which those 
minds were subjected. As it happened, and as our history 
makes plain, that personal temper of mind and those external 
influences caused in some cases the visual organ to mistake 
the object altogether. The influential agents were chiefly 
traditional Jewish notions and Greek philosophy. To these 
influences were owing Judaeo-Christianity and gnosticism. On 
the other hand, this same Grecian culture energized to such 
good purpose that men like Origen and Clement of Alexan- 
dria, turning powerful and penetrating minds upon sacred 
Scripture, were able to see its contents with greatly aug- 
mented clearness. And so the divine object of Christian be- 
lief was seen with greater and greater distinctness as time 
progressed. The author does not pretend to prove, although 
recognizing, that in the course of centuries substantially the 
same revealed facts formed the object of the Church's mental 
gaze, for this falls not within the scope of a history of dog- 
mas. By a thorough investigation of the past he ascertains 
and sets before the reader what was believed from age to 
age. It is for the reader himself to compare these beliefs and 
say whether they be not substantially identical, whether the 
revealed fact to which the eye of faith is directed be not al- 



I9I1-] NEW BOOKS 251 

ways the same, irrespective of the degree of clearness with 
which it is perceived. The aberration of those very minds 
Origen and Tertullian which were chiefly instrumental, at that 
early day, in securing a clearer view and more precise expres- 
sion of objective Christian belief, is an argument going to 
show the practical necessity of a divinely-guided guardian of 
our faith. 

SERMONS OF ST. BERNARD. New York : Benziges Brothers. 
75 cents net. 

These are Christmas sermons of the twelfth century, com- 
posed for his own religious household by the illustrious Abbot 
of Clairvaux. The translation in correct English was made in 
an English convent, and forms a book of one hundred and 
fifty pages. It is intended " chiefly for convents." It is a de- 
votional work. Each sermon is a fervid expression of the 
saint's religious feeling. On a groundwork of Scripture he 
raises a brilliant structure of imagination illuminated by a thou- 
sand pious fancies. His beautiful soul shines out with surpass- 
ing radiance upon the pages dedicated to the "praises of the 
Virgin Mother." The glow of sacred exaggeration is delightful. 

THE SPIRIT OF POWER. By Ernest Arthur Edghill, M.A. 
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.40. 

The author devotes this volume to the Church of the second 
century, and succeeds in painting a very clear bird's eye- view 
of the period. As he says himself, it can hardly be called 
ecclesiastical history in the strictest sense, but it is history 
devoid of the usual multiplicity of details and dates. He 
demonstrates very well the power of the Church and the 
weakness of paganism. To do this he selects various phases 
of life, such as purity and regeneration, suffering, the origin 
and happy results of persecution, and the spirit of love in 
several aspects, and shows how intensely they were connected 
with the early Church. The work is well done, and the au- 
thor has the happy art of true historical perspective, and is 
gifted with a good style with which to set forth his knowledge. 
One point that is often conveniently overlooked at the present 
day Mr. Edghill lays stress upon : the great persecution 
Christianity underwent at the hands of the Jews. In this 



252 NEW BOOKS [May, 

volume things are as they should be on this point; truth is 
told fearlessly. 

We cannot, however, commend the book unreservedly, for 
in a few places the author allows his theological antipathies 
to obtrude. This is a pity, as otherwise the book could be 
read with profit by all classes of Catholics. As it stands it is 
suitable only for those Catholics who know their religion very 
well, and are able to place their finger instantly on expressions 
of Protestant thought. A sentence on p. 263 has puzzled us. 
Speaking of ( the Church's activity in ransoming captives the 
author writes, " The Roman Church retained to the end her 
honorable pre-eminence as a 'leader of love.'" 

We shall await with interest Mr. Edghill's promised sup- 
plementary volume, and we hope that he will keep history 
well in view, and likewise keep well in the background the 
religious teaching of Protestantism. He can write history well, 
and we can appreciate him ; but naturally we look with sus- 
picion on his theology. 

A MANUAL OF CHURCH HISTORY. Vol. II. By Dr. F. X. 

Funk. From the fifth German Edition by Luigi Cappo- 
delta. St. Louis: B. Herder. $2.75. 

A short time ago we noticed the translation of the first 
volume of Funk's Manual of Church History ; and we now an- 
nounce the appearance of the second and concluding volume, 
which brings the work down to the present date. An index, 
including sixty pages, and therefore one-tenth as large as the 
two volumes, deserves to be noticed as very helpful. 

In general the verdict of critics on the second volume has 
been less favorable than on the first. The London Tablet 
rightly enough finds fault with the part devoted to England. 
American readers will be equally dissatisfied with the treatment 
accorded to this country. 

PROTESTANT MODERNISM. By David C. Torrey, A,B. New 
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50. 

One need not go past the dedication of this book to know 
what is coming. The author dedicates his work to his father 
" who taught him to think freely," and we can say, after 
reading the succeeding pages, that Mr. Torrey has put to the 
widest and amplest use the teaching of his respected parent. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 253 

In itself there is nothing in Protestant Modernism worth serious 
consideration on the part of Catholics. The author has hazy 
ideas of religion, and as for terms, such as are necessary for 
the strict science of theology, he is as innocent as a child. 
He reads his own meaning into words using, we presume, 
his privilege of free thinking and one of the results is that 
it is sometimes difficult to make out exactly what he believes. 
Christ for him was a mere pious man, one liable to sin, 
and imbued with God just as other holy men are; He was a 
mere teacher in whom God had confidence. Salvation is only 
partial, mankind being a kind of limited liability company, 
those who obey God will become like unto God, partaking of 
his attributes, while those who lead evil lives will die a death 
like animals and cease to exist. And, so, Mr. Torrey mean- 
ders on knocking his head against every stone wall that he 
meets, and evidently not being quite satisfied with his ex- 
ploits he finally tackles the Catholic Church. His book con- 
cludes with an assault on it, and he gives expression to the 
delectable opinion that our salvation as a Church depends 
upon the Modernists. In all friendliness we should advise 
him not to allow this theory to interfere with his daily avoca- 
tions. Mr. Torrey's book exemplifies the chaos into which 
Protestantism has fallen, and demonstrates perfectly his own 
assertion: "The vagaries of thinking on religious subjects are 
not to be numbered." 

IDOLA FORI: BEING AN EXAMINATION OF SEVEN QUES- 
TIONS OF THE DAY. By William Samuel Lilly. St. Louis : 
B. Herder. $2.25. 

There is not very much that is new in this, Mr. Lilly's 
most recent volume, nor indeed is the old stated with any 
more precision or clearness than many a writer has done 
before. But on some subjects treated Mr. Lilly is well worth 
listening to. What he writes on the "Indian Question" is 
particularly worthy of consideration, as it is free from that 
hysteria so noticeable in much that has been recently writ- 
ten on the subject. He is less happy in his treatment of 
the "Irish Question," which will make one ponder over a self- 
imposed query: what is it all about? And the only answer 
seemingly acceptable is that the chapter has a sting in its 
tail; an Anti-Home Rule sting, the poison of which may be 



254 NEW BOOKS [May, 

extracted by Englishmen and preserved for future use when 
the time shall come that a serious attempt will be made to 
give Ireland some form of autonomous government. 

These two chapters, with five others, all more or less on 
subjects based on political economy, make up the book, which 
is pleasantly written. Mr. Lilly is to be commended on his 
quiet profession of Catholicity. He shows the faith that is 
within him by his knowledge of St. Thomas Aquinas and other 
theologians. He does not hesitate to cite the Summa, and we 
are sure that many a scholar outside the Church will be thus 
brought to make an acquaintance with the marvellous argu- 
ments of St. Thomas. Mr. Lilly also shows great taste in his 
citations from other authors; they are always to the point, 
and never have the appearance of being forcibly inserted into 
his text. 

LECTURES ON GREEK POETRY. By J. W. Mackail, M.A., 
LL.D. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $3 net. 

The decline of Greek studies has long been giving concern 
to thoughtful men, who see in it a regretable surrender to 
the modern worship of the practical, with great detriment to 
true education. That foremost instrument for the imparting 
of true culture, Greek literature, is being sacrificed, we are 
told, to prepare the way for a world that will be built up on 
ideals far different from those which presided at the foundation 
of our civilization. A pessimistic outlook this, according to 
the Oxford Professor of Poetry, in his recent volume, Lectures 
on Greek Poetry. Greek studies are not on the decline accord- 
ing to Professor Mackail. " The position of Greek as a factor 
in culture has never been more assured than now." This is 
an encouraging word, at any rate, and we should receive it 
with gratification in the midst of so much complaint to the 
contrary, even in England; and we should like to believe it 
entirely true. Greek poetry, at least in the Professor's judg- 
ment, will be the means of obviating the two dangers which 
he sees threatening Greek studies. It will keep them from de- 
generating either into a hasty, careless pursuit, or a distorting 
specialization. 

The lectures cover the whole ground of Greek poetry from 
Homer to Theocritus. In every chapter the reader will find a 
guide whose literary taste he may safely follow. The chapter 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 255 

on "The Lyric Poets," will surely give the reader the desire 
to know more about those most perfect and inspired of human 
singers. Many may see here, perhaps for the first time, that 
historical criticism has vindicated the character of one of the 
sweetest of them, and one who, perhaps, may be put at 
their very head. Although the charges against Sappho have 
now been explained away, the stigma will doubtless remain, 
thanks to the longevity of legends. " Lesbian vice became a 
proverb," says Professor Mackail, "and between malice and 
ignorance, the name of Sappho got that ugly smear across it 
for which her extant poetry gives no warrant, to which, indeed, 
the whole body of her extant poetry is the contradiction. 9 ' 
The Athenian Comedy, which spread the slander, could not 
take any other than a sordid view of woman; and, besides, it 
was the misfortune of Sappho to belong to an Aeolian city. 

An interesting parallel is carried out between the idylls of 
Theocritus and Tennyson's idyllic poetry. Both were obliged 
to renounce the epic form of poetry, and both had the talent 
to excel in that imaginative style which they adopted. "Homer 
is different, I am Theocritus." Theocritus became a classic, 
while those who sought to write new epics enjoy now the fame 
of appearing in the pages of a history of literature. When- 
ever the opportunity offers, Professor Mackail points out the 
parallels that occur in English poetry. This feature enhances 
the value of his book. 

One could wish that the Latin and Greek quotations had 
been turned into English for the benefit of the general reader, 
who, through his ignorance of these tongues, will lose a great 
part of the pleasure and instruction which the book affords. 
Whoever reads this book cannot avoid wishing to know more 
of Greek poetry. This is no small praise for the author. 
Even in a work of this sort, where technical treatment is 
passed over, we have a right to expect that the positions of 
scholars to-day on such an important question as the compo- 
sition of the Homeric poems will be stated accurately. We 
think that the conclusions of Robert, in his Studien zur Ilias, 
are to be preferred to the position the author takes. Robert 
shows that the Iliad cannot be considered as the work of one 
man. It is a composite work, as it stands, no more truly to 
be assigned to one man, or one period, than is a house many 
times made over and enlarged under the direction of many 



256 NEW BOOKS [May, 

minds, to be considered the work of one builder. Literary 
criticism ought not to be too fearful of the sound conclusions 
of the historical and linguistic investigations of modern scholars, 
even if they are of the German school. Many of the rejected 
portions of the Iliad prove, in the judgment of competent 
critics, to be inferior in literary merit. Literary criticism would 
do well to avoid as far as possible that subjectivism which 
some of its exponents attribute so easily to the Homeric 
" higher critics." 

WAR OR PEACE: A PRESENT DAY DUTY AND A FUTURE 
HOPE. By Hiram M. Chittenden. Chicago: A. C. Mc- 
Clurg & Co. $i. 

General Chittenden has evidently given much care to the 
production of this book, and has also endeavored to state his 
case with moderation. It is but natural that a military of- 
ficer should have some one-sided opinions on war and its pos- 
sible effects, but only in one place does the author show this 
bias and that is when he expresses extreme optimism over the 
outcome of American-Spanish and the Boer wars. 

General Chittenden throws in all his gifts with those who 
counsel peace, and offers a pretty, but rather dream-like solution 
of the present passion for armaments. We feel that in his chapter 
of " Armed Peace " he comes nearest to making us capitulate, 
though there are a few minor points on which we should like 
to demur. We get a glimpse in Section VI. "A Battleground 
of the Centuries" at the enormous expenditure and trouble 
necessary to keep Alsace-Lorraine on a war footing. The 
author blames Germany and Great Britain for the headlong 
race of the nations to bankruptcy, but to our mind he forgets 
his strictures in his chapter on the " Present Duty " where he 
gives cold- blooded military statistics regarding the relationship 
of the United States with Germany and Japan. There is no 
hesitancy about his opinion here. Warlike preparations must 
be made by the United States if the country wishes to be able 
to cope with either of these peoples should any unpleasantness 
arise; and one of the prime essentials to success, indeed to 
the maintenance of the world's peace, is the fortification of the 
Panama Canal. 

Recently we reviewed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Mr. 
Longford's The Story of Old Japan, and pointed out for the 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 257 

consideration of our people some pregnant facts contained in 
that book on the possible contingencies arising out of Japanese 
traditions. We can now commend as heartily to Americans 
this book of General Chittenden if for no other reason than to 
open their eyes to existing dangers. 

FREE WILL. By Hubert Gruender. St. Louis: B. Herder. 
50 cents. 

By anybody who keeps a finger on the pulse of time, and 
who watches keenly the innumerable and insidious assaults 
made on the faith of Catholics, this small volume will be en- 
thusiastically welcomed. It consists of three lectures which 
state in clear, simple, and precise language not only the prin- 
ciple objections of materialistic philosophers to the doctrine 
of free will, but also gives a cogent exposition of the teach- 
ing of Catholic philosophy on the subject. The author takes 
the title of his book from a statement of the materialistic 
writer, Du Bois Reymond, who in an address delivered before 
the Berlin Academy of Science, 1885, declared that for science 
there were seven great riddles, of which the seventh and 
greatest was free will. With this as text, or subject of his 
thesis, Father Greunder constructs his first or explanatory 
lecture, and in the two succeeding lectures he proves the ex- 
istence of free will by the three usual methods of experi- 
mental, moral, and theological arguments. For Catholics who 
have to mix with the shallow philosophers of these times, or 
to associate with pseudo-scientists, this book will prove a real 
help, and to such persons as well as to others we warmly 
commend it. 



MULHOLLAND (Lady Gilbert) has written a new 
book called The 0' Shaughnessy Girls. It is a very pleas- 
ant story of Irish life, told with charm and skill. Lavendar, 
the younger of Lady Sibyl O'Shaughnessy's daughters, is a 
dainty, delightful little person, very girlish in her quaint wis- 
dom and pretty fancies; her sister Bell, on the contrary, is 
wilful and impulsive. In an attack of stage fever Bell runs 
away to join a traveling company, and her rashness sets the 
story in motion. The 0* Shaughnessy Girls will surely give 
enjoyment to many readers. (Benziger Bros. $1.50 net). 
VOL. xcm. 17 



258 NEW BOOKS [May, 

OOMEONE told Dr. Johnson that if he tried to write a 
^ novel he would make all his little fishes talk like whales. 
In his book As Gold in the Furnace (New York: Benziger 
Bros., 85 cents), Rev. Father Copus has certainly made his 
little schoolboys talk like scholastics. The story has the oft- 
repeated plot of a mysterious theft and a wrongly suspected 
hero with a character much too noble to be true. Father 
Copus's stories are generally popular, but do not show the 
genuine understanding of boyish nature for which we admire 
Father Finn, and, in a somewhat lesser degree, Father Garrold. 

HPHE wondrously rich field of astronomy has, in Garett P, 
* Serviss, an admirable and devoted exponent. His latest 
volume: Round the Year With the Stars offers a guiding hand 
to all those who would cultivate the love of the stars, and 
sets forth the chief beauties of the heavens as seen with the 
naked eye. The subject is a fascinating one, and in it the 
author gives expression to the thoughts which it continually 
awakens. The charts illustrating the text are drawn especially 
to meet the beginner's needs and the author's advice is always 
clear and practical. The volume is published by Harper and 
Brothers, New York, at $i per copy. 

ROSEMARY, or Life and Death by J. Vincent Huntington 
is a new edition of this well known Catholic story. It 
covers 525 pages, and altogether presents an attractive ap- 
pearance. The price at which it is offered ($i) should secure 
for the story many new friends. It is sure to please young 
readers to-day as it did their fathers and mothers long ago when 
it was first published. P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, are 
the publishers. 

DOWN AT STEIN'S PASS, and Down at Cross Timbers 
are the titles of two stories from the pen of P. S. Mc- 
Geeney. The first is a border drama of New Mexico; the 
second a romance of Old Missouri. Both books are published 
by the Angel Guardian Press, Boston, at $i per copy. 

PERARD, OUR LITTLE BELGIAN COUSIN, by Blanche 

\J McManus, a story for American children, introduces the 
young reader to Gerard, a little musician and Helda a little 
lace-maker, both dwellers in the quaint old Flemish city of 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 259 

Ghent. Little folks will find much pleasure in reading about 
the hard working but pleasure-loving people of which the 
author tells. (Boston : L. C. Page & Co. 60 cents). 

IN his brochure " The Hidden Signatures of Francesco Colon- 
na and Francis Bacon " a comparison is made of their 
methods with the evidence of Martson and Hall that Bacon was 
the author of Venus and Adonis (Boston : W. A. Butterfield. 
$1.50), William Stone Booth returns to his contention that 
there is a cipher in the first folio of Shakespeare's works 
which reveals the hidden signature of Francis Bacon. He has 
found such a cipher in the works of Francesco Colonna a&d 
argues that it is not too much to expect something of the 
same kind in England. The work by which he works out the 
cipher is decidedly complex. The evidence from Marston and 
Hall as to the authorship of Venus and Adonis is of a vague 
character. The monograph is interesting, because it contains 
references to works on the use of cipher and to certain literary 
topics of Shakespeare's time. It cannot, however, be taken as 
a serious contribution to the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. 

D HERDER, St. Louis, publishes a small but significant 
*-* volume of short stories under the title, Chinese Lanterns. 
The name is well chosen, for the stories are surely illuminat- 
ing. They depict the ordinary life of the Chinese, and, in 
particular, the efforts and heroic struggles of the Catholic mis- 
sionaries in that country. The author, Alice Dease, writes 
evidently from full experience, and her book should be widely 
read. 40 cents net. 

OHORT stones of the supernatural, or at least, the decidedly 
^ unnatural, by the late Marion Crawford, are published by 
the Macmillan Company, ($1.25) under the title, Wandering 
Ghosts. The seven stories (seven being the occult number) 
are told with all the author's undeniable skill. They are frank- 
ly tales of horror, and we do not advise reading them before 
going to bed at night. 

HPHE OTHER WIFE (London: John Long, 6*.) is the name 

* of a novel by an English writer, Olivia Ramsey a novel 

anbitiovs in conception, but decidedly mediocre in execution. 



26o NEW BOOKS [May, 

''TEACHERS in Harvard University have prepared a guide to 
readings in social ethics and allied subjects (A Guide to 
Reading in Social Ethics and Allied Subjects. By teachers in 
Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University). 
The field is divided into about forty sections, such as " Social 
Settlements," " Economic Theory," etc. On each topic an ex- 
pert recommends from twenty to forty recent books, mainly in 
English, giving a short summary of each. The compilers had 
in mind " not a superficial reader, nor yet a learned scholar, 
but an intelligent and serious-minded student." Considering 
their purpose, the book is excellent. Any but the most 
thoroughly equipped specialist will find the list invaluable. 
There are, however, some strange omissions the most inex- 
cusable, perhaps, being that of Father Ryan's Living Wage. 

TTEART SONGS. Verses by Mercedes (Beatty, Pa.: St. 
H Xavier's Press). This well known and popular poet of 
the cloister has gathered into a single little volume all the 
pieces she has published in the weekly and monthly press since 
her former volume was given to the public. Many of these 
Songs are inspiring, and all of them have poetical spirit. Of 
course they are seldom without powerful religious lessons. 



TRAIL OF A TENDERFOOT, by Stephen Chalmers, 
is the half-humorous, wholly delightful account of various 
experiences in hunting, fishing, and other outdoor enjoyment, 
chiefly in the localities of the Adirondacks and the Bay of 
Fundy. The author begins as a typical tenderfoot, who ad- 
vances in blissful ignorance of guns, guides, and rods, and 
the weight of whose catch is prone to rise like mercury under 
a warm imagination. His experience with "the real thing" 
will be particularly enjoyed by sportsmen. Outing Publishing 
Co., N. Y. $1,25. 



M 



IND AND VOICE, by S. S. Curry, published by the Ex- 
pression Company, Boston, Mass., is intended for all teach- 
ers who give attention to the voices of their pupils. We 
may say that a careful perusal of the book will enable 
teachers to avoid many blunders and give them many valu- 
able suggestions, especially in training pupils to co-ordinate 
body and voice. We should, however, be glad to see a second 



I9II-] NEW BOOKS 261 

edition much condensed and arranged on better pedagogical 
principles. 

T 'HABITATION OUVRI^RE ET A BON MARCHE, by 
M Lucien Ferrand. (Paris : J. Gabalda & Cie, 2 /r.) M. 
Ferrand, a member of the " Conseil Superieur des Habitations 
a bon raarche," gives an excellent summary on low rents for 
the workingman and what has been accomplished by the state 
and private initiative. 

LA BONTE ET SES TROIS PRINCIPAUX ADVER- 
S AIRES, par Joseph Vernhes (Paris: Pierre Tequi, 2/n). 
comprises eight excellent conferences delivered at Notre Dame 
des Etudiants de St. Sulpice. Avowedly inspired by Father 
Faber's well known conference, the author in a delightful and 
practical manner developes a subject of which we cannot hear 
too much, and the book is most suggestive both for medita- 
tion and self-examination. 

IN this little volume La Re forme de la Pronunciation Latine 
(Paris: Bloud et Cie. 2 fr. 50) the author, Camille Couil- 
lant, keeps strictly to his subject and writes with spirit. The 
enthusiasm of strong conviction does not prevent cool, reasoned, 
well-measured, scientific treatment of the question. The first 
chapter is entirely devoted to determining the pronunciation 
current in the classical period, and should interest all students 
of Latin. The practical question of bringing about in the 
Latin Church everywhere a correct and uniform pronunciation 
is carefully and vigorously discussed at length. The practical 
conclusion is : adopt the Italian method universally at once, 
but only as a convenient stepping-stone to the scientifically 
correct classical or Roman pronunciation. This plan can be 
set in operation by a papal decree, and by that authority 
only. It is likely to come, since it seems almost a necessary 
consequence of the motu proprio re-establishing the genuine 
Gregorian chant. 

APRfiS LE CONCORDAT, by C. Latrulle (Paris: Librairie 
Hachette et Cie. 3 fr. 50). This continues the history 
of the opposition of the French bishops from 1803 to our 
own day. Its five chapters show much research and bring us 



262 NEW BOOKS [May. 

to the efforts made by Pope Leo XIII. and Cardinal Couille 
to bring back the dissident bishops to Catholic unity. 

THE master work of R. P. H. Leroy, Jesus Christ, Sa Vie, 
Son Temps. Lefons cTEcritufe Sainte (Paris : Gabriel 
Beauchesne et Cie,) is nearing completion, and a new volume 
(the fifteenth of the series) now appears containing the sermons 
preached in 1909. The work reveals the eminent qualities of 
the author: perspicuity of style, clearness of division, language 
at once'simple and elegant, erudition, and intimate acquaintance 
with the best exegetical commentaries. 

DOSSUET ET LES PROTESTANTS. Par E. Julien. (Paris: 
U Gabriel Beauchesne et Cie.) It is well known that the life- 
enduring dream of the great bishop, was the return of Protest- 
ants toICatholic unity; and to realize it he expended the re- 
sources of his powerful mind and the most generous movements 
of his heart. The Canon Julien, taking Bossuet as guide and 
model, follows him step by step in this Apostolate, and his 
work is an erudite study of Protestantism, its doctrines and 
its history in the time of the celebrated orator. 



jforeion periobicate, 

The Tablet (18 March): " Sea-Power and Arbitration." Sir 
Edward Grey, speaking in the name of the British Govern- 
ment, has given a cordial welcome to President Taft's pro- 
posals for a Treaty of Arbitration. His words " seem 
to open up a new chapter of hope for all the peoples 

of the earth." The Holy Father will, before long, 

publish an " important document on the Hierarchy in 
which he will set forth Catholic teaching on the Divine 
Constitution of the Church and the obedience which by 
virtue of it is due to the Bishops and to the Supreme 
Pontiff." 

(25 March): "Street-Trading by Children." A Parlia- 
mentary Bill has been formulated to restrict the evil of 
street-trading by children. But while the evil should 
be remedied care must be taken to protect the interests 
of the poor who find in street-trading a means, perhaps 
the sole means of obtaining a livelihood." The Anti- 
Modernist Oath and the Prussian Universities " by a 
German University Professor. The writer gives the his- 
tory of the Oath so far as it concerns the priest pro- 
fessors at the Prussian Universities, and states that the 
members of several Protestant Theological Faculties are 

bound by statute to certain professions of faith. The 

year 1912 is given as the probable date of the canoni- 
zation of Blessed Joan of Arc. 

(i April): "Administrative Muddling," is an exposition 
of the tangle into which educational administration is 

falling under the present government. Rev. Herbert 

Thurston, S.J., writes on "The Church of St. Patrick." 

" Our Secondary Day Schools," by James Driscoll 

is concluded. Mr. Balfour's views on " Religion and 

Dogma in Teaching" are herein set forth. 
(8 April): "United Italy" discusses the recent Jubilee 
fetes. " The vaunt of a United Italy so long as it is 
an Italy founded in injustice, established by spoliation, 
and availing itself of the assistance of irreligion is none 
the less a sham though crowned and enthroned." 



264 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May, 

" New Light On the Holy Shroud of Turin " is con- 
cluded in this number. " Holy Week and Easter in 

St. Mark's, Venice, in the Eighteenth Century." 

The Month (April) : Rev. J. H. Pollen reviews several " Recent 
Studies on Elizabethan History/ 1 The articles in the 
Catholic Encyclopedia dealing, with this subject are 

highly praised. "Fickle Fame," by John Ayscough 

recalls some literary reputations that have died and 

been brought to life again. Charles Plater suggests 

some methods to aid " The Circulation of Catholic 

Literature." " Street-Trading Children and the Act 

of 1903 " by Austin Oates points out the dangers, so- 
cial, physical, and moral, of allowing so many children 
to become street venders. 

Ihe Irish Ecclesiastical Record (March): "Irenaeus and the 
Church of Rome " by Rev. James MacCaffrey. This arti- 
cle shows from " Adversus Haereses " that Irenaeus clearly 
teaches the supremacy of Rome and the infallibility of 

the Church. " Education in Spain," Very Rev. M. 

J. O'Doherty, D.D. Doctor O'Doherty says: "There is 
hardly a single institution in Spain that is not made the 
object of attacks by anti-Catholic writers from time to 
time. Most of these attacks are the outcome of bigotry, 
prejudice, or ignorance; and did Spain receive praise 
from such sources, it were time she examined her con- 
science." The paper is a description and a vindication 
of the Spanish educational system. "Non-Catholic 
Denominations." Rev. M. J. O'Donell, D.D. After giv- 
ing an extended review of Father Benson's " Non Catho- 
lic Denominations," the author says: "As we lay aside 
the book our predominating feeling is one of sympathy. 
A nation cannot with impunity cut itself off from the 
accumulated religious experience of sixteen centuries. 
The sects are falling victims to abuses that the Catholic 
Church of more than a thousand years ago had learned 
to control, and new guilds are being started with a fa- 
natical zeal for principles of which, in their proper place 
and in due moderation, she has long since taken account. 
And recognizing as we do the depth of faith and genu- 
ine spirituality that underlies the conflicts of the vari- 
ous bodies, we find additional grounds for hope that 



.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 265 

they may one day return to the Church of Christ, and 
find the rest and peace they have sought for in vain 
for the last three hundred years." 

The Irish Theological Quarterly (April) : Rev. Hugh Pope, 
O.P. " The Oxyrrynchus Papyri and Pentateuchal Criti- 
cism " points out some discrepancies between the Sep- 
tuagint and the Massoretic Text that very largely invali- 
date the conclusions of recent scholars regarding the Pen- 
tateuch's authorship. Some contemporary non-Catho- 
lic scholars (such as Lerdmans of Leiden) also recognize 

this. "The Origin of the Doctrine of the Sacramental 

Character," by Rev. Garrett Pierse. The author char- 
acterizes this doctrine as " infinitesimally small in its 
origin," and traces its development and present inter- 
pretation. 

The National (April) : "Episodes of the Month" deals with 
various political discussions "Why Help the Bagdad 
Railway?" The author, Lovat Fraser, states that it is 
the duty of Great Britain to keep clear of unnecessary 
entanglements with Germany. " A Heroic Woman," by 
Ignotus, is a study of the Empress Eugenie and her 
place in history. A speech delivered by Lord Selborne 
to a body called " The Conservative and Unionist 
Women's Franchise Association," is reprinted under the 

heading: " The Case for Women's Suffrage." William 

Morton Fullerton comments on " The New French Min- 
istry." That one charm is wanting in the American 

home according to the English point of view, is main- 
tained by Mary Mortimer Maxwell, in her paper, "The 
Lack of Privacy in the American Home." " The Be- 
ginnings of the London Library," by C. Hagberg Wright, 
gives many facts connected with the origin of this library, 
which are not generally known. "Apparitions of 
Animals," by Captain Humphries. An article writ- 
ten before the conclusion of the Reciprocity Agreement 
between our own country and Canada, is entitled: " Can- 
ada and the Immigration Problem," by Professor Stephen, 

Revue du Clerge Franfais (15 Feb.): O. Habert gives a sketch 

of the religion of the Greeks. In his chronicle of the 

"Theological Movement" J. Riviere considers many re- 
cent books or new editions of existing works. Among 



266 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May, 

them we find "The Idea of the State in St. Thomas 
Aquinas," by Jacques Zeiler; "The Relation of the 
Church to Civil Society," by Louis Billot, S.J.; a thor- 
oughly revised edition of Vol I. of A. Tanquerey's 
"Synopsis f Dogmatic Theology." 
(i Man): E. Vacandard contributes a "Chronicle of 

Ecclesiastical History." M. Etienne Lamy writes of 

"Cardinal Mathieu and Mgr. Duchesne" giving in the 
form of an address, a sketch of the life and historical 
labors of the latter. 
(15 March): A. Bros and O. Habert present an account 

of the religion of the Celts, Germans, and Slavs. A. 

Villein begins a historical study on " The Age for First 
Communion." In this issue he considers the first twelve 

centuries. -Apropos of "The Eucharistic Congress of 

Montreal " G. Planque discusses the religious condi- 
tions in the Dominion of Canada. " On The Holy 

Scapular " is a discussion by P. Frai^ois de Sales and 
A. Boudinhon concerning documents treating of the 
Scapular. 

Le Correspondent (10 March): "The Religious Crisis of the 
Fifteenth Century," by P. Imbart de la Tour is a his- 
torical account of the Councils of Pisa, Constance, 

Siena and Basle. "The Second Centenary of Boi- 

leau," by Henri Bremo.no is an attempt to revive an 

appreciation in the works of this poet. "What is 

Young Turkey ? " by Andrew Cheradame describes the 
excellent work being done under the new regime in 

comparison with that under Abdul Hamid. " Maurice 

Faucon " by Michel Salomon is a biographical sketch 
of the poet by an intimate friend. 
(25 March) : A. De Foville begins with this issue a series 
of articles entitled "The Prime Ministers of Finance of 
the Third Republic." " Men of the Day," an unsigned 
article, is a political and character study of Aristides 

Briand. "The Company of the Blessed Sacrament," 

by Geoffray de Grandmaison is an account of a society 
established during the seventeenth century for propa- 
gating devotion to the Eucharistic King among the 

laity. "The Genius of Moliere," by Fortunat Strowski 

is a study from Moliere's works. " The Art Treasures 



1 9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 267 

of Our Churches," by Rene Lebrethon is a history of 
the vandalisms committed against the Catholic Church 

in France within the last seventy-five years. "The 

Interview of Potsdam," by Christian Patrimonio is a des- 
cription of the alliances formed by the European Pow- 
ers, at the instigation of Edward VII. in 1504. 

Revue Pratique D* Apologetique (i March): "Celibacy," by A. 
Villien. Celibacy is considered from three view points; 
Dogma, Morals and History. The first point covers the 
provincial council of Paris 1528, on celibacy. The sec- 
ond covers reasons for celibacy. The last point is an 
historical survey of celibacy. 

15 March): "The Religious Life of Pascal and his 
Apology of Christianity, apropos of a recent book," by 
Francis Vincent. As its title indicates, the article is a 
review of a book, written by H. Petitot, viz. " Pascal, 
His Religious Life and his Apology for Christianity." 
Pascal's religious life is summed up in the words: the 
heart triumphed over the head. His love swept away 
his pride. The Apology is the fruit of this intense re- 
ligion. It consists of the need and method of the 
Apology. " Contemporary Atheism " is a lengthy ex- 
tract by Mgr. Farges from his book: "God, the Im- 
mortal Soul and Natural Religion." 

Etudes (5 March): "Vocation to the Priesthood and Provi- 
dence." The statement by a well-known writer that a 
priestly vocation is identical with the call of the bishop ; 
that it is only an exterior call, is examined at length 
by Jules Grivet. After showing the weakness of this 
position, he proves by many arguments the necessity of 

an interior call by God. M. E. Branly, the learned 

professor of the Catholic Institute of Paris was recently 
made a member of the Academy of Sciences. J. de 

Joannis writes of his life and his works. " Sources of 

Art" by J. Guillermin. Former generations were well 
trained in the ancient classics. To-day the classics are 
practically given up and " shorter roads to knowledge 
have been constructed in these days of struggle for life." 
"Chili After One Hundred Years of Independence (1810- 
1910)." J. Pradel gives many facts and statistics to show 
the true economic situation of Chili at the present day ; 



268 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May, 

he indicates the great industrial progress that has taken 
place within the hundred years of its independence. 
(20 March): "The Fiftieth Anniversary (1861-1911) of 

the Kingdom of Italy." " Bellarmine and the Sixtine- 

Clementine Bible." This is a defence of Bellarmine, by 
X. Le Bachelet. Anyone who supposes that Bellarmine 
wished to pass off the Clementine Bible en bloc with all 
its corrections under the name of the Sixtus V. Bible, is 
not only guilty of exaggeration but also falsely construes 

his intentions.- "Classic Culture and St. Gregory of 

Tours." If the Latin writings of St. Gregory of Tours con- 
tain many solecisms and barbarisms, it may be due to the 
fact that the Latin language was still living is his day 
and subject to variations. 

Annales de Philosophic Chretienne (March) : P. Archambault, in 
"Some Reflections Upon the Notion of Autonomy," 
says that the ideal autonomy in the very nature of 
things is not exclusive of all dependence and authority, 
but that it demands that the constraints submitted to 
be more and more interior and moral ; that a zone of 
liberty be reserved in which the individual can try his 
own initiative at his own risk; and, finally, that the 
constraints have no other purpose than the spiritual in- 
terests of man, the end of ends. 

La Revue Apologetique (16 March): The lecture of Father 
Francis de Benejac on Charlemagne's contribution to 
civilization. He concludes that " without standing 
armies, without diplomacy or secret service " Charle- 
magne realized according to the social ethics of the 

G9spel, a true " fraternity " quite unknown to-day. 

Canon Forget reviews the Abb Lepin's work on " The 

Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel." There are 

the usual reviews of recent Scriptural works. 

tudes Franciscaines (March) : The continuation of " A Philo- 
sophical Synthesis " treats of intelligence, the reality, su- 
periority and simplicity of ideas, their laws of representa- 
tion or expression, etc. Serviam concludes " Taine and 

the Jacobins " with a sketch of present Radicalism in 
France. A trenchant criticism of "The Academic, Ju- 
dicial, and Political Eloquence of the XVII. and XVIII. 
Centuries "by Charany. "The Bulletin of Franciscan 



.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 269 

History " lists seventy-eight biographies or sketches of 
Friars Minor, Clarisses and Tertiaries. The continu- 
ation of " The Remarkable Expansion of the Scotist 
School in the Seventeenth Century " covers the period 
from 1640 to 1700, following the publication of the 
complete edition of " Duns Scotus " by Wadding. 

Chronique Sociale de France (March) : Eugene Duthoit examines 
"The Sanctions of Collective Bargaining by Labor." 
He concludes that legal sanctions, no matter how ex- 
tensive, must be supplemented by the moral and psy- 
chological dispositions of the interested parties. 

Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (1911, No. 3) : O. Zimmermann, S.J,, 
presents the first of several papers on " The Freethought 
Movement." He outlines the movement towards a 
federation of Freethinkers and the activities of such na- 
tional and international organizations. 

La Civilta Cattolica (18 March): "The Year of Mourning" is 
the first article in this issue. It deals with the cele- 
brations of the fiftieth anniversary of "Italian unity," 
the vote in the Chamber of Deputies at Turin on March 
27, 1861, being somewhat fantastically taken as the be- 
ginning of that "unity" although it was nearly ten 
years later that the breach was made at Forta Fia and 
Rome was taken by force of arms into "united Italy." 

Further consideration is given to the " Oath against 

Modernism," its terms being explained and justified 
"A Visit to Montecassino " describes the architectural 
beauties and grandeurs of the great Benedictine mon- 
astery. The series on " Masonry " is continued with 

quotations showing the adroit use made of symbolism 
in Masonic ritual. The root principle of masonry is de- 
clared to be that of absolute liberty of thought and con- 
science without regard to God or man the complete 
autonomy of man and humanity. Book Reviews in- 
clude "Luther" by Father Hartmann Grisar, S.J., and 
a recent life of " St. Francis of Assisi " by J. Joergen- 
sen together with his " Franciscan Pilgrimages." Both 

are highly praised. An article on the " Mariavites in 

Russia" describes the spread of the heresy in Russian 
Foland. The Mariavites now count ninety parishes and 
two more "bishops" were consecrated in 1910 by the 



270 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [May, 

Jansenist bishop of Utrecht. The Russian bureaucracy 
has manifested a very friendly disposition towards the 
sect and the Minister of the Interior is preparing a plan 
to give it full autonomy and the title of the "Neo- 
Catholic Church." 

(i April) : The writer of " A Glance at the Literary Work 
of Antonio Fogazzaro," concludes his article by saying 
that Catholic criticism " can only pass severe judgment 
upon the work of Fogazzaro, notwithstanding its many 
beauties, which beauties, however, in view of the supreme 
interest of religion and morality, take second place and 
lack that splendor which shines pure and immortal in 
the work of the great author of the Betrothed (Manzoni). 

The series on " Divine Revelation According to The- 

osophy," is concluded. The centenary of the birth of 

Father Joseph Kleutgen, S.J. (April 9, 1811), is the oc- 
casion of a biographical sketch which describes him as 
" A Restorer of Scholastic Philosophy," the reference 
being to his work, "Theologie der Vorzeit," published 
in 1853 as an exposition and defence of scholastic 
philosophy. A concluding article on "The Author- 
ship and Date of the Psalms/ 1 discusses the decision 
of the Biblical Commission regarding the Messianic 
psalms. 

La Scuola Cattolica (Feb.): Bernardino di Dario commences a 
study of the " Agape " in the early Church, in which 
he traverses the conclusions reached by Pere Battifol 
in a recent study, which practically rejects the view 
commonly held that the " Agape " was a feature of 

primitive Christianity. Cherubino Villa opens a study 

of Leo Tolstoi, the first installment dealing with his early 
years. Interesting passages are given from his journals 
and letters, notably his own confession : '* I lack mod- 
esty; it is my principal defect I am amazingly full of 
vanity." Adolfo Cellini continues the discussion of 
"The Messianic Purpose of Jesus with Respect to the 
Hebrews, the Samaritans, and the Gentiles." The his- 
tory of the " Angelus " is treated by Emilio Campana, 
and the origins of its various parts are carefully traced. 
The first appearance of the Angelus in its present form 
is in a catechism printed at Venice in 1560, but it is 



.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 271 

an out-growth of devotions practised in much earlier 
times, the most ancient of which was undoubtedly the 
evening bell. 
(March): di Dario continues his examination into the 

" Agape in the Primitive Church." The series on the 

" Messianic Flan of Jesus " is continued by Adolfo Cel- 
lini, the present article assembling the testimony from the 
Gospels to show the purely spiritual character of the 

Kingdom of Christ. Achille Gallarini commences a 

discussion of the "Juridical Personality of the Holy See " 
in the light of the events that followed the seizure of 
Rome in 1870. He undertakes to demonstrate that the 
Holy See is a true "juridical personality," that it was al- 
ways so recognized and that since 1870 it has not ceased 

so to be. Cherabino Villa concludes his study of "Leo 

Tolstoi." Generous appreciation of his attempts to order 
his life in accord with his sentiments is expressed by the 

writer. The works of Father Savio, S.J., on Pope Libe- 

rius are reviewed by Rodolfo Maiocchi, who points out 
that Father Savio has completely rehabilitated him against 

his critics and calumniators. Some interesting notes 

on the authorship and date of the " Salve Regina " 
refer it to the thirteenth century with uncertainty as to 
the author G. Tredici reviews a group of articles on 
philosophic questions notably on Cardinal Herder's solu- 
tion of the problems of " criternology " and on "Dar- 



winism." 



Espana y America (March): Miguel P. Rodriguez presents a pre- 
liminary dissertation upon the Mosaic authorship of the 

Pentateuch. " Al Travos de un Libro y de un Alma," 

is the the title of a contribution by Father Graciano. 

Razon y Fe (March) : " The Jesuits and the Riot of Esqui- 
lache," by Lamas Frias, the well known logician and 
writer, shows that the "History of Spain," by Raphael 
Altamera is very inaccurate and unreliable.^^Ugarte 
de Ercilla contributes a conscientious study on " The 

History of Philosophy of Religions." Gomes Rodeles 

gives a good survey of the first use of the printing 
machine by the Jesuit Fathers in the Oriental missions. 

"The Law About Oaths," by Mr. Venancio Minte- 

guiaga y Costa. 



IRecent Events* 

The departure from office of M. 
France. Briand was almost immediately fol- 

lowed by a series of strikes, in 

some places accompanied by riots, in many parts ol the coun- 
try. It is to be hoped that this was not an indication of the 
end of the policy of peace-making, of which the late Premier 
was the advocate. The spectre looming in the background at 
the present time, causing a universal feeling of anxiety about 
the immediate future, is the attitude of the French working- 
class. The van-drivers of Paris and its milkmen, the crews 
of the Newfoundland fishing boats, dock-laborers at Bayonne, 
and inscrits matitimes at Marseilles, either struck or threatened 
to strike. The most serious disturbances, however, were these 
made by the vine-growers in the Aube department, where 
wholesale destruction of champagne has taken place on ac- 
count of a delimitation of the champagne district recently made, 
which shut them out of the favored region in which that choice 
wine is produced. The mayors and officials of many towns and 
communes resigned, the red flag was hoisted, liberty was de- 
clared to be rot, and equality and fraternity lies, tax-assess- 
ment papers were burnt wholesale in market places, a fate 
which befell likewise the effigy of the new Premier M. Monte. 
In the refusal to pay taxes they were urged to persevere by 
some of their representatives in the Chamber. The soldiers 
had to be called out. The efforts made by the Chamber to 
investigate the grievances of the wine-growers have for a long 
time not proved successful. 

Within the legislative body itself peace has not been kept 
undisturbed. On one occasion M. Monis failed to make him- 
self heard for something like half an hour. He had exasper- 
ated a section of the Chamber by the declaration that only 
one of his critics was an honest man. The new Ministry is in 
the curious position of being formed out of the minority which 
attempted to defeat M. Briand. Although it has secured votes 
of confidence its position is by no means assured. It has the 
endorsement of M. Combes, but the Temps describes it as a 
band of greedy politicians, while the Journal des Debats calls 
its formation a coup d'etat against the Chamber and against 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 275 

Universal Suffrage. Its professions, however, are much the 
same as were those of M. Briand's Ministry. It has reinstated 
some of the railway men who were dismissed on account of 
the strike last year, and has added a large sum to the burdens 
of the railways by making the pensions of the men retrospec- 
tive. 

Energetic efforts are to be made to reorganize and strengthen 
the Navy, the proposals of M. Delcasse having been adopted 
by the Chamber. Very little progress has taken place in car- 
rying into effect the promised social legislation, although the 
long-talked-about Income Tax is under consideration in the 
Senate. The energies of the Chambers have been absorbed in 
the discussion of the Budget. One opportunity has been taken 
of showing the hostility of the new Ministry to the Church, 
but nothing of importance has been done. National feeling 
has been subordinated to scientific precision by the adoption 
throughout France of the Greenwich time instead of that of 
Paris. On the 12th of March all the public clocks were altered. 

A somewhat bitter newspaper controversy has arisen between 
France and Germany about the Foreign Legion in the service 
of France. This is largely made up of Germans, some of them 
deserters from the German Army a thing naturally distasteful 
to the Empire. The right to enlist any one voluntarily seek- 
ing to enter the French service cannot, however, be seriously 
questioned, nor has the discussion affected seriously the rela- 
tions of either the governments or the peoples. The decision 
of the Hague Tribunal in favor of England in the Savarkar 
case, has removed the one question which had arisen between 
the two countries, Affairs in Morocco have led to France taking 
more energetic action on account of the murder of an officer. 
More troops have been sent to Casablanca. In consequence 
of this and certain other action taken by France a discussion 
has arisen with Spain, but there is on reason to fear any seri- 
ous conflict. 

The provisions of the Bill giving 

Germany. a Constitution to Alsace- Lorraine, 

have been so greatly modified by 

the Committee of the Reichstag to which they were submitted 
that it was expected that the Bill would share the same fate 
as the Prussian Reform of the Franchise Bill of last year. 
VOL. XCIH. 1 8 



274 RECENT EVENTS [May, 

The important concession, however, was made by the govern- 
ment that to the three representatives of the Reichsland in the 
Federal Council should be given votes, and not merely the 
right of attending the meetings of the Council. The demand 
for autonomy, however, was not granted. It is hoped that 
with this modification the Bill may go through, although it 
has opponents on both sides. The Prussian Conservatives fear 
that the concession made may weaken the influence of Prussia 
in the Federal Council, while the refusal of autonomy leaves 
the Reichsland dissatisfied. 

The amount of money spent on social objects is very large 
as appears from the speech in the Reichstag of the Minister 
for the Interior a short time ago. For these socio-political 
purposes the Empire is spending more than two hundred and 
ten millions of dollars a year, and when the Imperial Insurance 
Consolidation Bill, and the law about the Insurance of private 
officials shall have been passed, the sum spent will reach the 
amount of two hundred and fifty millions. Of the annual in- 
crease of the national fortune of German citizens this sum con- 
stitutes a fifth : a large amount to be devoted to social amel- 
ioration. Although Germany seems to be in advance of other 
countries in this respect, yet Great Britain is following closely 
in her wake. On Old Age Pensions she is spending something 
like fifty millions a year, and further sums are being applied 
to the Labor Exchanges which have proved so great a success. 

The negotiations with Russia have not made any progress, 
and those with Turkey, France, and Great Britain, with refer- 
ence to the Bagdad Railway are still being carried on. 

The attitude of Germany towards the proposals for arbi- 
tration made by our President, and endorsed by the British 
Foreign Minister, is a matter of supreme importance, for of all 
the unrest that exists in Europe and of the enormous growth 
of armaments consequent upon that unrest, Germany is un- 
doubtedly the chief, if not the exclusive, cause. Moreover, of 
all the Powers, she has been the most unsympathetic towards 
that movement for settling questions by referring them to ar- 
bitration which has already been productive of so much incal- 
culable good. With reference to the President's proposal, all 
the Chancellor could say when the subject was before the 
Reichstag was that Germany did not occupy an attitude of re- 
fusal towards treaties of arbitration; but towards unlimited 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 275 

arbitration treaties such as Mr. Taft proposed, when they 
ought to be of use they would, the Chancellor said, burn like 
tinder. It would be wiser to aim at what was practicable, and 
not seek to reach an unattainable ideal. Towards Sir Edward 
Grey's proposal that there should be between Great Britain 
and Germany an exchange of information as to their re- 
spective shipbuilding proposals, the Chancellor was less pes- 
simistic. In fact, he accepted the proposal, and declared the 
willingness of Germany to come to an agreement with England 
about this matter. It would, he said, be the means of giving 
security against surprises, and would strengthen in both coun- 
tries the conviction that neither desired secretly to overtrump 
the other. This is a distinct step in advance, although not a 
long one. 

The ministry of Signor Luzzatti, 
Italy. after having held office for about 

one year, has given in its resigna- 
tion. This resignation was due, like that of M. Briand in 
France, to the mysterious working of the group system, and 
to the permutations and combinations which that system in- 
volves. Like M. Briand Signor Luzzatti had a majority, and 
in fact a much larger majority in the division on the postpone- 
ment of the Electoral Reform Bill. His decision no longer to 
remain in office was due to the fact that in the minority were 
ranged a large number of his usual supporters the Radicals, 
and he was unwilling to retain power by favor of his oppon- 
ents. The real cause, it is said, was that dissatisfaction was 
growing with the addition which the Ministry has been making 
to the annual expenditure. After a few days, a new Ministry 
has been formed by Signor Giolitti who has so often held the 
Premiership. It ought to be able to find support in the Cham- 
ber, for no fewer than four groups are numbered in its ranks 
the Left, the Left Centre, the Democratic Left, and the 
Radicals of the Extreme Left. The programme of the new 
government includes the extension of the franchise to all Italian 
citizens over the age of 21 except those who, being under 30 
years of age have neither done military service, nor can read 
or write; payment of Deputies; and pensions for old age or 
for those incapacitated otherwise from labor. The funds are 
to be provided by a government monopoly of insurance. 



276 RECENT EVENTS [May, 

Great efforts are to be made to secure economy in the 
Civil Service, and to simplify the bureaucratic system. Good 
authorities say that if half of the civil servants of Italy could 
be dismissed, the business of the country would be done far 
more expeditiously. 

Foreign policy is to pursue the same course, nor is any 
change to be made in the relation of Church and State. 

The Russian Empire has been 
Russia. celebrating the fiftieth anniversary 

of the emancipation of the serfs, 

an event which took place in 1861, nearly two years before 
the liberation of the slaves in this country. However slow 
the progress of Russia towards ordered freedom may be thought 
to be, and however terrible are in reality the evils still existent 
in its government, it cannot be denied even by the great- 
est of pessimists that in the past fifty years noteworthy ad- 
vances have been made. The peasants who in 1861 were 
serfs attached to the soil are now free men, and not merely 
free men but sharers, in virtue of the Tsar's manifesto of 
October 30, 1905, in the power of making the laws of the 
country in which they dwell. " Slaves then law-givers now " 
such was the characterization of the change effected by the 
decrees of Alexander II. and Nicholas II. made by the presi- 
dent of the Duma, when the Peasant Deputies were presented 
to the Tsar at the Jubilee Celebration. A solemn thanksgiving 
service was held at which the Tsar was present. In memory 
of Alexander II. a bust was unveiled of the autocrat who had 
fought almost single-handed against the sordid interests of 
those who wished to continue to be the owners of their fellow- 
men, equal in number to more than half of the population. 
While the past was gratefully celebrated, the equally momen- 
tous act of what may be called the present the institution of 
the Parliament of the Empire was recognized as the work of 
a Tsar who had the same faith in the people as his predeces- 
sor had shown. Both acts had determined, without any pos- 
sibility of going back, the destiny of the country. The agra- 
grian changes by which the ownership of land by the Commune 
has been abolished, and individual ownership put in its place, 
although not directly the work of the Duma are due to its 
influence. They have made an alteration for the better almost 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 277 

as important as the emancipation itself, in the position of 
the peasantry, who are now becoming, not merely free, but 
economically strong owners of land. 

But it would be a mistake to think that Russia is any 
where near the goal of rational liberty. The revelations that 
have been made of the methods adopted by the police make 
it impossible to entertain such a belief. The treatment ac- 
corded to the students in the Universities also shows that the 
days of arbitrary government have not yet passed away. It is 
not necessary to undertake the defence of the proceedings of 
the students, nor to vindicate their action in going on strike. 
The frequency of occurrences of this kind in the State Uni- 
versities of the Old World is a phenomenon that calls for ex- 
planation; one which seems to show that there is something 
lacking either in the instruction given, or the way in which 
it is given. And when no means can be found of training the 
youthful mind except such measures as have been recently 
taken by the Russian government, it seems evident that there 
is something fundamentally wrong in the system adopted. 
There are those who think that the unrest of the students is 
but a reflection of the unrest of the country as a whole. 
Hundreds of students have been exiled, and sent to serve in 
the army, police have been introduced into the Universities, 
professors of high standing who have protested against these 
proceedings have been dismissed, and the law recently made 
which granted a certain degree of autonomy, has been sus- 
pended. Fears are expressed by persons capable of forming a 
well-grounded opinion that even the existence of higher edu- 
cation in Russia is being imperilled. 

The impossibility of going back referred to by M. Guchkoff, 
the President of the Duma in his address to the Tsar, was 
for a moment rendered somewhat doubtful by M. Stolypin's 
resignation of the Premiership which he has held for the past 
five years. This was due to the rejection by the Council of 
the Empire, which forms Russia's Second Chamber, or House 
of Lords, of the Bill for the establishment of Zemtvoes or 
Country Councils in Poland. This rejection was due to the 
opponents of constitutional government, and was meant to be a 
blow to the authority of the Premier. He felt it as such, and 
at once resigned. Events seem to have shown that M. Stolypin 
has proved himself, as Bismarck once was in Germany, the 



278 RECENT EVENTS [May, 

necessary man. The Tsar earnestly requested him to with- 
draw his resignation. This, upon his own terms, he did. These 
terms proved very strange, and involved one of the worst 
blows to the constitutional manner of government which he 
has been trying to establish that could have been adopted. 
Although the rejected Bill might have been passed a second 
time by the Duma, M. Stolypin preferred to prorogue that 
assembly for a few days, and by virtue of an emergency clause 
in the Constitution, in the interval during which the Duma was 
not sitting to pass the Bill into the law by the sole authority 
of the Tsar. This way of acting seemed to be so manifest a 
violation of the spirit, if not of the letter of the Constitution, 
that it has caused great anxiety, it being thereby made evi- 
dent how little real knowledge of that spirit is possessed even by 
the chief defenders of well-ordered government. So difficult is 
it to realize in practise professions of liberality and freedom. 
Further evidence of this inability was furnished by the cen- 
sure passed by the Tsar, at the request of M. Stolypin, upon 
two of his opponents, M. Durnovo and General Trepoff. A 
free government cannot be maintained by petty acts of arbi- 
trary personal rule. Perhaps, however, in the transition period 
such acts may be necessary ; at least some people acclaim them 
as a victory over the reactionary forces which have for a long 
time been striving to revert to the old state of things. 

Russia's relations with foreign countries remain unchanged, 
China having consented to the demands made upon her. In 
this matter it is generally recognized that China was in the 
wrong, and had violated the terms of the treaty which regu- 
late the matters in question. The foreign affairs of China 
have fallen into the hands of an incompetent Minister, whose 
policy is an alternative between arrogant aggression and ab- 
ject submission. A controversy has arisen between Great 
Britain and Russia about the extension of the Russian limits 
of inland waters; but there is no likelihood that this will in- 
volve any change in the cordiality which now exists between 
the two countries. The results of the long continued conver- 
sations with Germany, consequent upon the Potsdam inter- 
view an interview which caused some little anxiety in France 
and even in Austria have not so far been disclosed. The 
Navy is to be reorganized, although the Duma proved itself 
unwilling to vote all the money asked for by the government. 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 279 

This led to the resignation of the Minister in charge of that 
department. The financial position is so good that it is not 
expected that it will be necessary to issue the loan of which 
there has been some talk. 

If Russia finds it difficult to carry 
Portugal. into effect the spirit of constitu- 

tional government, Portugal, al- 
though it has had a Constitution for many years, and has now 
become a Republic, seems even farther away from discovering 
the way to a practical realization of freedom. The judges who 
acquitted Senhor Franco, when he was put upon trial by 
the government, were made to feel that the measure of free- 
dom accorded to them was limited to the carrying into effect 
of the behests of the present rulers, and for their obtuseness 
in this respect and their fidelity to duty they were sent out 
of the country. 

On the other hand, to avowed anarchists of the worst 
type, not merely the protection, but the sympathetic support 
of the government has been accorded a thing unparalleled in 
the history of the movement. The gentle art of " Bomb mak- 
ing in the Service of the Republic " is the title of a series of 
articles that appeared in a leading journal, a series which was re- 
ceived with outspoken applause by the public at large, and which 
had the approbation of the government. At the time of the 
Revolution last October many Republicans were provided 
with bombs. It is true, indeed, that only a few were used. 
But that the use of them would be legitimate to any neces- 
sary extent has been openly defended by responsible govern- 
ment ministers, and public opinion is utterly unconscious of 
the enormity of such proceedings. It is unable to discrimi- 
nate between the lawful use of such weapons in war, and the 
claim of private individuals to settle their political difficulties 
by such means in time of peace. The "Museum of the Rev- 
olution " recently opened in Lisbon had a department devoted 
to a collection of bombs and grenades which had been or 
were to be used. It required the diplomatic action of certain 
of the Powers to bring to an end this disgraceful exhibition ; 
but ministers and the public as a whole remain unconvinced. 
There are, of course, exceptions. A leading journalist, for ex- 
ample has become so disgusted that he has foresworn politics 
and retired into private life. 



280 RECENT EVENTS [May, 

It need not be a matter of surprise that a government 
which looks with favor upon assassination should not look 
with equal favor upon the bishops and clergy, even although 
they have accepted the Republic, and urged upon the faithful 
the duty of respecting present institutions and the Constitu- 
tional powers, even if such should be unfavorable to the 
Church. In a pastoral the Bishops recognized the benefits of 
some of the measures of the provisional government, such as 
the suppression of duelling, gambling and prostitution. But 
because a protest was made against the many irreligious de- 
crees which the government has issued, the priests were for- 
bidden to read the pastoral in the churches, and one of the 
bishops has been deprived of his See. The Separation of 
Church and State is to be carried into effect, but payment is 
to be made to the clergy holding benefices, and the churches, 
chapels and buildings in use for religious purposes are to be 
handed over to the Church, subject to the duty of mainte- 
nance. Such at least are the most recent proposals. It is, 
however, doubtful whether they will be carried into effect. 
Although the people in the cities seem thoroughly alienated 
from the Church, the country people, especially those in the 
North, are beginning to show their disapprobation of these 
proposals. There are even rumors of movements for the res- 
toration of the monarchy, and arrests have been made of sus- 
pected individuals. Repeated strikes have taken place in 
various parts; the soldiers have had to be called out, and in 
one place have had to fire with fatal effects upon the strikers 
and their sympathizers. 

Differences are developing among the Ministers, but they 
seem united in the desire to remain in office, and have de- 
ferred to the last few weeks what was in reality their first 
and only duty the preparation for the calling of the Con- 
stitutional Assembly. The Electoral Law has, however, at 
last bsen published, settling the franchise upon which the As- 
sembly is to be elected. It gives a vote to all Portuguese 
over twenty-one years of age who are able to read and write, 
or who maintain parents or relations. A small payment is to 
be made to the Deputies something less than five dollars a 
sitting. After postponing the elections no less than four 
times, May 16 is at last fixed. The reason given for these 
postponements is that several northern districts are influenced 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 281 

i 

by the clergy, and the government desired more time to prop- 
agate their own views. It cannot be said that the prospect 
for the establishment of free government, when the course of 
events in the past lew months is taken into account, is very 
bright. 

The situation in Spain remains 

Spain. very doubtful, and no one can fore* 

see what course events will take. 

To everybody's surprise the Canalejas Ministry suddenly re- 
signed a short time ago, but the King hastened to give such 
strong assurances of his confidence and support, that the 
Premier consented to resume office, and having reconstructed 
his cabinet by the elimination of the former Minister of War 
who was not in thorough sympathy with him, remains in 
power in order to carry out the policy to which he has com- 
mitted himself. 

The proffer of the resignation was due to the force of 
military opinion, and to the seemingly eternal Ferrer question. 
Spain has not yet emerged from the domination of force as 
represented by the army. The military authorities were dis- 
satisfied with the defense of the military judges in the Ferrer 
case which was made by Senor Canalejas during the debate in 
the Cortes. This dissatisfaction was conveyed to the Premier 
and rendered his continuance in office impossible, at least, so 
he thought. But the King felt it was a good opportunity to 
vindicate the supremacy of the civil authority over the mili- 
tary, and in this he had the support of large numbers both in- 
side and outside of the Cortes, who felt it to be a crisis 
affecting the very essence of the Parliamentary regime and the 
Constitution. So far, therefore, as things have gone, the su- 
premacy of the civil over the military power has been asserted ; 
but whether the victory will be permanent cannot yet be said, 
and is very doubtful. 

The debate in the Cortes on the trial of Senor Ferrer, 
which was the occasion of the ministerial crisis, lasted more 
than a week, and took place partly before and partly after that 
crisis. It showed how deep an impression on the public mind 
had been made by that event, and his subsequent execution. 
The object of those who raised the question after so long a 
time had elapsed, was to secure a revision of the legal sen- 



282 RECENT EVENTS [May. 

tence. This was opposed by the Premier. The Minister of 
Justice, however, admitted that a revision of the military code 
might with advantage be undertaken in a spirit more com- 
patible with modern ideas. 

The relations between France and Spain have not been of 
so cordial a character of late as they have been in recent years. 
Nothing like a breach is to be anticipated, but certain things 
have taken place in Morocco which have called for the criti- 
cism of the Spaniards, many of whom claim the right to be 
the dominating influence in that country, and to have a re- 
versionary right to the possession of it, should the much-to- 
be-desired event of the extinction of the present rule come 
about. The appointment of French instructors for the Sultan's 
army has called forth a protest. The reorganization of the 
police force, a projected railway to be built by the French 
from Tangier to Fez, and other matters have raised a spirit 
of controversy, so that it has even been proposed by some to 
abrogate the treaty which imposes upon Spain the obligation 
of consulting France regarding enterprises to be undertaken in 
Morocco by Spain. Certain agents of France in Morocco have 
met with harsh treatment from Spanish authorities on the spot. 
Negotiations are being carried on between the two countries, 
and there is every likelihood that a satisfactory settlement will 
be made. In other respects the state of things seems to be 
satisfactory. The strikes which not long ago were so many 
seem to have come to an end. But the Associations Bill, in- 
volving the fate of the religious orders, is soon to be made a 
matter of discussion. 



With Our Readers 

THK I^aetare medal for this year does indeed give occasion for re- 
joicing, since it is awarded to the widely and warmly admired 
writer, Miss Agnes Repplier. The medal, which is the highest 
honor within the gifts of the University of Notre Dame, is, in this 
case, "for distinguished achievement in letters and the noble ex- 
emplification of Catholic womanhood. " It could not have been 
more fitly awarded. 

Miss Repplier is well known to readers of THE CATHOLIC 
WORLD. She is, as her name implies, of French descent. She was 
born and educated in Philadelphia, graduating from the Sacred 
Heart Convent at Torresdale, Pennsylvania ; she has also received 
the degree of Doctor of Letters trom the University of Pennsylvania. 
Of her literary beginnings Miss Repplier herself has told in a recent 
article (November, 1909) in THE CATHOLIC WORLD : 

The first cheque for fifty dollars that I ever received (and a lordly sum it 
seemed) came from THE CATHOLIC WORLD for a story which I am now in- 
clined to think was not worth the money. The first criticism I ever wrote was 
an essay on Mr. Ruskin (how many years has it been since essays on Ruskin 
had a market?) which was undertaken by the advice of Father Hecker, and 
was published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Father Hecker told me that my 
stories were mechanical, and gave no indication of being transcripts from 
life. f ' I fancy," he said, "that you know more about books than you do 
about life, that you are more of a reader than an observer. What author do 
you read the most? " 

I told him "Ruskin"; an answer which nine out of ten studious girls 
would have given at that date. 

"Then," said he, "write me something about Ruskin, and make it 
brief." 

That essay turned my feet into the path which I have trodden laborious- 
ly ever since. 

Since that time Miss Repplier's contributions have appeared 
frequently in THK CATHOLIC WORLD, the Atlantic Monthly ', Harpers, 
the Century > Lippincotts, and other magazines. They have been for 
the most part essays, and are collected and published in the volumes 
called Books and Men , (1888), Points of View (1891), Essay sin Minia- 
ture (1892), Essays in Idleness (1893), In The Dozy Hours (1894), 
Compromises (1904), and A Happy Half Century (1908). Among 
Miss Repplier's other books are Philadelphia, the Place and the People 
(1901), 1 he Fireside Sphinx (1901), a volume dear to all cat lovers; 
and a reminiscence of her Sacred Heart school life called In Our 
Convent Days ; she is also the compiler of a Book of Famous Verse 
for Children. Miss Repplier has found and is sure of her public. In 
calling herself a/* lesser light," she says that her public is a small 



284 WITH OUR READERS [May, 

one, " such as befits the modest nature of the illumination." It is 
at any rate a public firm in admiration, and enlarges steadily. 

* * * 

There is difficulty in attempting a mild, critical appreciation of 
Miss Repplier's work. It is a quick temptation to run to superla- 
tives. On the essays in particular we really must claim the luxury 
of one " most " ; there can be little doubt that the shelf of modern 
light essays owes its most delightful contributions to Miss Repplier. 
In admiring her revival of the almost lost art of the essayist, Dr. 
Howard Furness says very aptly : " There is no form of essay that 
she has not touched, and she has touched nothing that she has not 
adorned. Her wisdom is illumined, and her wit is controlled by her 
wisdom." The essays are written with a delicious, feminine humor, 
productive ol the " still smiles " which Carlyle insists are the test ot 
true humor, and always from a point of view before unfound. A 
critic in the Outlook (1904), in discussing this originality, says very 
well, that one must look curiously to find it. 

" For," he continues, " like a hostess, she makes her own per- 
sonality felt through her guidance ol the thought of others rather 
than by her own particulars. . . . Her own originality, perhaps 
distinction would be a better word, depends almost wholly upon the 
fusion of liberty, politeness, and clarity, with which she always 
approaches her subject." 

* * 

Those of Miss Repplier's essays which deal with literary sub- 
jects really justify the presence of one word " perfect " in the vocab- 
ulary of criticism. " Books about Books" form a type which she 
herself has smilingly disdained as second class after all, but they 
never fail to endear themselves to booklovers, and her own are a 
justification of the type. She selects our favorites in the literary 
picture-gallery and frames them in gossamer gold for our sure de- 
light. Which of us does not smile more tenderly over his Dickens 
since Miss Repplier's " Humors of Gastronomy? " And how dou- 
bly dear is Cranford since Miss Repplier has been there, too ! 

In her writing Miss Repplier is not belligerently, but always 
correctly and deeply a Catholic. She has written for the Catholic 
and secular press alike, though it was through the former, as we 
have seen, that her work was first introduced. Her religion, which 
she has neither flaunted nor concealed, has never been a hindrance, 
as she stated, quite sanely and practically, in THE CATHOIJC 
WORLD, of November, 1909 : 

I have never in all these years found it necessary to ignore, much less 
conceal, my faith. I could not if I would. When faith is the most vital 
thing in life, when it is the source of our widest sympathies and of our 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 285 

deepest feelings, when we owe to it whatever distinction of mind and har- 
mony of soul we possess, we cannot push it intentionally out of sight without 
growing flat and dry through insincerity. 

Miss Repplier's success is, of course, a matter of pride to Amer- 
ican Catholics, and all are rejoicing at the new honor conferred 
upon her. The University of Notre Dame chose well ; it has indeed 
given its Laetare medal for ' * distinguished achievement in letters 
and the noble exemplification of Catholic womanhood." 



HPHE Laymen's League for Retreats and Social Studies, of which 
A His Grace the Archbishop of New York is Honorary President, 
will open next fall a School of Social Studies with the object of 
training a limited number of Catholic men in a thorough knowledge 
of the questions that are usually grouped under the term * ' Socialism ' ' 
so that these men will form a corps of lecturers available for service 
anywhere without charge. The courses will consist of three main 
departments viz., Historical, Ethical and Economic, and will con- 
tinue through the winter and spring. 

In addition the School of Social Studies will establish a course 
of popular lectures on the " Layman's Difficulties " in the fields of 
(i) Historical and Biblical Criticism (2) Social and Political Theories 
(3) " Modern Science " so-calledalso lectures from time to time 
upon matters ol " current controversy " as they occur. Rev. T. J. 
Shealy, S.J., Rev. John Corbett, S.J., Dr. James J. Walsh, Ph. D., 
M.D., and Messrs. Conde* B. Pallen, Ph.D., John A. Ryan, Andrew 
J. Shipman and Thomas F. Woodlock will give the courses in the 
School and the lectures. The League will issue a booklet this 
summer giving details of these courses. 



MANNERS MAKYTH MAN. 

WRITTEN IN 1891 BY UONBI* JOHNSON. 

The ancient sense of that word manners included much that we 
now call morals; it was in this sense that William of Wykeham 
took for his motto, and for the motto of his famous colleges, the fine 
sentence at the head of these remarks. And in truth the severance 
in thought and in expression of manners from morals is not a little 
to be deplored ; spiritual grace and polite graces should go together. 
The most winning saint is not an Ignatius Loyola, but a Philip 
Neri ; the most amiable sage is not a churlish Diogenes, but a 
gracious Plato. 

Yet, since manners and morals are no longer practised as neces- 
sary parts of one virtue good conduct it remains to consider cer- 
tain aspects of good manners to which the present age is growing 



286 WITH OUR READERS [May, 

blind. To express our meaning clearly and concisely, let us lay it 
down for a sure truth that there should be a ritual to common life. 
So great a value did Comte attach to this truth that he sought to 
impose upon his followers a hieratic and definite scheme of rules for 
the management of daily life. But he was for converting the private 
and the public decencies of life, with their peculiar and individual 
charms, into an arbitrary code ; which was a mistake. He would 
preserve order at the cost of grace ; and, let Carlyle say what he 
will, drill is not always the best discipline. 

Yet we should all so regulate our lives that in our habits and 
behavior there be nothing to offend against good taste, propriety, 
and order. " As the order of the stars in their courses doth delight 
me, so doth order in the lives of men." That was the mind of Pliny, 
a master in the art of graceful living. By this grace and order, we 
mean not a tedious precision of carriage and address, nor a tiresome 
addiction to method in the details of life, but rather a courtesy 
which nothing can surprise, and a graciousness never wanting. 
These details of life and little trifles of the hour can contribute 
greatly to our happiness, or minister greatly to our discomfort and 
discontent. Have we not all known many a man who goes through 
the world with this label attached to him " A blunt, honest man, 
who speaks his mind plainly, and does not stand on ceremony? " 
How offensive the creature can be ! If only he would stand on cere- 
mony ; if only he would not be quite so plain, so blunt, so unami- 
able! 

Some patron of the rugged virtues may reply : * ' Would you 
exalt Deportment above all things ? Are we to obey my Lord Ches- 
terfield and to cover ourselves with French polish?" That is to 
miss the point. What we desire is not affectation in ourselves, but 
consideration for others. Life is a very rough business of struggle 
and of toil ; we encounter each other hourly, and enter into innu- 
merable relations with each other. Then let us try whether we can- 
not make something pleasant out of all these circumstances, not 
glazing over our lives with forms and ceremonies, but adorning 
them. Much that we indiscriminately condemn in the polite man- 
ners and the careful civility of former times was merely an expres- 
sion of a desire to cultivate the gracious and comely side of life ; to 
maintain a distinction of bearing under all circumstances. It is 
easy to cry out upon artificiality and affectation ; it is not so easy to 
avoid boorishness and discourtesy. 

In four excellent old books the practice of gentle manners is 
finely preached : the Galateo of Casa, the Cortegiano of Castiglione, 
the Euphues of Lyly, the Compleat Gentleman of Peacham. No one 
pretends that social courtesy can be taught to a man by nature a 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 287 

churl ; but these books present to us pictures of high and fine char- 
acter, in which the outward ornaments of manner are but the signs 
of inward gentleness and nobility. Dickens has drawn the portraits 
of Sir John Chester and Mr. Turveydrop, and we have ridiculed and 
despised them with great zest and propriety . But modern * ' society ' ' 
is in no danger of becoming so courtly as to be contemptible, so 
artificial as to be ludicrous. Rather, modern " society " seems en- 
amoured of "popular" manners, and to be for abolishing as many 
marks of good breeding as possible ; ignoring the certain fact that 
'* popular " manners, in the true sense of " popular," are apt to have 
a natural dignity of their own. But manners are becoming "cos- 
mopolitan." Ostentation and abruptness ; recklessness and restive- 
ness ; vulgarity and avarice they are all plain to see in the midst 
of us. Leisure gives place to hurry, serenity to anxiety, rever- 
ence to an ignoble familiarity. Loquax talks of Urbanus, ' ' Quite 
of the old school, you know, a fossil of the last century." It only 
means that Urbanus has courteous ways, precision of speech, a quiet 
manner. 

In an age of change and confusion, let us cherish urbanity, kind- 
liness, mutual respect ; that happy disposition of life which gives a 
value to all intercourse between all sorts and conditions of men. 
From the lack of that disposition come unhappy events and unhappy 
suspicions and unhappy recriminations. Two hundred years ago 
and more, a King of England wrote thus to his eldest son, after dis- 
cussing " house-games " and the like : " Now it is not only lawfull 
but necessaire that yee have companie meete for every thing yee take 
on hand, as well in your games and exercises, as in your grave and 
earnest affairs. But learn to distinguish time according to the oc- 
casion, choosing your companie accordingly. And have the like re- 
spect to the seasons ot your age, using all sortes of recreation and 
companie therefore agreeing thereunto." Great and small, old and 
young, rich and poor, may learn wisdom even now from King James I. 



ACORRESPONDANT has informed us that a statement made 
in our review of Robert Kimberley^ by Frank H. Spearman, in 
the April number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, is entirely unwar- 
ranted. Upon investigating the matter we find that the correspond- 
ant is right, and we were wrong in stating, as we did, " that if Mr. 
Spearman's priests really must use Latin phrases, they should, at 
least, use correct ones." We regret the error, and we are glad of 
this opportunity again to call the attention of our readers to Mr. 
Spearman's interesting novel. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York : 

The Mission of Pain. By Pere Laurent. Translated by L. G. King. 75 cents. Union 
With Jesus. By Canon Antoni. Translated by A. M. Buchanan, M.A., 5 cents net. 
The Life of St. Leonard By Abbd Arbellot. Translated by Ctsse. Marie de Borch- 
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cents. The Story of the Bridgettines. By Francesca M. Steele. $1.80 net. Jacquetta. 
By Louise M. Stackpole-Kenny. 75 cents net. Freddy Carr's Adventures. By R. P. 
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Frances Cooke. $1.25. The English Lourdes. By Clement Tyck, C.R. P. 70 cents 
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Story of the Old Faith in Manchester. By John O'Dea. $1.50. Casey of Conscience. 
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De Administrativa Amotione Parochorum. By Felix M. Cappello. 80 cents. 
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Wandering Ghosts. By F. Marion Crawford. $1.25 net. Social Adjustment. By Scott 

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, New York : 

The Standard of Living Among the Industrial People of America. By Frank Hatch 

Streightoff. $i. 
THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY, New York : 

Historical Record and Studies. Vol. VI. Parti. 
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The Social Evil in New York City. A Study of Law Enforcement by the Research Com- 
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THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. JUNE, 1911. No. 555. 

HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY. 

BY JOHN A. RYAN, S.T.D. 

fN article entitled, "The Right to Rent and the 
Unearned Increment/' in a recent number of a 
Catholic theological magazine, is only one of 
many signs of reawakened interest in the limits 
and moral validity of private landownership. 
Among other indications may be mentioned the legal fixation 
of Irish rents by British authorities; the all but compulsory 
sale of Irish land to its cultivators ; the remarkably rapid 
spread in Germany of the practice of laying a special tax upon 
the increases in land values; the recent adoption of the same 
policy, and other innovations in land taxation by the British 
parliament, through the so-called Lloyd- George budget; the 
serious discussion of the proposal to apply this fiscal measure 
to American cities; and the renewed activity, and gradually 
increasing numbers of the followers of Henry George every- 
where. Probably the most plausible, if not the most power- 
ful, attack ever made upon private property in land was that 
of Henry George, in his Progress and Poverty. Probably, too, 
the strength of his attack, as well as the measure of success 
that it obtained, have been chiefly due to the fact that it 
was based for the most part upon moral grounds. What- 
ever be the value of his arguments, he undoubtedly showed 
a correct insight into human nature, and a practical view of 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. XCIII. 19 



290 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June, 

the problem before him, when he wrote at the beginning of 
his chapter on "The Injustice of Private Property in Land:" 

When it is proposed to abolish private property in land the 
first question that will arise is that of justice. Though often 
warped by habit, superstition, and selfishness into the most 
distorted forms, the sentiment ol justice is yet fundamental to 
the human mind, and whatever dispute arouses the passions 
of men, the conflict is sure to rage, not so much as to the 
question * Is it wise ? ' as to the question ' Is it right ? ' 

"This tendency of popular discussions to take an ethical 
form has a cause. It springs from a law of the human mind ; 
it rests upon a vague and instinctive recognition of what is 
probably the deepest truth we can grasp. That alone is wise 
which is just ; that alone is enduring which is right. 

In view of this renewed interest in the land question, and 
the inevitable increase in the influence of George's theories, 
the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD may possibly be inter- 
ested in an examination of his ethical arguments. 

Every concrete property right, whether to land or to arti- 
ficial goods, is based upon some fact or ground called a title. 
It is the title that justifies a man in appropriating a particular 
farm, house, or hat. Titles are of two kinds, original and de- 
rived, the former being the fact by which a person becomes 
the owner of an ownerless thing; while a derived title is one 
which derives from some previous owner, and by which the 
ownership of a thing is transferred from one person to another. 
Since there cannot be an infinite series of owners, every de- 
rived title must be traceable to an original title. The derived 
titles are chiefly contract, inheritance, and prescription; the 
original titles are, according to some authorities, first occu- 
pancy and labor, while others maintain that there is only one 
original title. Among the defenders of private landownership, 
the prevailing view has always been that the one original title is 
occupation. If this title be not valid every derived title is 
worthless, and no man has a true right to the land that he 
calls his own. One of Henry George's arguments against the 
institution of private property in land consists of an attack on 
this title of first occupancy. Here it is in substance: 

Priority of occupation gives exclusive and perpetual title to 
the surface of a globe on which, in the order of nature, count- 



I9U-] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 291 

less generations succeed each other! . . . Has the first 
comer at a banquet the right to turn back all the chairs and 
claim that none of the other guests shall partake oi the food 
provided, except as they make terms with him ? Does the 
first man who presents a ticket at the door of a theatre, and 
passes in, acquire by his priority the right to shut the doors and 
have the performance go on for him alone ? . , . And to 
this manifest absurdity does the recognition of the individual 
right to land come when carried to its ultimate that any one 
human being, could he concentrate in himself the individual 
rights to the land of any country, could expel therefrom all 
the rest of the inhabitants ; and could he thus concentrate 
the individual rights to the whole surface of the globe, he 
alone of all the teeming population of the earth would have 
the right to live (Progress and Poverty, book vii., Chap. I.) 

In passing it may be noted that George was not the first 
important writer to use the illustration drawn from the theatre. 
Cicero, St. Basil, and St. Thomas Aquinas all employed it in 
refutation of the exaggerated claims of private ownership. 
In answer to George's argument and illustration we say, first, 
that the right of ownership created by first occupancy is not 
unlimited either in power or in extent; and, second, that the 
injustice resulting from private landownership in practice has 
in very few instances been due to first occupation of exces- 
sively large tracts of land. The right to appropriate land that 
no one else has yet claimed does not include the right to 
take a whole region or continent, so that all subsequent ar- 
rivals are obliged to become tenants of the first. There seems 
to be no good reason why the first occupant is justified in 
claiming as his own more than he can cultivate by his own 
labor, or with the assistance of those who are under contract 
to labor for him, or who prefer to be his tenants or his em- 
ployees rather than independent proprietors. Neither is the 
right of private landownership unlimited in its powers or com- 
prehension. Even though a man should have become the 
rightful owner of all the land in a neighborhood, he would 
have no moral right to exclude from its use persons who could 
not without extreme inconvenience find a living elsewhere. 
He would be obliged to let them cultivate it in return for a 
fair rental. The Christian conception of the limitations of 
private ownership as to its comprehension, is practically illus- 



292 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June, 

trated in the action of Pope Clement IV., who permitted 
strangers to use the third part of any estate which the pro- 
prietor refused to cultivate himself (Cf. Ardant, Papes et Pay- 
sans, 1891, pp. 41, sq.). 

Ownership conceived as the right to do what one pleases 
with one's own, is the product partly of the Roman Law, partly 
of the Code Napoleon, and partly, perhaps chiefly, of modern 
theories of individualism and laissez-faire. In the second place, 
the abuses which have occurred in the exercise of the right of 
private property in land are very rarely traceable to abuses 
of the right of first occupancy. The men who have taken too 
much land, and the men who have used their land to oppress 
their fellows, have scarcely ever been first occupants, or the 
successors of first occupants through the titles of purchase, ces- 
sion, or inheritance. This is especially true of modern abuses 
and modern legal titles. In the words of Herbert Spencer: 

Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of 
superior cunning these are the sources to which these titles 
may be traced. The original deeds were written with the 
sword rather than with pen : not lawyers, but soldiers, were 
the conveyancers : blows were the current coin given in pay- 
ment, and for seals blood was used in preference to wax. 
Social Statics, 1850, Chap. IX. 

(The fact that in a later edition of this work Spencer re- 
tracted the views on landownership that he defended in the 
first edition, does not affect the reality of the conditions that 
he describes in the passage quoted above). In so far as the 
evils of private landownership are attributable to the titles 
by which the land is or has been held, other titles than first 
occupancy must be held responsible. Moreover, in England, 
and in all countries that have adopted the legal system of 
England, the title of first occupancy has never been avail- 
able by individuals: all unoccupied land has been claimed by 
the Crown or by the State, and thence, subject to the su- 
preme ownership of the State, transferred to private persons 
or corporations. If individuals have got too much land through 
this process, the State, and not the title of first occupancy, 
must bear the blame. The history of the United States and 
of Australasia affords good examples of this responsibility. 



i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 293 

We conclude, then, that George's attack upon private land- 
ownership through the title of first occupancy is ineffective, 
because he attributes to this title characters that it does not 
possess, and consequences for which it is not accountable. 

Nor is he more successful in his attempt to set up labor 
as the original title of all ownership, and thence to establish 
the conclusion that land, as not produced by labor, cannot 
become the object of a property right. " There can be to the 
ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived 
from the title of the producer, and does not rest upon the 
natural right of the man to himself" {Progress and Povetty, 
loc. cit.). By labor he does not mean the mere exertion in- 
volved in taking possession. If he did he would be obliged to 
sanction the thief's possession of the goods obtained by per- 
sonal theft. George has in mind productive labor, labor that 
creates utility, labor that adds utility to a thing by changing 
either its form, as when a piece of cloth is made into a coat, 
or its place, as when flour is carried from the mill to the 
housewife's kitchen. Inasmuch as the latter kind of labor 
brings flour into conjunction with greater wants than those ex- 
isting at the mill, it is quite as productive in the economic 
sense as the labor of making coats or grinding wheat. In all 
three cases labor creates utility, that; is, the power to satisfy 
human wants. 

The fundamental principle upon which George bases his 
assertion that labor is the only original title of property, is 
man's right to himself, to the exercise of his own faculties. 
Undoubtedly man does possess, dependently upon God, a right 
to himself and to the use of his own powers; but the exercise 
of this right alone will never enable him to produce anything, 
or to become the owner of anything. Man produces only by 
exerting his faculties upon something outside of himself, that 
is, the goods of external nature. In his Open Letter to Pope 
Leo XIII" (Under No. 2 of Leo's reasons for private landown- 
ership) George writes: 

Since the changes in which man's production consists, in- 
here in matter so long as they persist, the right of private 
ownership attaches the accident to the essence, and gives the 
right of ownership to that natural material in which the labor 
of production is embodied. 



294 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June, 

But whence comes the right of the producer to take posses- 
sion of the raw material upon which he wishes to impress his 
labor? An indirect answer is found to this question in the 
chapter of Progress and Poverty , from which we have made our 
previous quotations: "The right to the produce of labor cannot 
be enjoyed without the free use of the opportunities offered by 
nature." If we eliminate the misleading term "free" we recog- 
nize that the latter part of this sentence describes a natural right 
of the individual. For the right to use and acquire some of the 
gifts of nature on reasonable conditions is the fundamental right 
of property. It inheres in all persons, and is equal in all, be- 
cause all have the same personal dignity, and the same essential 
needs, and because the Creator of both nature and men, Who 
alone would have authority to do so, has not indicated that there 
is any distinction of persons in the matter of this fundamental 
right. It is the primary right of property t just as the right to 
use one's faculties is the primary right of activity. Neverthe- 
less, since it does not of itself specify or cover any determi- 
nate portion of the natural bounty, it is a general and abstract 
right. In order to become concreted in some particular thing, 
it stands in need of some kind of title. Can such a title be 
found in mere labor? Evidently not, when the natural goods 
are scarce and have an economic value ; for in such cases the 
individual, according to George, should pay rent to " the com- 
munity to satisfy the equal rights of all other members of the 
community" (Progress and Poverty, loc. cit.). Since the indi- 
vidual must pay this price before he begins to produce, his 
right to the use of natural opportunities is not " free," nor 
does labor alone constitute a title to those natural powers that 
are appropriated in production. Consequently the right to use 
natural bounties, plus the expenditure of labor, do not suffice 
to create a right to the concrete product. 

Of itself labor gives the producer a right to the utility or 
value that he adds to the raw material, and only to that 
value. His right to the raw material itself, that is, the natural 
elements that he withdraws from the common store, and fashions 
into the product, say, wheat, lumber, or steel, does not origi- 
nate in the title of labor, but in that of contract, the contract 
by which he was enabled to use the bounties of nature on pay- 
ment of rent to the community. This, according to the last- 
quoted statement of George, is the condition by which the 



i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 295 

producer is justified in using and appropriating a portion of 
the natural forces. Until he has complied with this condition 
he can, manifestly, acquire no right to the product into which 
these natural forces, as well as his own labor, have entered. 
George's own statement shows that the right to the product 
does not spring from labor alone, but from labor, plus com- 
pensation to the community for the use of a part of nature's 
bounty. Since the contract by which the prospective user 
agrees to pay this compensation or rent must precede his ap- 
plication of labor, it and not labor is the prior original title 
to the product. Since the contract is made with a particular 
community for the use of a particular piece of land, it must 
derive ultimately from the occupation of that land by that com- 
munity, or by some previous community of which the existing 
community is either the heir or the moral continuer. Hence 
the logic of George's argument leads inevitably to the conclu- 
sion that the original title of ownership, at least in the matter 
of products drawn from economically valuable land, is first 
occupancy. 

Even in the case of those natural goods that are unlimited 
relatively to the existing demand, the original title of owner- 
ship is likewise occupation, not labor. George declares that 
the traveler who has exercised the forethought of filling vessels 
with water at a free-for-all spring, owns that water when he 
has carried it into a desert, and owns it by the title of labor 
(Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII. , under No. 2 of Leo's argu- 
ments), But in its original state this water belongs either to 
the community or to nobody. In the former supposition, it 
can become the property of the person who carries it away 
only through an explicit or implicit gift from the community. 
Consequently, it is the contract of gift, and not labor of any 
sort, that constitutes his title, just as the contract of hiring 
creates the right by which a man can claim the gold that he 
takes from a public mine. Nor does his right to the water 
originate in a title of labor, if we suppose that the spring is 
absolutely ownerless. The labor that he expends in carrying 
the water into the desert is not the title, for the water was 
already his before he began the journey, from the moment that 
he had separated it from the spring. His labor of transporta- 
tion gave him a right to the utility thus added to the water, 
not a right to the water itself. Perhaps the labor of taking 



296 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June, 

the water from the spring into a vessel is the true title. Again 
we must reply in the negative, for labor of itself cannot create 
a right to the material upon which it is exerted, as we see in 
the case of stolen money, or of a hat made out of material 
that the maker does not own. If it be contended that labor 
together with the natural right to use the ownerless goods 
of nature, the goods unclaimed even by society, has all the 
elements of a valid title, the assertion must be rejected as un- 
precise and inadequate. For the right to use ownerless natural 
goods is a general and abstract right, a right to water in gen- 
eral, to some water, but not a right to a definite portion of 
the water in this particular spring. This general and abstract 
right needs to become specific and concrete through some title, 
and the sufficient title in this case is the title of apprehension, 
occupation, separation of a particular portion from the natural 
reservoir. Hence it is apprehension in the sense of mere seiz- 
ure of an ownerless good, not labor in the sense of productive 
activity, nor labor in the sense of painful exertion, that con- 
stitutes the precise title whereby the man becomes the owner 
of the water which he has put into his cup or jug. In the 
present case the acts of apprehension and of productive labor 
(the labor is productive because water is more useful in a cup 
than in a spring) are, indeed, the same physically, but they 
are distinct logically and ethically; for one is mere occupation, 
while the other is production; and ownership oi a thing must 
precede, in the order of morals if not in time, productive labor 
exerted upon it. 

In the section of the Open Letter already cited, George vir- 
tually abandons the labor argument. To the objection, " if 
private property in land be not just, then private property in 
the products of land is not just, as the material of these pro- 
ducts is taken from the land, 1 ' he replies that the right of 
ownership in products " is in reality a mere right of temporary 
possession," since the raw material in them sooner or later re- 
turns to the " reservoirs provided for all, . . . and thus the 
ownership of them by one works no injury to others. 1 ' On 
the other hand, insists. George, private ownership of land shuts 
out other people from the use of the very reservoirs. Although 
this difference does exist between the two kinds of property, 
it is not always as important as George assumes. Whether a 
mine be exhausted through the operations of a private owner 






i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 297 

or a leaseholder, makes no difference to the people, so far as 
the public resources are concerned, and need not make any 
difference in the price paid to the community. In both cases 
the reservoirs of nature are depleted to the same extent, and 
there is no reason why the mine may not be sold by the State 
to the private owner for a sum as large as the aggregate of 
royalties received from the leaseholder. However, we shall 
deal specifically with this point in another place. Here we 
wish rather to note the fact that, in replying to the Pope's 
objection to the logic of the labor argument, George does not 
meet it directly, but shifts his ground to a consideration of 
consequences. This is a title of social utility, not the title of 
abor. 

To sum up the whole discussion on the original title of 
ownership : George's attack upon the title of first occupancy 
is unsuccessful because founded upon an exaggeration of the 
powers of private property in land, and a false assumption 
concerning the responsibility of that title for the historical 
evils of the system. His attempt to substitute labor as the 
original title of ownership is likewise a failure, inasmuch as 
labor can give a title only to the utility added to natural 
materials, not to the materials themselves. The original title 
of ownership in the latter is occupation. Whence it follows 
that the title to an artificial thing, a joint product of nature 
and labor, such as a hat, water taken from a spring, or a fish 
drawn from the sea, is a joint title, or a twofold title, namely, 
occupation and labor. Where the product embodies scarce and 
economically valuable raw material, occupation is prior to labor 
in time; whether the raw material be economically valuable, or 
free as the ownerless spring, occupation is prior to labor log- 
ically and ethically. Consequently we may say that the one 
original title of all property, both natural and artificial, is first 
occupancy. Since labor is not the original title, its absence 
in the case of land does not leave that form of private property 
unjustified. The title of first occupancy remains. Finally, the 
grounds upon which George asserts that labor can give a 
temporary but not a permanent right of ownership, do not 
pertain to the nature of labor itself, but derive all their force 
from considerations of social welfare. 

The follower of Henry George might accept all of the 
foregoing propositions, and yet reject private property in land. 



298 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June, 

Without contradicting himself, he could still contend that the 
land, the raw material of nature, belongs to the community, 
and that to the community should go the chief advantage of 
landownership, namely, rent. He could still accept and urge 
the following contention of his teacher: 

The equal right of all men to the use ol land is as clear as 
their equal right to breathe the air it is a right proclaimed 
by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that 
some men have aright to be in this world, and others no right. 
Progress and Poverty ', loc. tit. 

From this principle he could draw the conclusion that no 
man has a right of "exclusive ownership in land/ 1 that the 
individual can enjoy only the right of exclusive use of land, 
and this on condition that he pay its annual rental value to 
the community. 

Let us admit at the outset that the principle just quoted 
from George is extremely plausible, and seems to be in har- 
mony with the ideal of justice in the matter of the distribu- 
tion of God's natural gifts among His children. Its moral 
force is underestimated, and the constructive proposals based 
upon it are insufficiently considered by many of its opponent?. 
What exactly are these proposals and practical conclusions ? 

George maintains that men's equal rights to land are fully 
realized when the community receives all the economic rent, 
and when, so far as practicable, all persons are allowed to use 
some portion of land on payment of this rent. Although he 
does not employ the terminology, we shall not misrepresent 
his thought if for convenience we call the former the indirect 
and the latter the direct use or enjoyment of land by the in- 
dividual. The individual uses land indirectly, gets indirect 
benefit from the land, inasmuch as he is a member of a com- 
munity which receives the rent of the land that it occupies; 
and the equal rights of all the members to the indirect use of 
land are satisfied only when the community gets all the rent, 
that is, the full amount that all the lands of the community 
are annually worth to the direct users. In every community 
there are some lands so poor that their product will merely 
cover the expenses of production, leaving no surplus in the 
form of rent, and, therefore, having no economic value. They 



i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 299 

are, consequently, of no importance with reference to men's 
equal rights to the indirect enjoyment of land. A right to a 
valueless thing is itself valueless. 

With regard to the direct use of land, men's equal rights 
are fully realized and protected when they are enabled to oc- 
cupy and use land on condition of paying to the community 
the full rental value of the same every year. Undoubtedly 
there are many regions in which some men would be unable 
to obtain the direct use of producing lands, such as farms, 
mines, and forests, because these had been already fully oc- 
cupied. Nevertheless their equal land-rights would not be 
violated. If they are unwilling to pay more rent than the 
present occupiers, they are no more unjustly treated than the 
unsuccessful bidders at an auction sale. Since it is impossi- 
ble that two men should possess the same thing at the same 
time, the only fair and practical method of determining their 
conflicting claims is to favor the first possessor or the first 
arrival. Moreover, the unsuccessful seeker for producing land 
still enjoys his equal right to the social value of land, that 
is, to his share of the rent received by the community, and 
also his equal right to the direct and actual use of land for 
building. Since there will always be more than sufficient land 
for this purpose, and since no man would care to claim or 
control more of it than he could actually use, building sites 
would be practically available for all. The reason why a man 
would not wish to hold more than he could actually use is 
because he would be compelled to pay rent for the unused as 
well as for the used land. He would have no inducement to 
hold it as a speculation, hoping that it would become more 
valuable; for every increase in value would be accompanied 
by a proportionate increase in the rent that he would have 
to pay to the community. He could not expect to sell it, 
because the annual rent to be paid by the purchaser would 
leave the latter no interest on his investment. Obviously 
these statements are true of agricultural lands as well as of 
building sites. Finally, men's equal rights to the indirect use 
of land would not be violated by the fact that they were in 
possession of unequal amounts of land. Inasmuch as the 
holder of large tracts would pay to the community their full 
annual value, he would enjoy no gift of nature for which he 
had not returned adequate compensation, in which all the 



300 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [June. 

members of the community would share. Persons who might 
wish to use a part of such a tract, but who were unwilling to 
give a larger rent for it than the present holder, would have 
a less valid claim than he, owing to his priority of occupa- 
tion. For social reasons, as well as for the sake of the land- 
less individuals, it might be better that large estates should 
be broken up, and the number of cultivators increased; but 
this is a detail that is neither excluded nor required by the 
essence of the theory or system. 

That the foregoing pages present fairly and adequately the 
substance of George's meaning when he asserts that men have 
equal rights to the use of land, as well as the essentials of 
the method, the Single Tax System, by which he proposed to 
actualize these rights, will be evident to any one who exam- 
ines his work and theory as a whole. Consequently, any at- 
tempt to refute this fundamental principle by assuming that it 
implies an actual opportunity for all persons to use agricultural 
land directly, or a right to equal amounts of land, or a right 
to any particular kind of land, or a right to equal amounts of 
the means of existence, or a right to equal amounts of prop- 
erty, is futile and irrevelant. While the principle taken by it- 
self, and George's confusion of the right to land with the right 
to existence, might justify one of these interpretations, other 
passages from his work show that they cannot fairly be at- 
tributed to him. 

Have men equal rights to land in the sense above ex* 
plained? Are some men unjustly treated when, through pri- 
vate ownership, other men possess and use land without pay- 
ing to the community its annual rent ? These questions the 
followers of George answer in the affirmative, and the defend- 
ers of private ownership in the negative. We shall discuss 
them in a succeeding article. 

(TO BE CONCLUDED.) 




MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI. 

BY L. MARCH PHILLIPPS. 

'T some of the desert-side towns towns which 
may be called the desert ports, since it is to 
them that the wandering caravans in their jour- 
neys across the waste converge there are to be 
found certain hostelries very characteristic of 
the nomadic Arab life, and which have exercised, perhaps* 
some effect upon Arab architecture. 

These caravanserai, as they are called, are built in the form 
of ample quadrangles, fifty to a hundred yards square, open 
and unroofed but with a row of rude sheds or stalls for beasts 
at one end, or perhaps round three sides of the square, the 
remaining side being occupied by the rather better but still 
very rough accommodation provided for travelers. A well or 
tap of water is an essential feature in every caravanserai, and 
a strong, outer wall is a needful defense against prowling 
thieves and brigands. 

I would not, from my own experiences of such places, 
recommend them for the use of Europeans. They are, indeed, 
exceedingly picturesque, and when night falls and fires are 
lit in the central space, and the Arabs in their pale bour- 
nouses gather round the blaze, lolling or squatting in loose 
groups with their bronze faces half-seen, half-hooded, while 
in the background the tethered eamels gurgle and grunt fit- 
fully discernible in the obscurity then, at such times, the in- 
terior of a caravanserai will offer pictures which tempt one 
to forget its many inconveniences. 

It has, however, nothing to offer in the way of accommo- 
dations but bare walls and water ; it is in a state of extreme 
filth owing to the presence of so many animals, and, from the 
same cause, is infested with vermin to an extent rather un- 
usual even in Oriental lodgings. 

Nevertheless, rough and squalid as they are, these cara- 
vanserai possess in a marked degree that kind of attraction 



302 MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI [June, 

and comeliness which belong to things which are in tune with 
their surroundings. Their response to the necessities of the 
country is obvious. As simply and effectively as possible 
they offer safe harborage for man and beast together with 
the ever indispensable supply of water. In their adaptation 
to desert need one reads the proof of their antiquity. All 
Arab things are very changeless, partly perhaps because the 
conditions of Arab life, fixed by the desert, are themselves so 
changeless, and these caravanserai doubtless date from long 
before the dawn of written Arab history. 

From the earliest recorded times the desert has been rife 
with marauders and cattle lifters, and wherever routes met and 
the opportunity was given what more obvious than to erect 
buildings, half inn, half fortress, where the merchant and the 
shepherds might lie in security ? 

Out of such simple demands has the structure of the cara- 
vanserai, unvarying to this day in all the deserts of the near 
East, arisen, and I think that all who ate at all familiar with 
the desert must look upon these structures in the light of 
traditional and essential elements in desert life. 

Whether the early Arab mosques were built in direct imi- 
tation of these ancient hostelries or came to resemble them by 
answering to the same requirements is a question difficult to 
answer; but, at any rate, the resemblance between the two is 
palpable. The early mosques are entirely distinct from later 
Arab architecture. They belong in reality not so much to 
cities as to the desert. Specimens are to be seen at Mecca, 
Cordova, Cairo, Kairouan and perhaps elsewhere. The last of 
these sacred enclosures visited by the writer was the mosque 
of Okba at Kairouan in Tunisia, next to Mecca and Medinah, 
the most holy of all Arab shrines, though since the French 
conquest of the city much of its sanctity would seem to have 
evaporated. 

For some months we had been traveling across the Sahara, 
exposed all day to the glare of the African sun, and it may 
be that during that time we had unconsciously imbibed some- 
thing of Arab tastes and the Arab point of view. At any 
rate, I remember that the feeling of deep satisfaction and 
content which I experienced on finding myself after these 
wanderings among the cool colonnades of the great mosque 
was such as no other form of architecture could possibly have 



i9i i.] MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI 303 

afforded me. It seemed I had lost touch with the more com- 
plicated styles. 

He who has become used to the desert, who has fared on 
a few dates and a morsel of kid, whose only drink has been 
the brackish water of desert springs, who has grown accus- 
tomed to the freedom of those ample spaces and has lived 
day and night in the consciousness of the desert's vacancy 
and vastness such a one has no inclination to seek from art 
any difficult or complicated effects. They would be at vari- 
ance with his mood. The strictly enclosed interiors and all 
the involved decorative and structural features of a northern 
church or cathedral would arouse feelings too out of touch 
with recent existence to be tolerable. He must, ere he can 
appreciate the northern styles, recollect himself and recall his 
knowledge of history and the tradition of his race. In short, 
he must awaken from the desert mood, and put on the thoughts 
of civilized man before civilized art can touch him. Then, 
when he has done that, when the feelings and emotions which 
he experienced in the desert are forgotten, he will be free to 
enter again into the thoughts which have inspired European 
art and to feel its many attractions. 

Then, but not till then. So long as the desert's influence 
lasts, so long as the consciousness of that vacancy and vast- 
ness is upon him, so long as the desert's primitive simplicity 
holds him, he will not find an utterance for his feelings in 
northern art, but will be driven to discover one in an original 
style adapted to the mood of the desert itself. 

It is, as was already said of the caravanserai, their perfect 
adaptability to their surroundings which lend beauty to the 
early mosques. In form they are the caravanserai almost lit- 
erally repeated a large quadrangle walled in and bare to the 
sky, flanked on the inside with arched cloisters round each of 
its four sides and with a well in its midst, being the domi- 
nant features common to both. They are scarcely to be called 
architecture, a word which suggests ordered masses and stor- 
ies of masonry. Hardly, in our sense of the term, are they 
structures at all. A European might wander through them 
from end to end and exclaim at last: "Where is the mosque?" 

Yet do these simple enclosures possess a charm and an in- 
terest never afterward attained by Arab architecture. Under 
the cloistral arcade I stood and looked out betwixt faded 



304 MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI [June, 

green columns on the open spaces beyond. The arches cast 
a deep, cool shade ; deepest at the Mecca end where the lines 
of arcades were multiplied, and in the shadow the columns 
looked like faint shapes seen through clear water. Stirred by 
the difference between the inner and outer temperature, a lit- 
tle breeze moved through the shadowed spaces. It seemed I 
had all I needed. Here were the amplitude and sense of 
space, the desire for which had become a craving and second 
nature; here was the desert's necessity, water, given by the 
spring in the midst of the quadrangle; and here the desert's 
luxury, shade yielded by the rows of cloisters. 

As I watched, an Arab crossed the open space to the 
Mecca end and drifted slowly in among the thick-standing 
columns. And as he passed out of the glare and the cool 
shadows received him I remembered how often, after the 
fierce heat of a long day's march, I had come upon an oasis 
of date palms, and with what delight I had felt myself re- 
ceived into their cool embrace. 

Not long was this style of building maintained. Later 
Arab architecture rapidly developed all kinds of fanciful and 
fantastic features, but the note of noble and austere simplicity 
struck here soon died away. It was so with all things Arab. 
So long as the race kept contact with the desert it maintained 
intact its pride, its self-respect, and its love of curt, direct 
speech whether in art or song. But no sooner was it re- 
moved from that potent influence, no sooner was it cut off 
from the old inducements to hardihood, vigilance, abstinence, 
endurance, the desert virtues which the desert instills and 
nourishes in its children and pent up in cities and civilized 
communities, than the old fire subsided and the fine desert 
qualities relaxed into effeminacy and self indulgence. 

The traditional Arab manners lost their manly and stern 
courtesy. The earlier ballad poetry, so graphic, so decisive, 
so virile in its abrupt and trenchant descriptions, gave place 
to a softer, more ingenuous, but less vigorous form of versifi- 
cation. The very language of the desert became an unknown 
tongue to the descendants of the Bedouin tribes who had fol- 
lowed the banners of Kaled and Omar and Amen. And all 
these changes were but symptoms of that inward, deeper 
change in temperament and character, which a civilized state 
and the thick atmosphere of cultivated lands and the seden- 



191 1.] MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI 305 

tary habits of cities have never failed to work in the Arab 
himself. 

So it is with his architecture. The old caravanserai type 
of mosque is that which utters the Arab character while still 
in its pristine vigor. No matter whither their conquering 
arms led the Arab hosts their first essays in architecture were 
all of the same type, and the quadrangle, the cloister and the 
well sufficed them. Then, gradually, in all countries in which 
they settled, the same change occurred. The old simplicity 
was lost and the old plan abandoned. The town-bred Arabs 
or Moors, as they were now called, long alienated from the 
desert and inured to the ways of cities, could no more ex- 
press themselves on the ancient Bedouin style of architecture 
than they could express themselves in Bedouin poetry or in 
the Bedouin language. 

It is curious to observe how, by degrees, as the desert's 
influence weakens, the vast quadrangle in which that influence 
had spoken becomes more and more circumscribed until it is 
altogether lost and swallowed up in the series of enclosed 
courts and chambers of the later styles. Fantastically shaped 
arches, fretted ceilings and surfaces honeycombed with carv- 
ing combine to produce the fanciful aspect which all these 
later buildings share. Yet it is obvious to all who seek a 
definite purpose in art that none such is here forthcoming; 
nor will any trace of such a purpose be discovered in Arab 
architecture until we recur to that period in its history when 
the race was still swayed by the influence which has fostered 
all that was simple and virile in its character. 

It has always been an object of mine to endeavor to deal 
with art as an expression of life, to draw attention, that is to 
say, to the human interest as the embodiment of the life and 
thoughts of its age which it invariably possesses. Other merits 
and attractions, no doubt, it has, or may have. It may, in 
particular, be an art of beauty and may be able to demonstrate 
or elucidate for us the principles which make for aesthetic suc- 
cess. This probably is the greatest function that art can fulfill 
the function, too, which is most 'in accordance with its own 
nature and reveals the especial pleasure and enlightenment to 
which only art possesses the key. 

But there are very few kinds or schools of art, excepting 
the Greek, which exhibit much of this quality. The most con- 

VOL XCIIL 20 



3o6 MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI [June, 

tinuous and universal of the arts, the " mistress art," as Pro- 
fessor Bloomfield calls it, and that which most readily lends it- 
self to interpretation, is architecture, but except for the Doric 
temples of the Greeks, I do not know of any styles of archi- 
tecture which can be said to embody any definite aesthetic 
principles. But all styles of architecture, and none more than 
the Arab, embody the human character of their builders. 

Let the reader cast his eye back on the long succession of 
styles that have come and gone, He will observe that, about 
the seventh and eight centuries of our era, the sequence and 
ordered evolution of these styles is suddenly broken and dis- 
turbed by a motive, a fashion of seemingly unknown and alien 
origin. Hitherto, and for many centuries, the manner of Rome, 
whether we call it Romanesque or Byzantine, had exercised 
an unquestioned sway. The might and majesty of the Empire, 
its steadfastness, its iron discipline, its ponderous routine were 
perfectly imaged in the concrete vaults and adamantine arches 
of its palaces and amphitheatres. In the round arch, used as 
the Romans used it, with so much simplicity and so much 
strength, there resides an expression of placid, almost inert 
power, such as was, indeed, for ages the Empire's best bulwark 
of defense. 

I know of no forms of architecture more expressive of stern 
endurance than the stubborn Roman concrete and the clean- 
cut Roman masonry, and no structural feature more capable of 
conveying that sentiment than the tranquil semi-circular arch. 
But as we leave the seventh and enter on the eighth century 
this fixed immobility is strangely shaken and disturbed, and the 
features in which it was portrayed are dislocated as with a sudden 
convulsion. The wall surfaces break out, as it were, into a 
rash of minute and indecipherable carving, the ceilings are 
fretted with an elaborate honeycombing of pendentives, a strange 
and hitherto unheard of spirit of fantasy seems to have entered 
into the science of building. The old calmness gives place to 
innumerable fickle impulses, the old, stern strength to weak and 
wayward caprice. Above all, it is in the arches, in which as 
I have said Rome's power was so manifestly depicted, that 
the new influence is discernible. 

I know not how to give the untraveled reader an idea of 
the incorrigible capriciousness of Saracenic arches or of the 
detestation of the calmness of the old round arch which they 



i9i i.] MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI 307 

one and all exhibit. It is, indeed, evident that hatred of the 
round arch is from the first an instinct in the new race. In 
Cairo there is a mosque, that of Tooloon, one of the oldest 
in the city and a fine example of the caravanserai type with 
the great open quadrangles and surrounding arcades which we 
have been discussing. This mosque, built before the days that 
the Arabs had invented structural forms of their own, employs 
what you take at the first glance to be round arches of a some- 
what weak and unstable design. Closer inspection, however, 
reveals the fact that the summit of each arch is broken by a 
knotch evidently cut in the masonry after the arcades were 
completed. This does not, perhaps, give the arch a strictly 
pointed outline, but it does succeed in so mutilating the old 
round outline as entirely to destroy its characteristic expression 
of placid power. 

And this was but one and that a tentative expedient. The 
hatred of the round form of arch which is in the Saracenic 
blood, so to speak, and which shows itself as a destructive 
motive at a time when, as yet, no truly Arab forms had been 
evolved this hatred displays itself as the chief factor in the 
development of the national style. It would be impossible to 
give any idea without the help of illustrations of the fantastical 
and eccentric shapes horseshoe and ogive and stilted and 
variously foliated into which Arab arches are tangled and 
twisted. The only common motive apparent in their infinite 
diversity is their resolve to eschew strength and simplicity and 
to indulge in any chance vagary or whim of the moment. 

Such is the character of the new style. It appears sudden- 
ly and without warning. It moves swiftly and silently through 
Africa and Syria and Spain, and wherever it comes in contact 
with Roman forms it strikes them as with a sudden violence. 

No one interested in architecture can fail to be arrested by 
the sudden apparition of this weird influence ; but it is above 
all those who have come to regard the great structural styles 
as the embodiment and incarnate image of their builders' 
character and temperament who will be most keenly interested. 
For these will know that what is here seen in stone was once 
acted in the flesh. It was in their own image that the Arabs 
built these light and perishable vaults and whimsical arcades. 
What we see before us the structure we can touch and handle 
and which our kodaks can take note of is not architecture 



3o8 MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI [June, 

merely but a human personality. See how instinct this new 
style of building is with fiercely restless impulses, how it de- 
tests routine and established methods and all that speaks of 
permanence and continuity, how its fiery energy breaks out, 
now here, now there, in eager fantasies that are yet short 
lived, that lead to nothing, that result in no coherent purpose. 

In all these things the style is but the image of the race 
which created it. Moreover, as it is cast in the likeness of the 
Arab, so its influence and effect in the world are precisely 
the influence and effect which the Arab himself exerted. We 
spoke of the old Romanesque and Byzantine structural fea- 
tures everywhere yielding to, and being undermined, and, as 
it were, crumbled away by, the attacks of Arab capriciousness. 
But this assault delivered in architecture and of which the dis- 
torted forms of arch and shaft are witnesses, was delivered also 
in actual life. This fierce impetuosity did, in the form of a 
lava-stream of humanity, pour down upon and engulf the old 
pre-existing, classical society. The architectural revolution, 
the most curious and sudden in the history of art, is but the 
picture and reflex of a social revolution of like suddenness and 
similar character. 

I hope that all this will not appear to the reader a digres- 
sion. The transition from the desert to Arab architecture 
seems to me a very natural one, for after all it is out of the 
desert that those qualities have come which we find embodied 
in Arab buildings. ''Build here the house," is to this day 
the Arab chief's word to his followers when their camping 
ground is reached and with the butt of his long lance he indi- 
cates the drift of sand where the tent is to be erected. 

That frail architecture is all he knows of. The Arabs are 
not builders by nature. Of all they have ever done in that 
line the most part is evanescent. The race never succeeded in 
evolving a great monumental style any more than it succeeded 
in evolving a coherent civilization. All it did was dogged and 
infected by a fatal instability. Often at mid- day halts or in 
the evening when our camp was pitched, lying on the barren 
sand slopes and drinking in the pure, stimulating desert air, I 
have felt, not as a matter of thought but as a physical ex- 
perience, all that the Arabs have owed to the nature that 
nurtured them. The light, hot sand drifts and eddies to every 
gust of wind. Its particles glide through your fingers, restless 



i9i i.] MOSQUES AND CARAVANSERAI 309 

and incoherent it presents to your gaze a world of instability 
where no law or fixed purpose reigns. And yet how keen and 
vigilant, how sensitive to the least suggestions, how strung up 
and apt for sharp and sudden enterprises do all your nerves 
and faculties appear in this land where the air itself is an 
elixir and every sense seemed sharpened to twice its usual 
acuteness. 

Rarely reclining, never dozing, the Bedouins crouch, scan- 
ning the horizon with habitual and intuitive vigilance, their 
spare figures and cat-like quick motions, and restless roving 
glances all expressing quite unmistakably the kind of nervous 
impetuosity which reigns in their blood. Their sanctuary of 
sand has been the home in all ages of passionate impulses 
and short-lived sudden resolves. I thought of every Arab 
design; of the desert Mahdis and Dervishes and the fierce 
ebullitions of fantastic zeal which ever and anon to this day 
issue from those glowing solitudes. They are all of the same 
character. They all exhibit the same fiery impetuosity and 
the same weakness and vacillation. How like, I cannot help 
thinking, to the architecture in which the race embodied its 
own emotions. Here, too, in arch and tracery are exhibited 
the impetuosity we know so well, and here, too, that impetuos- 
ity is undermined and brought to nought by the fatal instabil- 
ity that dogs it. The man and his deeds are but the outcome 
of a unique environment. Here in the desert, in the wind 
and sand and piercing sun rays, is the raw material of all the 
Arab has been, of all the Arab has done. 




LILIUM AURATUM. 

A STORY. 
BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. 

JIRECTLY after breakfast on the Friday, Norro- 
way took his new friend out into* his Gloucester- 
shire garden. He had to apologize to the guest 
who had never met her for Lady Norroway's 
absence. She had been called two days before 
to Paris, where the eldest daughter was at school, had lost 
her Channel boat, and had wired that she would reach home 
in the course of the morning. There was to be a large house- 
party, and Eugene Warrell had been urged to get there ahead 
of the rest; he did so gladly, because he greatly liked Nor- 
roway, and saw him too seldom. 

Sympathy, rather than circumstance, had thrown them to- 
gether. While Warrell, a poor student with a strong will, had 
been tutoring and getting up a practice in Canada, his junior, 
the Oxonian of leisure, had had time to marry, to be knighted, 
to enlarge and improve his mother's old property, to build a 
fine Anglican church and a mill in the village near it; and to 
enter Parliament. " Anybody can bear adversity ; but show 
me the man," says Farquhar in one of his comedies, "who 
can bear success and champagne. 1 ' Norroway was such a 
man, wholly unspoiled. 

As for Warrell, his more painful striving was over and 
done. He was now for some years established as a Londoner 
in bachelor's quarters, and was a well-known K,C. He was 
stout, hazel-eyed, clean-shaven, something of a psychologist; 
considered a safe trustee, and a highly congenial companion. 

The garden to which they had come was one of three at 
the Court, the finest and least frequented of them. It lay 
between a swift- running brook and the range of hills which 
divided the estate from the nearest railway station. The ap- 
proaches were rocky, and in the angles of rock, in deep rich 
soil, was a double terrace unseen from below. Flat stones 
had been laid in the sloping turf for a stair; thirty of them, 



191 1.] LlLIUM A URA TUM 3 1 1 

then a landing and a turn, and thirty again; a climb indeed 
for the sedentary man of law, if not for the wiry squire. 
Warrell had not looked about until he got to the very top, 
and then he saw a sight. 

Lilies 1 Hundreds of them, in their proudest perfection, 
happy and still, and with an intense fragrance. Standing in a 
splendid circle, with a cross-piece at top and bottom, armored 
in their own glossy leaves, with ferns growing beneath, they 
were so tall that their two tall visitors could not do much 
more than peer comfortably into the wide- curved cups, the 
cups of the big Japanese rayed lily, barred on every petal 
with perpendicular gold, and powdered with little purple 
runes and scars. Pure white, otherwise, white with some com- 
mentary, as it were, not easy to read; attractively complex as 
only Oriental things can be. 

Sir Thomas gave vent to his owner's pride. "Magniffy ?" 
he asked boyishly. He was boyish still at forty-three. 

Warrell smiled, and sent up vast rings of smoke to spell 
in air his very great admiration. 

"The whole thing looks like one great bright Gothic O in 
some illuminated missal," he remarked appreciatively. 

"Right!" answered Norroway, much pleased. "With the 
hollow filled in with darker tones/' He made a quick easy 
gesture. 

" A fountain ! " exclaimed the other. " And what a jewel 
of a fountain ! " 

He stepped nearer. Exactly in the middle of the per- 
fumed ring was a lofty, delicate, Tuscan* looking bronze. A 
slim pedestal rested on a base bordered on all four sides with 
dark-hued pansies. On the pedestal a young faun was strid- 
ing forward, with the merest scrap of wind-blown drapery 
touching shoulder and thigh. Under his left arm he carried 
a shallow oval dish, and his right hand was thrown far out ; 
the palm contracted, the thumb held upward. It was the at- 
titude of a sower, and what he was sowing was water! ex- 
quisite airy jets of it, spurting more than thread- fine from 
every finger, and spreading like a silver cobweb on the quiet 
June morning. There he ran above them, working away, 
where the erect moisture-loving lilies could watch, all day 
long, their beautiful benefactor. 

"Come here a moment," said the host. He strode past 



3 1 2 LILIUM A URA TUM [June, 

the flying liquid seeds to the outer edge of the plot. 
"There's more below." 

Warrell saw beneath them a second steep terrace as fair 
and as well-kept as the first, but of a more contemplative 
character. Lilies again! Lilies beyond counting. A giant 
of them lay outlined below, a shapely black-letter capital, 
with all its details formed with great art; and a stone bench 
was placed inside each section of the down strokes of the E. 
Warrell also noticed something else. This was a dark object 
on the spot where the short thick middle line of lilies ran out 
straight, curled over, and ended. 

"The prettiest in the world 1" he began. "But considered 
as decoration, may I say that it has a flaw? Nobody can sur- 
vey your O and your E together without danger to his neck." 

"You can from high heaven!" was the unexpected reply. 
Something in the simplicity of the tone checked WarreH's 
smile. "You see that's the real point of view after all, be- 
cause these terraces were laid out in memory of Oliver 
Ewing." 

Norroway knocked the ashes from his antique pipe, slipped 
the latter into his pocket, and led the way down the steps; 
in a moment they were out on the lower pleasaunce. The 
sweetness of it all seemed quite wonderful to WarreH's starved 
city eyes. The dark object he now found to be a dial. It 
was bronze, like the fountain; it rose from a simply wrought 
little stone base which was set, again like the fountain, in a 
sombre pansy bed. The gnome of the dial was lifted to the 
level of the lilies at their central point, and stood free of 
their shadow. There was a motto cut around the disk which 
Warrell had never met with. 

PER ^ OBVMBRATIONEM * SPIRITVS * HVC * 
YEN IT * FILII * LVX * DIVINA 

He looked up eagerly. "Where did you get that? Deep 
and mystical. Sounds like Augustine." 

There was a touch of a blush on Norroway's cheek. 

"Piffle! I just drew it up by myself. Good theology, I 
think, and good dialism? None too good, though, for this 
place. Will you sit ? Or does this strong aromatic odor 
bother you ?" 



i9ii.] LILIUM AURATUM 313 

"Not a bit. In fact, given a great open air space like 
this, I find it delicious. I am an old admirer of lilium 
auratum, but I never saw such huge clumps of it out-of- 
doors. It makes a grand show." 

The speaker chose the nearer bench, leaned back, and let 
his gaze pass from the boughs of a single ancient sycamore 
to the wide-spread green beyond it, and the narrow silver 
stream; then on to the lovable Tudor manse, dark-gabled, 
high-roofed, its porch drowned in roses. All one harmony 
from chimney-stack to threshold, it faced south and sunned 
its beautiful old age. 

Norroway bent towards him. "In this garden, it was 
bound to be lilium auratum if anything. Til tell you why, 
at length, if you'd like to hear." 

Warrell nodded. Successful barristers like himself are ex- 
cellent listeners. Norroway sat on the right arm of the 
bench, leaning on his stick, sometimes absent-mindedly screw- 
ing the point of it into the late June grass. 

"You didn't know Ewing ? No? A St. Hugh's man. A 
first-rate fellow ! Never knew anyone in the least like him. 
Made more rules for himself than any chap of twenty ever 
did, but made none at all for you ! Taught himself to be so 
even-tempered that outsiders all put it down to born good- 
nature; and all the while, really, he was the very devil for 
fire and rockets. Oh, a first-rate fellow ! and more too. I 
couldn't get him to row or ride or hunt (he was a crack shot 
at targets, but wouldn't point at anything living); but he got 
me to walk, and taught me on those long marches all the 
antiquities I ever knew. Good-looking, very : such a well- 
shaped head, and nice gray eyes, always a little ironic. A 
quick-footed lad, light as a mouse, yet strong and bony. It's 
a great loss to me that I have no portrait of Ewing. 

"He was the last of his family. They had all been Army 
folk, but he intended to go in for a Fellowship and stay in 
the University. He came up straight from Harrow, and I 
from my tutor's in Vevey; but we hit it off well from the 
very first. His rooms were opposite mine; we quickly got 
acquainted. I never was much of a grind, except when read- 
ing for Greats, and if he was, it wasn't because he needed to 
be. What didn't that fellow know ! 

"We had become fast friends by the third year. In those 



314 LILIUM AURATUM [June, 

days, men could live their whole time in College. One night 
I came in from the Union, and saw Ewing's door ajar and his 
desk-light burning, as I went by. It was about the beginning 
of Hilary Term, damp and stormy ; and his fire was smoulder- 
ing in the grate. I tiptoed in. My word ! he was asleep, or 
else in a trance, sitting almost upright, and presenting a 
highly romantic appearance, thanks to his holding a long 
spike or two of these Jap lilies. They lay in the fold of his 
right arm, like a beadle's mace. 1 ' 

Sir Thomas filled his pipe with deliberation, and pushed 
back the cap from his forehead. 

" I'll give you a digression. Every man jack of us here 
in England, I suppose, is fond of flowers. So was Ewing: no 
more nor less than anybody else. He sometimes bought them 
at Oxford to give away, but I can't remember ever having 
seen them in vases about his rooms. What I do remember, 
though, are some of his theories about them : he had certainly 
a philosophy of botany all his own. And I once discovered, 
as it happened, that his preference was for lilies: that's a 
point I want to make. 

"Some of us were having tea with Ewing one Saturday 
afternoon. A parson's son, one Haynes, a rather cantankerous 
little sort who lived up our staircase, was there. He began 
to poke fun at the Head of the House, his sizable mouth 
being full of Ewing's crumpets. 

'"Pre'ge got new lilies all over top o' dinin* room wall,' 
he announced. ' Bah 1 ' 

"'Why Bah, my lamb?' inquired Ewing wickedly. 

"'Mawkish!' answered the lamb. 

" Ewing took him up. 

" ' Mawkish is exactly what lilies can't possibly be ! ' he 
began ; and was cut short by a wag from York Hall, who sang 
out: 

' As I walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily 
In my med-i-ae-val hand ! ' 

"Of course we howled with laughter, and Ewing as loud as 
anybody. But then he had it out with Haynes. 

" ' I'll leave the Pre,' he said, ' to wallow in all his crimes 
and unseemlinesses' (this tickled me, because most of us had 
a great opinion of our venerable president), but I'll stick up 



I9U-] LILIUM AURATUM 315 

for my floral friend. Why, Haynes, it's a man's flower ! Bold ; 
matter-of-fact; straight as a corporal on parade and hardy as 
a bull. And what sound conclusions, what correct mathema- 
tics! So many buds, so many blooms; an honest game, every 
time. A forthright flower; knows his own mind, stands on 
his own legs; doesn't dimple and cuddle like a rose, nor gawk 
like a hollyhock, nor overdress like a peony or a chrysanthe- 
mum.' 

" ' Oh, I say ! ' It was Haynes, getting quite eloquent. 
' A nice warm sweet rose is divinely chummy. Can't say as 
much for your vegetable, especially a white one.' 

" ' Wait till you grow up ! ' Ewing grinned, mock-paternally. 
' Have another sugar ? Three ? ' You see he " liked but dis. 
venerated " Haynes, anyhow. He put all his sentiment into 
just such rattling shorthand. It was his way. 

" Well, to go on . . . I had tiptoed in, as I said, on 
that wild evening, and stood in my wet greatcoat looking at 
my friend, and his almost empty brazier, and his open books; 
and at himself so queer in the armchair, with his big sceptre 
of lilium auratum. It struck me as awfully funny. I really 
hadn't time to notice whether his eyes were open or shut. 
Anyhow, in another moment, while I was still staring, he be- 
gan to talk rather thickly, hanging his head a little. 

" Sir, I don't want them,' he said. ' They are meant, per- 
haps, for some sort of sign. I don't think I understand I'd 
rather not understand. My lifework . . . I these lilies ' 

" ' Why, Longshanks ! ' I cried. ' What are you braying 
at me for ? 'Twasn't me presented you with no bouquet ! ' 

" He flushed up hot and dark, and pulled himself together 
with an inward effort, and rose quickly ; he did everything 
quickly. Then he faced me with all his own sudden sweet- 
ness. 

" ' Tom, I had a dream,' he answered ; ' such a rotten 
dream ! I'll tell you to-morrow. What did you say about a 
bouquet ? ' He looked rather sheepish. 

" ' Oh, never mind ! ' I spoke lightly. ' I'll never peach- 
Give them to me. I'll hide them if your're not friendly to 
them.' 

"'Give you what?' 

" ' The lilies.' 

'"What lilies? Didn't I dream them?' 



3i6 LILIUM AURATUM [June, 

"'No, you didn't,' said I ; ' at least not altogether; for I 
watched you in your sleep a moment ago, hugging them like 
the Blessed Damozel.' 

41 Ewing stood up very straight and pale, and put his hands 
behind him. 

" ' One of us is an ass, Norroway,' he declared soberly. 
'There are no lilies in this room.' 

"And, as a matter of fact, there were none; neither on 
floor nor table, nor sofa nor chair, nor window sill, nor any- 
where ! " 

Warrell waited. 

" Explanation ? " 

"You won't call it much of an explanation. I simply saw 
them, and then there was nothing to see. Ewing turned the 
lamp lower. But I took no hint." 

"'Tell me,' I insisted. 'And don't sulk like that. It's 
the Yorkshire pudding, as sure as you live.' (The edible 
really had been particularly stodgy in Hall that evening). 

"I had to work, after that jibe, I promise you, to get him 
to open his mouth. But when my mood had quieted down to 
his, he gave in. He sat on the edge oi the table, and I on 
the hassock, facing the fire, where I could poke the coals, and 
make believe that I wasn't so much stirred up as I really was. 

" Ewing told me it seemed to him that he was in some 
great assembly where he couldn't recognize a face, although it 
was the Oxford of the day, just the same. The talk or debate 
drifted in a quite unexpected direction. An elderly duffer in 
a D.D. gown, very consequential, stood up and began to re- 
peat some of the usual nonsense about Roman Catholics, past 
and present. It was no concern of Ewing's, except that he 
had read almost everything printed, and liked to get at truth, 
and burned no candles to St. Luther and holy Cranmer. I 
can't recall just what moot point it was, though he told me; 
but on this subject, as on many others, he happened to be a 
perfect arsenal of exact knowledge. So he stood the old wind- 
bag as long as he possibly could, and as soon as he sat down, 
Ewing broke in, with every eye turned on him an undergrad, 
a nobody ; the brass of it all ! He went at it, hammer and 
tongs. (He always spoke so well, you know, with such a 
modest young authority. Our tutor once said to me: 'Mr. 
Ewing has an authentic mind '). He demolished all the case 



19 1 1.] LILIUM A URA TUM 3 1 7 

for the prosecution, and proved that this particular allegation, 
whatever it was, was unhistorical, ridiculous, and what not. 
He said he got very hot doing it, naturally; and that he 
seated himself again without the least idea what sort of im- 
pression he had made. He didn't care a fig, anyhow. He 
knew he had done right, and disinterestedly knocked the saw- 
dust out of an old slander. 

" Now just as he sat down in the crowded room, someone 
seemed to press up close against the back of his chair. Ewing 
was given in some way to feel that a standee there, was very 
sympathetic towards him. And then he felt a hand laid ever 
so lightly on his hair; as he put it, it was like the sort ef 
caress a shy child might give you, and then run away. He 
knew it meant intense approval, so he screwed himself round 
a little to see who was near him. It was a youngish man, 
but gray at the temples, in a dress Ewing didn't know : all 
black, and picturesque and ample except for one straight piece 
falling down the front, and a little hood sticking up behind. 
What was very singular, he had a rope, like a hangman's 
noose, about his neck. He seemed, nevertheless, to be a don. 
Ewing said he was dark and tall, with a wonderfully alert, 
vital expression, almost mirthful, and a glance that went clean 
through one. I remembered so well afterwards just how he 
described this person." 

" Identification enough in itself, almost," Warrell remarked 
in a low tone. " Not an individual in a thousand has anything 
which can properly be described as a glance. More dogs have 
it than men." 

" That is so," answered the narrator. " It seemed this was 
a face one couldn't forget. Features rather close together, not 
handsome, but rugged, noble, resolute, with a quaint humor, 
ever so English in its way : rather like Strafford, I fancy, only 
less warlike, and far more spiritual. Just as Ewing, with quite 
a thrill of astonishment, caught the eye of this remarkable 
figure behind him, the latter bent forward, and Ewing found 
the lilies in his lap. Now, he wouldn't have liked that in any 
case, and none of us would, especially in a company of 
strangers. But in the dream, moreover, some word or gesture 
went with them, which struck my friend with a sort of horror, 
as if he were somehow being put into a false position, or had 
been misunderstood as agreeing to something against his con- 



3i8 LILIUM AURATUM [June, 

science. Hence his revulsion, and the sputtered remarks (so 
respectful, nevertheless, with their ' Sir/ as if the apparition 
were the king, or an angel !) and hence his disclaimer that the 
gift was not wanted. 

" After we parted for the night, I naturally thought less 
of the incident. It struck me as curious and baffling, but I 
couldn't see why it should have taken such a tremendous grip 
on Oliver Ewing as it had done. He was pretty sensitive, as 
these big, spirited fellows generally are, but, as I hardly need 
assure you, he was no muff," 

" Did he ever find out just who the other man was ? " 

"Yes, he did; and that is part of my story. As I told 
you, Ewing was a great reader, always haunting the Bodleian. 
One day he wanted a rare folio, and couldn't find it in the 
catalogue, aid complained. People think, you know, that Bod 
has every treasure printed since Cadmus, and get quite cross 
when it hasn't. Bodley's librarian came to the rescue, and 
what he said didn't make Ewing feel superior. ' You will find 
that work in the library of your own college, Mr. Ewing,' he 
told him. Who ever heard of an Oxford man really using, 
faithfully using, his own college library ? Yet St. Hugh's was 
one of the very best: famous in fact, outside the University. 
Ewing came out into the Broad, with his long scholar's gown 
flapping behind, and I met him and went along with him. Our 
library there, was a beautiful old Gothic room, with leaded 
panes; almost as dark as a cave. Some portraits reputed to 
be of value, were hung along the alcoves, up among the rafters : 
no human eye had scanned them, I should think, since the 
Flood. One of these, as it happened, had been taken down 
for repairs, and was standing in its rich frame and mouldy 
clamps against the lower panels of the wall. Ewing went up 
to it without a word. I had just heard him draw his breath 
quick and sharp when the librarian came in, nice old Clumber; 
and all Ewing could stammer out was ' Please : who ? ' 

" We were informed that it was a genuine Zucchero of one 
Basil March, some time Fellow of St. Hugh's, a person given 
an exquisite character by Wood and several older writers who 
knew him or knew of him. He was a poet, and also a monk, 
a member of that English Congregation of St. Benedict, which 
despite all the surrounding upsets in doctrine and the penal 
laws and so on, has never died out in this country, for twelve 



.] LILIUM AURATUM 319 

hundred years and more. The succession once got down to 
one man, an Abbot and a prisoner, and he passed it on to a 
younger man, afterwards an exile; and then it flourished for 
centuries underground, until it could be openly established in 
England again. Interesting history, isn't it ? This particular 
worthy at St. Hugh's was one of the many innocents deprived, 
apprehended, tortured, and finally hanged, under Queen Bess, 
at the London Tyburn, all for keeping to the old faith. It 
seems that Oxonians of that generation stuck out most tre- 
mendously against the changes in religion, so he wasn't alone 
in his ' treason.' The Librarian ended with that dim, crackling 
smile of his: 

"'The Pope has made him important again, as the Blessed 
Basil March, O.S.B. So, as a good Protestant, I am having 
him brushed up ! ' 

Ewing must have heard all this as he stood staring at the 
portrait. He muttered something about coming again for the 
folio, and I threw over him the shabby mantle of my own 
manners, and thanked the librarian, and got my bewitched 
chum out into the quad. Of course he clutched me in an- 
other moment. 

" ' My man ! ' he panted. ' My very man ! No scrap of a 
shadow of a doubt about it. Strange, strange ! A Fellow 
too: prowling about here yet, looking for souls, perhaps for 
my soul ! . . . I solemnly charge you, Tom, don't on any 
account recur to this.' 

" He was in dead earnest, and speak of the dream after 
that I never did. 

" It was our last term together. Ewing became mopish 
and restless, and finally threw up the sponge, and went down 
before the Easter vacation, without graduating, disappointing 
everybody. I missed him dreadfully ; his companionship was 
everything to me, though I had other friends; and I had an 
affectionate home life, one thing he hadn't to fall back upon. 
He did me heaps of good at that age, and the good didn't 
wear off. The American sage says you send your boy to the 
schoolmaster, and that it is the schoolmates who educate him. 
That's often true of university life as well. I don't mean that 
Ewing was conspicuously ' pi ' ; at least, he wasn't the kind 
for preachments, not he ! But I can't say for sure just what 
he was at heart: there were deeps in him that I didn't pre 



3 20 LlLIUM A URA TUM [June, 

tend to fathom. This was just two and twenty years ago. 
Dear Ewing! And I never saw him again." 

Norroway was speaking very slowly as he came to a pause. 

" Did he never write ? " 

" Oh, yes, he had to. I bombarded him with papers and 
postcards : I wasn't going to be dropped like that. I believe 
I could as well have spared the sun out of my life. But he 
seemed for a long while terribly shy even of me, and he 
wouldn't come here to see me, nor ask me to go where he 
was, and he moved about a great deal, too, at first. It was 
almost the end of the year before he wrote. I can't say I 
was greatly surprised to hear that he had become a Catholic, 
and that he was going to enter a monastery." 

At this point the listener thoughtfully blew a small silvery 
butterfly from his sleeve. "Benedictine?" 

"Warrell, you are fairly intelligent, aren't you? Yes; 
Benedictine. Mark, I don't mean to imply that he hadn't 
been thinking hard of certain matters before he ever saw his 
spook. He entered up in Yorkshire ; and once he had started 
life as Brother Basil (he did not live to be ordained), I heard 
from him often." 

The barrister lifted his eyebrows almost imperceptibly, 
taking in the "Basil." 

Norroway went on : 

"The rest is woven in with my own biography. You 
would say he had quite found himself at last, all his messages 
and letters sounded so happy. One day he wrote saying be 
was in London, that he and a companion were to go to 
Wales for a week's holiday before their return, and that he 
proposed to visit me on the way. Imagine how pleased I was ! 
Some of us had kicked up a row when he left us and turned 
his back upon the ordinary careers, where he could have been 
anything and done anything. His was indeed a real sacrifice, 
but he made no fuss over it. No more did I. I loved Ewing, 
and I couldn't but respect his choice. Quite a wonderful 
business, that ' religious vocation,' as they call it. It's a 
sealed book to worldlings like myself and you." 

Sir Thomas threw back his morning-jacket and stood up, 
then walked around the bench, to seat himself at Warrell's 
left. He bent forward, elbow on knee, his fist under his chin, 
in a retrospective attitude. 



I9II.] LILIUM AURATUM 321 

"I don't seem to have given you much idea of Ewirg's 
character, have I ? But if you had ever come in contact with 
him, you'd know how absolutely natural it was for him to act 
as he did, as I'm going to tell you what he did. He never 
did an unrelated thing, I believe, in his whole life. Every 
thought and act and word, whether you agreed with it or the 
contrary, sprang as it were from the core of him, from what 
he was, boy and man, and couldn't help being, a brick, and 
a a selfless saint of God." 

Norroway cleared his throat, and quickened his verbal 
pace, still looking away from his companion. 

" There was an outbreak of some deadly disease just then 

near C . Remember? Plague, or the like. Just a scare, 

well- fought and quickly over. Well, there was a woman 
people heard of as being there in charge; a young nurse, Miss 
Amelia Hillett. She won no end of praise. She was an 
Earl's orphan granddaughter, but desperately unhappy at home, 
through no fault of her own, so she had broken away and 
found work that she loved, first in the hospitals, then with 
private patients. Not afraid of anything, and beautiful and 
gentle and wise, but quiet, so quiet that one found it difficult 
at first to realize all that was in her: real heroism it was. 

14 She was in her uniform, traveling alone, returning from 
a case and looking forward to a rest, when she heard about 
the epidemic from an inspector at a junction. The infected 
district was in the neighborhood of the very next station. 
She took her light grip from the rack, stepped out on the 
unfamiliar platform, and gave up her ticket. It was pouring 
rain, and she had no umbrella, but a good Samaritan, a young 
fellow-traveler out of the carriage just ahead, gave her his, 
and pulled up his coat-collar; and they went on foot to the 
town. It was Ewing. She didn't learn his name till some 
time after. But she came to know him ever so well : well as 
only men and women can know each other who work in the 
presence of danger and death. The very same impulse had 
thrust them from their cherished holiday prospects straight 
into this terrible campaign. * Ye did it unto Me ' was hot at 
his heart, one may be sure; nor do I think such a motive 
could have been absent from hers. You see I am talking of 
two people I know. 

"Oliver stopped at the little Post-Office, and sent two or 

VOL. XCIII. 21 



322 LILIUM AURATUM [June, 

three wires; one was to me. I read it with a sick disrelish, 
almost a foreboding. He offered to write that evening, but he 
never got time for a letter. 

" They found out at once, Nurse Hillett and he, where the 
stricken poor wretches were; and then began at it master- 
fully. Oh, I can't tell you! She had the superior profes- 
sional knowledge and skill, and a good will equal to his own ; 
yet what she told the newspaper men was true : she would 
have been almost powerless without Oliver's zest and inventive- 
ness and miraculous energies. He actually built a hut out in 
the fields with only lads to help him, in two days; and he 
got his first sick isolated there before the health authorities 
had begun to plan anything. They came presently, with doc- 
tors and clergy and others, but the two pioneers had saved 
the day. And then he was such an adorable creature at 
work ! Kept them going, so that the gloom couldn't strike in. 
They all said he was like a light." Norroway gave a nega- 
tive wave of the hand. " Really, I haven't adjectives. And 
then" 

Warrell's voice, too, was low. " Did he catch the disease ? " 

" It had to end that way. I can't go into details. He fell 
ill, and he died." 

A couple of larks started singing far above them, with a 
music so thrillingly loud and glad that Norroway waited for 
a moment smoking vigorously. 

" She nursed him, of course, doing her tired best. He 
made no fight at all ; he had used up all his strength. It was 
so very sad having to bury him out there, and at once. The 
poor nurse was at her wits' ends. You perhaps know how 
trifles count at such times, how everything looms up so oracu- 
lar, so significant, when you are on the borderlands of eternity 1 
She wanted flowers, felt she must have them ; and she fixed 
her mind (she never knew how or why), on lilies. Just a few 
lilies, to lay there beside a martyr : nothing in the whole 
world seemed so necessary as that. 

" It was past noon, and his grave would be dug before 
sunset. It struck a chill into her heart, to remember that it 
was Sunday, and therefore all shops and stalls would be closed ; 
and that it was November: not a lily in the English world 
now, save possibly in conservatories ! Nor had she acquaint- 
ance with anyone in the town, of whom she could beg. But 



191 1.] LILIUM AURATUM 323 

the idea was too obsessive to be put aside. She went out into 
the streets, feeling very weak and weary, but hopeful, some- 
how, of success. 

"At the top of a long steep avenue she stopped to get 
breath, not having seen any garden, so far, which looked in 
the least inviting. Save for a couple of Sunday-school children, 
the road was empty. She caught sight immediately of the 
gate of a small estate opposite, where a sweet - looking old 
lady was coming out. So she crossed over, and asked quite 
frankly and foolishly whether she might have some lilies for 
a dead friend ? The lady answered pleasantly and at length. 
She would willingly give them, only they kept no hothouse 
now, not for a year past: her family had gone abroad the 
preceding winter, leasing their little place; the tenant's boys 
had accidentally smashed the glass, and the repeated frosts 
had of course killed everything, and nothing had been grown 
there since. 

" ' I'm so sorry. . . . We shall repair it soon. Come and 
look in,' she ended ; and the young stranger followed her 
down the walk, doubly saddened and full of discouragement. 

"The greenhouse was indeed unkempt and ruinous. Amy 
Nurse Hillett, I should say standing in the damp, weedy 
doorway, inhaled a perfume she could not account for. Directly 
in front of her stood in profile a grave-looking man with a 
light pointed beard, and a long mantle with hanging sleeves. 
Where his collar should have been there was a frayed cord, 
dangling oddly. He had an air of having just come in. He 
turned his face towards her almost hurriedly; it was the very 
kindest face she had ever seen, and full of a gay idiosyncracy. 
Then he bent forward a little and spoke quietly, encouragingly : 
' Lilies a many, as thou seest, child ! and all for my son. 
Bear them unto him.' He moved aside, and she gave a little 
cry, never even noticing that she had lost him; for under the 
broken roof of the long enclosure, were unmistakably growing 
heaps of the most lovely lilium auratum in the world ! Her 
heart was in her throat, it was such a glad sight; but to her 
exalted mood just then it didn't seem at all grotesque or im- 
possible, nor did the words the stranger had spoken. 

" ' Oh ! May I ? ' she breathed, running forward. 

"'The lady murmured, taken aback: 'I wish there were 
anything in this desolate place for you.' 



324 LILIUM AURATUM LJune, 

" ' But there is, there is ! ' cried the other. ' Your gardener 
what more could I ask of your generosity ? ' 

" Can't you see her breaking the great stems eagerly, and 
nestling her cheek against the glorious armful? Her compan- 
ion, aware neither of flowers nor of any agency which could 
have brought them, thought she quite understood the whole 
situation at last. 

"'There, my dear/ she said slowly and soothingly, in her 
little tremulous voice; 'get all the comfort you can out of 
them. I am so pleased for you ! And I do hope, my dear, 
that it may all come out right.' 

"The two (there was no third now) walked back to the 
gateway, and the unaccountable lilies were carried home to 
poor Ewing. The young nurse told me afterwards that it was 
with a perfectly serene sense of victory that she laid them on 
his breast, and set the last branch of them in the fresh earth 
at the feet of the priest who read the burial service. She had 
perceived, and had to bear, the staggering truth that they were 
visible throughout to herself alone." 

Norroway surreptitiously pulled his moustache, to steady a 
certain twitching of the upper lip. 

" What I have told you is all absolutely true." 

The other spoke rather more than half incredulously. 

" In the greenhouse it was the Blessed Basil again, I take 
it?" 

The host looked up. "Who else? Mind you, she had 
never heard of him in her life, nor of these particular flowers 
in relation to the dream. Again, how should she (such a sin- 
cere person !) invent that archaic English, spoken word for word 
as I have told you ? Later she marveled at it as fantastic, 
but not after I had assured her that the Blessed Basil was once 
a real Elizabethan. You're something of a botanist, aren't 
you ? " 

There was a deprecating " H'm ! Oh, dear, no,' 1 from his 
companion. 

" Else," Norroway continued, " I didn't know but that a 
difficulty had occurred to you. A real Elizabethan couldn't 
have known this species of lily, unless he had traveled in the 
far East. It was only introduced into England, the books say, 
in William IV.'s reign ! Of course we got everybody's favorite 
Madonna lily, the candidum, from the Levant also ; quite long 



I9H.] LILIUM AURATUM 325 

enough ago, I think, for this ghost to have known it in the 
flesh. However, I'm not trying to make my narrative consist- 
ent, I am simply reporting facts. What he chose for the friend 
of my youth, living and dead, was lilium auratum" 

The barrister looked thoughtful. "Did you hear this last 
chapter at the time from this Miss Amelia Hillett?" 

" No ; not just then. Some months later. It was Ewing 
who brought us together, for he left messages with her to be 
delivered to me. He forgot nothing and nobody, so long as 
he was conscious. He gave her a little crucifix he always 
carried. She had a scruple (being Low Church then, you see 
she has come Higher since !) and wanted to return it to his 
Abbot, but the Lord Abbot made her keep it. He was so 
grateful to her; they all were. The community liked the way 
in which she spoke of him, and were most kind and friendly. 
She certainly had, and has, and will never lose, a wonderful 
reverence for Oliver Ewing. 

" I am nearly forgetting something important. A good 
friend of mine (you're heard of Shaxted ?) had become Junior 
Dean of St. Hugh's, and got them to let me have the March 
portrait photographed. It turned out very well; I'll show it 
to you at the house. A Miss Hillett, that is, was here on a 
visit to my mother and sister. We had not been speaking of 
Oliver that day. I laid it in her hands and asked her if it 
reminded her of any one. She replied instantly that it was a 
singular face, singular and attractive, and that if I hadn't evi- 
dence to the contrary, she would say it was the face of the 

monk in her vision at C who showed her where to get the 

lilies ! 

" ' But I haven't evidence to the contrary,' I put in, not 
unwillingly." 

"Her brave blue eyes filled up. 'Then I'm right?' 

" ' I know well you must be right,' " said I. 

Warrell gazed a moment at the squire, who had risen slowly, 
and put his pipe away. 

" I thank you. The supernatural is quite out of my sphere. 
But it is a sweet little tale that you have told me. It has 
real interest. So has this votive plot." 

The younger man waved his stick. 

"You can't wonder that it was set apart for just these 
bulbs ? I was one of the only two who had ever seen Ewing's 



326 LILIUM AURATUJd [June, 

lilies, the spirit ones; so I knew just what to plant. You see, 
he wouldn't have liked a permanent memorial in stone. He 
used to call all monuments ' impudent/ considering them as so 
much flying in the face of our final privilege, which is to clear 
out and pass on. So we decided first to feast all our poor 
neighbors on each anniversary of his, and then to write his name 
here in the ' man's flower/ in something which should be lovely 
yet mortal, running with ourselves the chances of mortality. 
Do you realize that these are in bloom for only three weeks 
of the year ? A quick commemoration, isn't it ? Almost like 
lighting and blowing out a candle. And every scrap of this 
gardening from start to finish has been done with my own 
hands, with the family, not Judkins, to help me out. We love 
this place. Nor do we bring everybody up here, either." 

" ' We ' ? " 

"Oh!" Sir Thomas' face lit up. "Absurd of me not to 
have told you ! Amy Hillett has been for eighteen years my 
ttife, my chief earthly blessing: the mother of my dear girls, 
and of my one precious little son." 

He consulted not his watch, but his more cherished Jacobean 
dial. 

" It has gone one o'clock," he said. " Hi ! There they 
are ! " 

The sky had been windless, almost cloudless, a delicate 
streaked mother-of-pearl. But now a stiff northwest breeze 
had begun to blow, and the two stood in the fine mist cast by 
the fountain playing some sixteen feet above them. Eugene 
Warrell's eye rested first on the long gray line of Vale Court 
and then on a lady coming hurriedly towards the rustic bridge, 
making her way to the terraces. 

She was all in pale green, veiled and gloved, evidently just 
arrived. A little boy in socks, who had been playing with a 
dog on the lawn, ran up to seize her hand and frisk beside 
her. Presently he pranced ahead, meeting his father at the 
foot of the steps, and throwing himself and his mop of gold 
curls full upon that obliging person, to be tossed and kissed. 
Warrell noted in him a pleasant reflection of my lady's beauty. 

Norroway, thus unceremoniously situated, had to introduce 
guest and hostess, and Warrell won his delayed welcome, a 
womanly sweet welcome which did him good. The others were 
coming, it seemed ; there were at least two motors sending up 



I9U-] LILIUM AURATUM 327 

their diabolic pillars of cloud at the foot of the hill. Husband 
and wife spoke together for an instant, Norroway having set 
down the child. 

In that instant the small diplomat proceeded to subjugate 
the K.C., by embracing the unknown legs, after the cheerful 
imperative manner of four-year-elds. He whispered ingrati- 
atingly : 

"Now come and thee my guinea- pids 1" 

" Yes, Oliver ! " Warrell, smiling, laid emphasis on the 
latter word. 

Nolly brought the point of his puckered pink nose almost 
up to his shut eyes: a grimace of the purest satisfaction. 
Then he looked up, in his crumpled white frock, glowing. It 
seemed quite in order, somehow, that the kind gentleman should 
actually have guessed his name correctly. Oh, that loved social 
expedient of guinea-pigs! Was it, he began to question, ab- 
solutely necessary in this case? He felt already so blissfully 
conscious of a new friendship, and of a very, very jolly day. 
In an established mood of entire confidence, he started in again, 
rising on his sandaled toes towards Warrell's inaccessible ear. 

"Name are Lolliver. 'Nother man Lolliver. I thay prayer 
for him, 'n' he thay prayer for me." 

This theological declaration of branching import was over- 
heard by Sir Thomas. He came to a pause, quizzically eyeing 
the ungrammatical news-agent and his ally, then made a wide 
gesture of mock despair. 

"By George, it is clear what pranks we're up to! The 
cat's out of the bag!" he laughed happily. "Yes! Yes! 
We're all going to be received next week into the Catholic 
Church." 

" Alleluia ! " added my Lady, in a grateful whisper, flushing 
all over her lovely face, and pressing her innocent's tumbled 
head. " Try to be jealous of us, Mr. Warrell ! " 

"I am thinking," said that not unsympathetic agnostic, 
"how far the scent of lilies can travel, and through what thick 
walls of time and change." 




EMILY HICKEY. 

A CATHOLIC POET. 

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. 

REMEMBER very well the time I first heard 
of Emily Hickey. It was some time in the last 
century: no need to be more explicit and I was 
a young person passionately interested in poetry, 
perhaps the more because it had not come very 
much in my way. A few books of Irish patriotic verse, a few 
volumes of magazines, but they were magazines of the great 
period, a book belonging to my school-boy brothers, called 
BelVs Reciter on these my heart hungry for poetry had fed. 
At my convent school, I got Miss Procter we used to write 
out her poems for each other in books which had pink and 
gray and green and yellow leaves of a satiny texture and an 
occasional poem in a school book. But home from school I 
began to make friends. Among the earliest was a family of 
very clever girls, who went to read in libraries by way of 
diversion. There was an incessant talk of books among them, 
not learned books, but books of the belles hares* order. It 
was their very clever mother who said to me one day: 
" Have you ever read A Sculptor and Other Poems, by Emily 
Hickey ? You ought to read it. It is very beautiful poetry." 
And so indeed I found it. Miss Hickey's poetry at that time 
was very much of the school of Tennyson : at least the man- 
ner was his, though the matter was her own. Her narrative 
poems with the long loose lines might quite well have stepped 
out of a later volume of Tennyson. The poetry made a direct 
appeal to me and I have loved it ever since. 

To take up now this early volume of Miss Hickey's, is to 
recall the old Dublin library where I read it. It was the 
Library of the Royal Dublin Society in Leinster House, Kil- 
dare Street, once the town-house of the Dukes of Leinster, be- 
fore the blight of the Legislative Union had fallen upon Dub- 
lin, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland had packed up 



19".] EMILY HICKEY 329 

and gone to London leaving their magnificent houses to fulfill 
some purpose or other different from their builders' intention. 
Leinster House was more fortunate than most, for the others 
became barracks, warehouses, charitable institutions, asylums, 
wholesale drapers' shops, tenement houses, etc. Leinster 
House then was pretty much as the Fitzgeralds left it. I 
remember the old stately rooms, walled about with books, the 
noble grates filled with roaring fires by which certain old 
ladies dozed and read their lives away, bringing their frugal 
lunches with them when they arrived as soon as the place 
was open of mornings, remaining there till they were turned 
out into the wind-blown street at night. Those s high, narrow 
corridors with the decorated ceilings, the dim rooms with their 
splendid mantelpieces, spoke eloquently of the past. Fitz- 
gerald ghosts must have trooped through them. The ghost 
of the Beloved Lord Edward Fitzgerald in his immortal 
youth, the ghost of Pamela, the ghost of Lord Edward's 
mother; the Duke of Richmond's sister, who bore her Duke 
twenty-two children, and after his death, although according 
to Mrs. Delaney, she was the proudest woman in Ireland 
married her sons' Scottish tutor, the Mr. O. of Lord Edward's 
enchanting letters, and was the mother of yet two other chil- 
dren. Yet they say women led sluggish lives in those days ! 

Friendly and splendid Fitzgerald ghosts ! and the ghosts of 
the beauty and wit and eloquence and dare-devil bravery of 
the magnificent crowded time before the Union, came troop- 
ing upon one everywhere. It was the ideal place in which to 
read poetry. They have a great library now of a rotunda 
shape, with all the latest lighting and all the rest of it. I 
doubt if I could read poetry with as much zest amid those 
excellent modern surroundings. 

A Sculptor and Other Poems delighted me with its fresh, 
natural direct force and energy, its fearlessness, its generosity 
of youth, its love of humanity. There was a color, a richness 
in the vocabulary, which no doubt owed something to the 
splendid diction of the Authorized Version. The friend who 
had introduced me to Miss Hickey's work was the first to 
suggest to me that English literature owed a deal of its 
quality to the great old Book. Doubtless it was not at all an 
original observation, but at the time to me on the outside of 
literature it seemed new and illuminating. I believe she used 



330 EMILY HICKEY [June, 

Miss Rickey's poetry to illustrate her argument while she la- 
mented that we, Irish Catholics, had not the same gorgeous 
influence when we set out to make our poems and stories. 

I quite saw what she meant. The Book is first of all a 
book of men and women, of strong, human emotions. Round 
about them are built up magnificently the most wonderful ac- 
cessories. One thinks of the phrases: 

Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colors and thy founda- 
tions with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates 
and thy gates of carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant 
stones. 

Yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver 
and her feathers with yellow gold. 

Who is this that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the 
moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners. 

Her e>es are dove's eyes. 

And their soul shall be as a watered garden. 

One might make volumes of such poetry as this, poetry 
which has never been excelled nor perhaps equalled. All the 
gorgeousness of all the jewels of the earth, all the freshness 
of the dew, of the green pastures and cool waters, the light of 
the moon and stars, the freedom of the winds, the fragrance 
of the flowers, this great Hebrew poetry, Englished by poets 
worthy of the task, are heaped about the central human fig- 
ure. Holy Writ does not make poetry of Nature or inani- 
mate things for its own sake, but for its relation to the great 
central human figure or event. 

So you will find that in the poetry of Miss Hickey, as in 
the poetry of Christina Rossetti, the Biblical influence comes 
in again and again to heighten the emotion which is essen- 
tially human. Neither poet touches on the domain of the 
landscape painter, making pictures without a human figure or 
a human meaning. 

This profound interest in humanity prepared Miss Hickey 
to become with Dr. Furnival the founder of the Browning So- 
ciety. It was several years after I had read the "Sculptor/ 9 
and I read it before I knew Browning, for I had to find out 
my literature for myself when I met Miss Hickey in the 
flesh. The Browning Society was then in full working order; 
the Aesthetic Movement, though not in its first youth, was 



19".] EMILY HICKEY 331 

still influencing us in its non-essentials as well as in its es- 
sentials which remain ; we were all flying to Liberty, who had 
one or two small shops in Regent Street, to be rescued from 
primary colors, and Miss Hickey, in what must have been one 
of the great cycle of English Summers, looked her poetry in 
a leaf-green Liberty silk and a wide velvet hat. I'm not sure 
that she did not wear a lily. She dresses more soberly now- 
a-days; but I really thought she looked, very lovely. Perhaps 
that green gown was an intelligent anticipation. 

I have said that the long narrative poems were in the 
manner of Tennyson. Well, in the matter, she would always 
have been more in touch with Browning. Her profound inter- 
est in humanity, her love of it, the courage with which she 
handles its ugly problems, finding nothing common or unclean, 
all mark her out as one in spirit with the great master of 
nineteenth century poetry. The nineteenth century was a 
great age for English poetry, and an interest in English po- 
etry which has perhaps left its successor fallow and exhausted. 
One counts them over one by one, these successors in the 
starry line which has never yet failed in the English poetic 
firmament, and two stars are brightest, Wordsworth and 
Browning. 

Doubtless the Browning Society did an excellent work. 
It brought people to read and discuss Browning whose high 
philosophy it was a humor of the day to consider dull and 
crabbed. Miss Hickey could tell us if she would, but will not 
tell us, what the master said of her poetry. One feels that 
she must have pleased him, have been among his nearest and 
dearest disciples. 

Perhaps something of the naturalness and simplicity of her 
style she owes to her Irish birth, for she is Irish, though she 
has the Scotch and English strain as well. She is the grand- 
daughter of "Martin Doyle/' a famous Irish agriculturist who 
instructed his countrymen in his beloved art through essays 
which have a certain flavor, homely, and country-like, that 
reminds us of Cobbett's Rural Rides. 

That the Irish spirit was strong in Miss Hickey in those 
early days, although I suspect she had read more English 
than Irish poetry, is shown in the frank and fresh poem 
entitled " Paddy," which space does not permit us to quote. 

Any judgment of Miss Hickey's poems which did not take 



332 EMILY HICKEY [June, 

into account her delightful lyrical faculty would be incomplete. 
Her verses in a singing metre sing like birds. Some of the 
early songs are beautifully young and joyful and singing. 
Here is one that ought to be set to music if it has not been : 

LOVE SONG. 

I know not whether to laugh or cry, 
So greatly, utterly glad am I : 
For one, whose beautiful love-lit face 
The distance hid for a weary space, 
Has come this day of all days to me 
Who am his home and his own country. 

What shall I say who am here at rest, 
Led from the good things up to the best? 
Little my knowledge, but this I know, 
It was God said "Love each other so." 
O love, my love, who hast come to me, 
Thy love, thy home, and thy own country. 

Miss Hickey has been among the fortunate ones of poetry. 
She came at a time when interest in poetry was strong, when 
the greatest of all the arts was not held generally in indiffer- 
ence if not in contempt. She must have known, as I knew, 
the joy of recognition for her early poems, when not only was 
one patted on the back by the big people and the important 
reviews, but all sorts of delightful letters and friendships came 
one's way from country parsonages, from the houses of the 
professional classes, from London literary people. Why my 
own first little book opened the most wonderful worlds to me. 
I came over to England an Irish country-mouse, to be made 
much of by people whose names I bad revered and by strangers 
who were destined in some cases to become dearest friends. 
Let Miss Hickey speak for herself, Hers is the record of a 
fortunate woman; for whom "the best was yet to be" when 
those early triumphs were over. And yet I think a part of 
her good fortune was that she had the brave and the happy 
and the grateful heart. "The Kingdom of God is within us"; 
and that inner fount is apparent in Miss Rickey's work as it 
is in her most lovable and striking personality. Let her tell 
some of her adventures for herself : 

I am Irish by birth, with both the English strain and the 
Scotch. Far the greater part of my life has been spent in 



i.] EMILY HICKEY 333 

England. I lived in the country up to the time I was thir- 
teen, except for two years spent in a country town. My sis- 
ters were, one some years older, one some years younger than 
I. I loved books, and cannot remember a time at which I 
did not know how to read ; but I also loved dolls and work- 
ing for them ; also romping and climbing trees. I can re- 
member, when I was about ten, reading James's Philip Augus- 
tus^ seated in a tree near our avenue gate. I well recall the 
love I had for the very look of a page of verse. I owed much 
in my early days to a dear lady with whom I began my 
school-life : Madame Stuart, ne'e Planque, who is still living, 
at nearly ninety-four. Her goodness and sweetness made 
that part of my childhood very happy. She was a truly 
gifted teacher, as many beside myself have had occasion to 
testify. It is to her that I owe the development of my natural 
taste for poetry. She introduced me to Sir Walter Scott's 
fine, healthy, swinging verse, much of which I learned by 
heart from a little volume given by her, which I still possess. 
It was at her house that I first read the great old ballads, 
such as 7he Childe of Elle, Sir Cauline, Chevy Chase. I used 
to chatter to her in French, her native tongue. 

My early girlhood was passed in the town of Carlow, 
which is surrounded by very beautiful country, with which 
we grew familiar through long walks with friends, one of 
whom introduced me to the poetry of Tennyson. I remember 
copying the whole of Maud from the precious green-bound 
seven-shilling volume which he lent me. As time went on I 
began to make some serious literary efforts, and a long poem 
of mine, Told in the Firelight, was printed in The Cornhill 
Magazine. 

Mrs. Browning's poetry took a great hold on me. At once 
I felt it as greater, higher, deeper, and fuller, than any other 
verse I had come upon. Of Robert Browning's poetry I 
knew practically nothing for many a day after people had 
said I showed his influence strongly, which is amusing. It 
was to be some years before I got to know and love Shake- 
speare. My father discouraged the reading of him, repelled 
as he was by his occasional Elizabethan coarseness. 

Some little time after the publication of 1 'old in the Firelight, I 
offered a small collection of poems to Messrs. Macmillan. Mr. 
Alexander Macmillan, then head of the firm, wrote to me most 
kindly and encouragingly. He thought it too early for me to 
think of publishing a volume, but offered to use a poem oc- 
casionally for Macmillan' s Magazine. Several poems of mine 



334 EMILY HICKEY [June, 

appeared under his kind auspices, and lie took a most friendly 
interest in my work. He was anxious that I should write a 
short story for him, and was very encouraging about a novel 
which I had in hand. I never finished the said novel. 

My first coming to England was to the Macmillans, who 
most kindly welcomed me as their guest, and did what they 
could to find me such work as seemed suitable. 

My mother's death was the occasion of my returning to 
Ireland for about a year, after which I came back to the 
country that has been indeed " my most kindly nurse, " spend- 
ing some time in frequent visits to Ireland. 

My friends have been truly loving and helpful. I have 
had much tenderness and loyalty shown to me. In my early 
days in London, more than one house was as a home to me, 
and I have friends now, I am thankful to say, whom I then 
learned to know and love. Some of them have passed beyond 
the veil. 

I was much indebted, as a student of Shakespeare and of 
other 'English literature, to Dr. Frederick Furnivall, the fine 
old scholar who died a little while ago. His help and encour- 
agement were always to be relied on. It was he who, having 
heard me read a paper on "Measure for Measure," at a 
Shakespere Society of which he was a prominent member, first 
suggested my lecturing on Shakespere. The story of our 
founding the Browning Society together is well known. 

My happy connection with the Frances Mary Buss Collegi- 
ate School for Girls, where I taught English Language and 
Literature for some eighteen years, was through my friend, 
Miss Ridley, one of the governors. My book of Poems, 1895, 
is dedicated to her. She wrote the Life of Frances Mary Buss, 
as well as the Life of her fine old father, whose connection 
with South Australia was an important one. I am glad to be 
of the number of those who had the very great privilege of 
knowing Miss Buss and of working under her. She was my 
friend before I became a specialist teacher at her great pioneer 
school. To know her and to know Dr. Sophie Bryant, after- 
wards her successor, and to call both of them friends was in- 
deed something to be glad of. 

If I were asked what have been the strongest influences over 
me as regards my poetry, I should say Mrs. Browning in 
early days, and later on the oldest English [writers, such as 
Cynewulf and ^Elfric. Later came the work and personal 
friendship of the Hon. Roden Noel. To know him was to go 
into a region fair and broad, for his intellectual life was 



i9ii.] EMILY HICKEY 335 

vivid, his sympathies generous and wide, and his passion for 
humanity and for external nature great indeed. His style, 
however, never influenced mine. I am glad to have known, 
and to know, people whose share in the work of life has been 
an active one, as well as those who have expressed noble 
thought in noble words. 

I -have never been a member of a literary clique. And I 
have never held the pestilent heresy that the matter is of no 
consequence so long as the form is good. Perhaps my Ad 
Poetam (Poems, 1895) is the fullest expression I have given 
to my thought as to the function of a poet. By the way, the 
poem was by no means meant to be a portrait of any special 
poet, as at least one kind critic has supposed. 

My life has been much on the practical side, and I have 
known the poor as one loving them, and, as I hope, in some 
degree, understanding them., 

The best that was yet to be for Emily Hickey was her 
conversion to the Catholic Church. Since then, with charac- 
teristic whole-heartedness and affection she has flung herself 
into the service of the Mother who is ancient and yet always 
young and loving and beloved. A born philanthropist her 
love of her kind has now found an outlet in all manner of 
Catholic good works. To her qualities of sympathy and im- 
agination she adds a clear common-sense which fits her emi- 
nently for the somewhat ticklish task of the philanthropic 
worker. However let some one else deal with this side of a 
many-sided woman. My interest at the present moment is 
mainly concerned with her poetry. I find a list of her works 
in Who's Who. "A Sculptor and Other Poems," "Verse- 
Tales, Lyrics and Translations," " Michael Villiers Idealist and 
Other Poems," "Our Lady of May and Other Poems," "The 
Dream of the Holy Rood." " Havelock the Dane" is an inter- 
esting rendering into English poetic prose from old English : 
and she has recently published a novel, Lois, besides much 
miscellaneous work. There are beautiful things in the second 
volume of poems which shows a firmer touch, a growth, a 
maturing. One lingers over the delightful " Margery Daw," 
and " Creeping Jenny," with their laughter and tears, but one 
has not space to quote either in its entirety and there is 
nothing one could do without. So I take the two sonnets 
" Conversion " with their curious prevision. 



336 EMILY HICKEY [June, 

i. 

Conversion ! some will shake the head and sneer 

Even at the word : yet some can surely tell 

How bitter, sweet, and irresistible, 
The change came to their life, and all things here 
Grew changed; the dusk was light, the dark was clear; 

The clash of discords into music fell 

As sweet and solemn as the sacring bell; 
The silence throbbed harmonious on their ear. 

The life of God in glorious billows prest 
About their life, and stirred it as the roar 
Of seas might stir a sea-bird on the shore, 

That burst the shell beneath a bamfowl's breast; 

So were they moved and could not be at rest; 
So were they moved, once and for evermore. 

II. 

Yea, God's large life in awful beauty beat 

About their life. Oh, trouble and joy and great 
Sobbing of quick new sense, and passionate 

Desire for something passing good and sweet ! 

And loins were girded up, and eager feet 

Sped swiftly o'er the King's highway, where, late, 
They had lingered in their weariful estate ; 

On, on, the coming of the King to greet. 

" Stay, stay ye runners, what avails your speed ? 

Ye will not hasten Him Who comes, one whit; 

No, not one moment earlier shall be lit 
The lamp that must illume the night of need ! " 
" Oh we shall meet Him, see His face indeed, 

And know the utter loveliness of it." 

Miss Rickey is very good in the sonnet-form, perhaps be- 
cause it prunes and clarifies a certain opulence in her which 
may run riot. There is another poem in which I find a re- 
semblance to Christina Rossetti, the finest woman poet England 
has yet produced, who ought to have been a Catholic and 
brought a Catholic fervor into her Protestantism. 

EXPECTANS EXPECTAVI. 

Sweep out the house and dress it fair, 

Make ready hall and room ; 
I who have waited very long 

Shall meet my brave bridegroom, 
And he will take me by the hand, 

Kiss me, and lead me home. 






i9ii.] EMILY HICKEY 337 

He did not come to fetch me home 

In my time of merry youth; 
He waited till the wrinkles were 

About my eyes and mouth. 
What matter ? His face will touch my face, 

And make its furrows smooth. 

Oh, I shall lie at rest, at rest, 

Upon his true bosom; 
Lulled sweetlier far than they are lulled 

Who hear the songs of home, 
As they lie, half-waking, half-asleep, 

hi the happy summer-gloam. 

Gather fair flowers to greet my love ; 

Flowers at whose heart are laid 
Delight and fragrance; lilies, white 

As the soul of Mary Maid : 
Roses that laugh in the blessed sun, 

And smile in the blessed shade. 

What say ye, gentle maidens mine? 

"Thy coming bridegroom, he 
Loves better the cypress and the yew, 

And the rue and the rosemary." 
Nay, let me bring mine own offering; 

I know him better than ye. 

Good night, good night, beloveds all, 

For this beloved saith 
I must leave all and cleave to him ; 

And quickly he cometh ; 
His eyes are stars and his voice the sea's; 

And his name is called Death. 

Miss Rickey is entirely of her time, very modern in that 
she represents so much of the energetic and changing spirit 
of her time and that I think is why one says: "This is like 
Browning; that like Christina Rossetti," and not because her 
poetry is not very distinct and individual in itself. She was 
and is in the movement, and the trend of the movement is in 
a certain direction. I wrote Rossettian poetry before I knew 
Rossetti, as Miss Hickey wrote like Browning before she knew 
Browning. Perhaps there is an occult or scientific explana- 
tion : air-waves or something of the kind. 

Certainly Miss Rickey's work as a teacher and a lecturer 
is an eloquent disproof of what I myself have generally sub- 
scribed to, viz., the opinion that learning in a woman destroys 

VOL. XCIII. 22 



338 EMILY HICKEY [June, 

imagination. It would perhaps be truer to say that the hard 
way by which some women arrive at learning has the effect 
of stunting their imaginations. Miss Rickey is a feminine 
personality and a feminine Muse, yet there is something of the 
best of masculine, its frankness, its courage, its simplicity in 
her work and herself. 

One more quotation and I am done. This again must 
be from her sonnets: and this is work warmed and vitalized 
by religion, by the wonderful " best is yet to be," the glory 
and beauty of which seem to have fallen prophetically on her 
earlier days. Beautiful as the earlier poetry is there is surely 
a gain in this. Here is something of the simplicity, the pas- 
sionate tenderness, the intimacy, we find in poets such as 
Crashaw and Herbert: 

"Dear, remember on that day," 

says Crashaw : and Herbert : 

"A guest," I answered, " worthy to be here," 

Love said : " You shall be he." 
" I, the unkind, ungrateful ! Ah my dear, 

I dare not look on thee." 

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS EVE. 
I. 

There was no room within the inn for them. 
The woman who beneath her girdle bare 
The hope of all the world, a stranger there 

Lay all that solemn night in Bethlehem 

Within a stable; Jesse's Root and Stem 

Should spring the very morrow strong and fair, 
And all the slumbering world was unaware. 

We who still slumber, how shall we condemn? 

She lies, alone with God, this holy eve; 
She, whose glad eyes will look to-morrow morn 
With rapture on the blessed Man-child born ; 
She, who in three-and-thirty years will grieve, 
Pierced to the heart; she, who will yet receive 
The garland of the Rose without a thorn. 

II. 

Oh, was there never a woman there to say, 
"Behold, this woman nears her travailing," 
And take her by the hand, and gently bring 



i9ii.] EMILY HICKEY 339 

Into a room, and softly speak, and lay 

The woman down, and watch by her till day, 

When shade should flee and from on high should spring 
The Light of Light for help and comforting? 
We, blind and cold, nor dare to blame, nor may. 

And yet, if men had felt the throbbing breast 
Of night alive with wonder and the fair 
Great Dawn, they had left their beds all empty there, 

Nor cared a whit for any sleep or rest. 

We, have not we rejected any guest; 

Dismissed the more than angel unaware? 

Miss Rickey's last wine, or at least her latest, for we 
hope it will have successors, is certainly her best. And I 
must find room for one more quotation, a happy and lyrical 
bird-song which reflects at its freshest and fairest a many- 
sided gift. 

CUCKOO SONG. 

"In April 

Come he will." 
"Who doth roam? 
Who will come? 
Who? Who?" 

"Cuckoo!" 

Is it only cuckoo ? Why 
Do you long so eagerly 
For the coming of the cuckoo by-and-by? 
"In April 
Ceme he will." 

"In May 
He sings all day." 
" Whose the song 

All day long? 
Whose? Whose?" 
"Cuckoo's! " 
Is it only cuckoo's? Oh, 
That is not for me to know ! 
Dearest music of all music loud or low. 
"In May 
He sings all day." 

"In June 

He changes his tune." 
"Who doth sing, 
Varying ? 



340 EMILY HICKEY [June. 

Who? Who?" 
" Cuckoo ! " 

Has the joyous cuckoo-strain 
That was echoed in your brain, 
Caught the trouble of the coming loss and pain? 
"In June 

He changes his tune." 

"In July 

Away he'll fly." 
(" Ruth is it 
Infinite ! ) 
Who? Who?" 
"Cuckoo!" 

Oh, the summer goeth fast, 
And the cuckoo-time is past; 
Every day you hear him now may be the last. 
"In July 
Away he'll fly." 

"In August 

Go he must." 
(" What avail 
Tears and wail ?) 
Who? Who? 
"Cuckoo!" 

Only cuckoo ! and your face, 
As you stand in your old place, 
Wears the wonder of love's agony, love's grace. 
"In August 
Go he must." 

A distinguished critic and lover of poetry who is also a 
Nonconformist divine, has commented somewhat enviously on 
the fact that the best religious poetry of the day is being 
written by Catholics, much of it by Catholic women. Well, 
it is an interesting fact that in England to-day so many of 
the women poets, quite an extraordinary proportion in fact, 
should be Catholics. Mrs. Meynell, Mrs. Hamilton King, Mrs. 
Bland (. Nesbit), Mrs. Shorter, Lady Gilbert, Michael Field, 
Emily Hickey. Not so long ago we lost May Probyn. I 
turn up a Book of Verse by Living Women edited by Lady 
Margaret Sackville and I find that out of twenty-five con- 
tributors eight are known to me as Catholics and of three I 
am doubtful including the editor j herself, whose mother is 
certainly a Catholic. 




THE AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES. 

BY CHARLES O'SULLIVAN. 
IS IT VALID IN LA W? 

|HE accomplished Editor of the New Jersey Moni- 
tor, Rev. William P. Cantweil, asked a question 
in a recent issue of his paper that should inter- 
est the entire legal fraternity. Even those who 
profess to know little of marital affairs are prob- 
ably aware that prior to the marriage of a Catholic and Prot- 
estant the latter is required to sign an agreement "that all the 
children of either sex born of the marriage shall be baptized 
and educated in the faith, and according to the teachings of 
the Roman Catholic Church, even if the Catholic party to the 
marriage should happen to be taken away by death/' This 
document is deemed of the utmost importance by the eccle- 
siastical authorities, and priests are absolutely forbidden to 
perform what is termed a mixed-marriage until it is properly 
executed. Now what Father Cantweil wants to know is 
whether this contract is valid in law? 

I. 

Of course in Ireland and England the question was settled 
long ago. In those countries the position of the father as 
head of the family being more than a mere fiction, it is not 
surprising to find that to him is entrusted entirely the relig- 
ious training of the children. It is for him to choose the 
creed in which they are to be reared, it is for him to appoint 
the church and school they are to attend ; and should he die 
during their minority his wishes still prevail and are treated 
by the guardians with sacred regard. The Court never thinks 
of interfering between a father and his children unless his 
conduct is such that it actually amounts to an abandonment 
of parental duty. Thus grossly immoral conduct, as in the 
celebrated case of Wellesley vs. Wellesley, (2 Bli. N. S. 124) 
of bringing up the children atheists, as in the equally cele- 



342 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [June, 

brated case of Shelley vs. Westbrooke (Jacobs, 266), or where 
the children have been educated in a certain religious faith 
for so long a time that to change would be injurious have 
all been held sufficient causes for interference. But the breach 
of an ante-nuptial agreement to bring up the children accord- 
ing to the tenets of a particular religion does not constitute 
such a reason. A contract of that kind is absolutely worth- 
less. 

In Ireland the two leading cases on this topic that is the 
cases that firmly fix the principle of law thus establishing a 
precedent for future decisions are In re Browne t a Miner, (2ir. 
Ch. Reports 151) and In re Meades, Minors, (Irish Law Re- 
ports, 5 Eq. 98). In the Browne case a really remarkable 
opinion was written by the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 
Sir Cusack Smith. It seems that Albert William Browne, a 
Catholic, married Jane Cashel, a Protestant, having first agreed 
verbally that the children of the marriage should be brought 
up in the Protestant faith. There were two children, Jane 
Cecilia, who died shortly after birth, and Cecilia Jane. Mrs. 
Browne died when the latter was only six months old and 
the father immediately placed the child under the care of a 
Mrs. Watts, a Protestant, and the minor's maternal grand- 
aunt. Later on Browne died leaving a will whereby he ap- 
pointed his mother and his brother, a Catholic clergyman, 
joint executors and sole guardians of his only child, who, he 
directed, should be educated and brought up in the faith of 
the Catholic religion. In overruling the objections of Mrs. Watts 
to this clause of the will, the Master of the Rolls said: 

Suppose a member of the Established church married a 
Roman Catholic lady, and agreed before marriage that the 
children of the marriage should be brought up in the Roman 
Catholic faith ; and suppose that after marriage the husband, 
entertaining more serious views on the subject of religion than 
when he entered into the agreement, considers that the eter- 
nal welfare of his child may depend upon the nature of the 
religious instruction which the child shall receive, would it be 
an abuse of parental authority that the father should take the 
necessary steps to have his child brought up a Protestant ? 
. . . I am of the opinion that it would not be an abuse of pa- 
rental authority, if Albert William Browne were now living, 
that he should insist on bringing up his child according to his 



191 1.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 343 

own religious views, unless the contract of agreement found 
by the report was binding upon him in point of law, which 
question I shall hereafter consider ; and, if not, it is no abuse 
of the testimentary guardians that they should seek to follow 
the directions contained in his will. The question, therefore, 
is whether the Court on this motion has jurisdiction to enforce 
the performance of the contract or agreement found by the re- 
port ? If a bill or cause petition was filed for the specific per- 
formance of such a contract, there would be great difficulty in 
sustaining the suit, not only on the ground stated in the re- 
port, but on the broader ground upon which the case has been 
argued by Mrs. Browne's counsel. . . . How could the 
Court enforce the performance, by the father of the child, of 
such a contract as is found by the report ? Is the Court to 
separate the child from its father, to prevent a violation of the 
contract? Is the Court to separate the husband and wife, 
and place the children with the wife, to enable her to educate 
them in the faith which she professes, and in which the hus- 
band contracted the children should be brought up ? Who is 
to provide the funds to educate the child in the religion the 
father objects to? Is the Court to apply the property of the 
husband, during his lifetime and against his will, to the edu- 
cation of his child in that form of religious faith from which 
he conscientiously differs, and the adoption of which by his 
child he believes will be destructive to his eternal welfare ? 
By what process is the property of the husband to be seques- 
tered for such purpose ? Is the Court to pronounce a decree or 
order against the husband, who, from the purest and most 
conscientious motives, does not perform his agreement ? And 
is the Court to issue an attachment against him, and lodge 
him in gaol for his life, unless he consents that his child shall 
be brought up in that religious faith which he believes to be 
unscriptural and erroneous, and furnishes the funds necessary 
for that purpose ? . . . In the present case it appears to me 
that the case rests entirely on the alleged contract. It is a 
matter of notoriety that stipulations are constantly entered 
into where mixed marriages take place, as to the religious 
faith in which the children are to be brought up ; but no case 
ha$ ever occurred, that I am aware of, in which it has been at- 
tempted to enforce such a contract in a Court of Equity. I 
am of the opinion that in this case the Equity is not to be ad- 
ministered in this Court, that it would be detrimental to the 
interests of the public that a Court of Equity should attempt 
to enforce the performance of such a contract as is alleged to 



344 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [June, 

have been entered into in this case. . . . Let the report 
stand [confirmed so far as it finds that the minor should be 
brought up and educated in the Roman Catholic religion. 

The Meade case differs from the Browne casein this: that 
the father was Protestant and the mother Catholic. Before the 
marriage took place Mr. Meade promised his bride and her re- 
lations that the female issue should be baptized and brought 
up in the Roman Catholic faith. He repeated and extended 
this promise, when required to do so by the officiating clergy- 
man at the time of the marriage, by adding the further en- 
gagement that all the issue should be Roman Catholics. During 
his wife's lifetime, this pledge was observed ; and the children 
were educated and reared in the Catholic faith. Mrs. Meade 
died when the older child was seven years of age and the 
younger six, and her husband then invited his sister-in-law 
to reside in his house and to her he repeatedly renewed his 
promises that he would not interfere with the religious educa- 
tion of the children. So time passed : the children continued 
to receive Catholic instruction and practice the Catholic re- 
ligion for three years" more, when Mr. Meade, being about 
to be married a second time, announced his determination 
thenceforth to bring them up in the Protestant faith. Imme- 
diately the children's aunt petitioned the Court of Chancery 
praying that the minors be made wards of Court and that their 
father be restrained from interfering in any way with their 
religion. The case aroused interest everywhere and the opin- 
ion of the Court was awaited with considerable curiosity. After 
some delay the decision was finally rendered by Lord O'Hagan, 
of Tullahogue, the first Catholic Lord Chancellor of Ireland 
since the reign of James II. ; and those who know even a little 
of the character of that eminent judge of his piety, his pro- 
found learning in the law, and his zeal for causes that he thought 
just, will realize in a measure, the anxious circumspection with 
which he approached such a case and the bitter pang it must 
have cost him to decide it against the interests of the Church 
he loved so well. 

The authority of a father [says the learned Lord Chancellor] 
to guide and govern the education of his child is a very 
sacred thing, bestowed by the Almighty, and to be sustained 
to the uttermost by human law. It is not to be abrogated or 



] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 345 

abridged without the most coercive reason. For the parent 
and child alike its maintenance is essential, that their recipro- 
cal relations may be fruitful of happiness and virtue ; and no 
disturbing intervention should be allowed between them, 
whilst those relations are pure and wholesome and conducive 
to their mutual benefit. ... I have said that, upon the 
affidavits, I have no doubt as to the making of the promise 
imputed by the petitioner to the respondent. From the 
breach of it has arisen all the strife and bitterness, which have 
destroyed the kindly relations once subsisting between the 
parties : and one can hardly avoid a feeling of natural regret 
that an engagement so solemn, so openly avowed, so strength- 
ened by repetition, so confirmed by the consecration of the 
grave, should have been disregarded. But that engagement 
was not of binding force in law ; and circumstances are con- 
ceivable in which its observance might be held to be a viola- 
tion of conscience. At any rate, for the purpose of this case, 
it does not aid the petitioner save in so far as it gives proba- 
bility to the allegation which indeed is not disputed as to 
the course and the effect of the teaching of the mother and 
the aunt. 

These opinions comprehending as they do all the qualities 
characteristic of the finest judicial decisions clearness, fairness, 
learning, and logic won warm praise from the English judges, 
when cases involving like questions arose in their courts. For 
instance in Andrews vs. Salt (L. R. 8 Ch. 622), a case in which 
the husband, who was a Catholic, entered into a verbal agree- 
ment with his wife, who was a Protestant, that the boys born 
of the marriage should be Catholics and the girls Protestants, 
we find Lord Justice Meliish heartily concurring with what was 
said by Lord O'Hagan in the Meade case. And as it some- 
times adds weight to words to know who uttered them, it may 
be said of Lord Justice Meliish, that so great was his learning 
in the law that his brethren were wont to compare him to 
Achitophel of old, whose counsel (says Holy Writ), was as if 
a man had inquired of the oracle of God. 

The first question [says the I^ord Justice in the course 
of his opinion] we shall consider is, what is the legal effect 
of an agreement made before marriage between a husband 
and wife of different religious persuasions, that boys should 
be educated in the religion of the father and girls in the 



346 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [June, 

religion of the mother? We are of the opinion that such 
an agreement is not binding as a legal contract. No damages 
can be recovered for a breach of it in a court of law, and it 
cannot be enlorced by a suit for specific performance in 
equity. We think that a father cannot bind himself conclu- 
sively by contract, to exercise, in all events, in a particular 
way, rights which the law gives him for the benefit of his 
children and not for his own. We entirely agree with the 
opinion of the I,ord Chancellor of Ireland (In re Meades, 
Minors), in which he held that the court could not during the 
life time of a father compel him out of his own funds to edu- 
cate a child in a different religion from his own. 

In Agar-Ellis vs. Lescclles (L. R. 10 Ch. 49), a novel and 
most interesting point is passed on. In the cases previously 
discussed, an attempt was made by a third person to enforce 
the contracts after the death of one of the parties to the in- 
strument ; in this case we find one of the contracting parties 
trying to compel the other to perform. 

What would be the result [asks Father Cantwell] if the wife 
should endeavor to enforce the agreement against her hus- 
band? 

The answer to that question is to be found in the decision 
rendered in the Agar-Ellis case. The facts were as follows: 
The Hon. Leopold Agar-Ellis prior to his marriage with Miss 
Harriet Stoner, daughter of Lord Camoys, the head of the 
famous Catholic family, solemnly promised that the children 
of the marriage would be brought up in the Catholic faith. 
This contract was made in the presence of several well-known 
persons, among them being the Duke of Sutherland. There 
were four children of the marriage, and although the father 
complacently consented to the baptism of the first, he refused 
to permit the baptism and education of the others as Catho- 
lics. Thenceforth, there was no peace in the house of Agar- 
Ellis. The father, determined that the children should be 
Protestants, did everything possible to bring them up in that 
faith ; while the mother fought to save them to the Church of 
her ancestors with a fervor that before this has won crowns 
for martyrs. Whether her ardor was really as praiseworthy 
as it seems whether she did right as a Catholic in deliber- 
ately tricking her husband and teaching her children to de- 



i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 347 

ceive and disobey their father, are questions to be settled by 
the theologians and not by lawyers. Such a state of things, 
however, could not long continue, and soon we find these un- 
happy persons this husband and wife become open enemies 
exposing their domestic wounds to the gaze of the curious 
in a Court of Law. The Vice Chancellor, whose opinion was 
fully confirmed by the Court of Appeal, disposed of the 
agreement in summary fashion saying: 

But in truth the petition rests on this that Mr. Agar-EHis 
promised before the marriage that the children should be 
brought up Roman Catholics. Now I have written down the 
result in a very few words of all the cases and they amount to 
this : the promise by the father that his children should be 
brought up in a religion other than his own is thoroughly 
settled not to be binding. . . . Therefore, I come to the de- 
cision in this case that the father however absolutely he may 
have promised, is at liberty to revoke it. He may alter his own 
views. He may not have cared much about religion when he 
married, but if he afterwards thinks more of religious sub- 
jects, he is at liberty to say, "'I conscientiously dissent from 
the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church," or the converse, 
for it makes no difference, "and I must have my children 
brought up in that form of religion which I alone can 
sanction." 

He then quotes with approval the opinion of Lord O'Hagan 
in the Meade case and the opinion of Sir C. Smith in the 
Browne case that the promise of the father is absolutely null 
and cannot be in any way enforced. The Court of Appeal 
has held in a comparatively recent case that a written agree- 
ment providing that children are to be brought up in a par- 
ticular faith is no better than a verbal one. In the case 
referred to (In re Violet Nevin, 1891 2 Ch,), both husband 
and wife signed the following contract: 

We, the undersigned do hereby each of us solemnly 
promise and engage that all the children of both sexes that 
may be born of our marriage, shall be baptized in the Cath- 
olic Church, and shall be carefully brought up in the knowl- 
edge and practice of the Catholic religion. 

On the death of the parents an attempt was made by the 
infaat'o uncle to enforce this agreement and from an adverse 



348 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [June, 

decision by Mr. Justice Chitty in the Chancery Division, the 
case was carried to the Court of Appeal. 

In determining what the Court ought to do [says I/>rd 
Justice Bowen] we have to consider that a father is charged 
with the right and duty of providing for the religious educa- 
tion of his children, and he cannot fetter himself in its exer- 
cise or renounce the right. An ante-nuptial agreement on 
the subject is one which he may consider himself bound in 
honor to carry out, but it is not legally binding on him ; he 
must from time to time consider what is in his judgment most 
for the good of the children and an ante-nuptial agreement 
to have them educated in a particular religion is not binding 
on him during his life. So also declarations of his intention 
as to the religious education of his children made at one time 
are declarations from which he is at liberty to depart. This 
view of his position during his life throws light upon what 
ought to be done after his death. An ante-nuptial agreement 
as to the religious education of the children which was not 
binding on the father during his life-time cannot be binding 
on the Court after his death. 

Curiously enough it was not until the other day that a 
pre-nuptial agreement of the character we have been discuss- 
ing was passed upon by an American Court of Appeal. On 
April 19, 1910, the Missouri Court of Appeals rendered a 
decision in the case of Brewer against Gary (127 S. W. R. 
685) holding that an ante-nuptial contract providing that the 
offspring should be brought up in the Catholic faith even if 
the wife should die was not enforceable for the following 
reasons: (i) Because there are no property rights involved; 
(2) Public policy forbids the permanent transfer of the natural 
rights of a parent; (3) Equity has no jurisdiction, since only 
a moral duty is involved; (4) the Court will not enforce such 
a contract even for the benefit of the infant since it would 
result in determining between religions. It is worth observing 
that to the three reasons advanced by the foreign tribunals 
for denying the validity of the contract, the Missouri Court 
adds a fourth, with the manifest intention of emphasizing the 
fact that in this country the existence of religion in any form 
will not be recognized by law. In the course of his opinion 
the Presiding Justice quotes with approval the following sen- 
timents recently expressed by Judge Bakewell of Missouri: 






i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 349 

The State of which we are citizens and officers does not re- 
gard herself as having any competency in spiritual matters. 
She looks with equal eye upon all forms of a so-called Chris- 
tianity and subjects no one to any disability for rejecting 
Christianity in any form, nor for rejecting the generally ac- 
cepted doctrines of natural religion. A father in Missouri for- 
feits no rights to the custody and control of his child by being, 
or becoming an atheist ; nor are his rights in this respect in- 
creased before the law by his believing rightly. The law does 
not profess to know what is a right belief. 

So that what is deemed in Great Britain the best of all 
reasons for interfering between a parent and his children, is 
considered in the United States an excellent argument for re- 
fraining from such action. Truly a startling reminder that ours 
is a Godless government 1 

II. 

Since then it is evident that the pre-nuptial agreement as 
now drawn is invalid and cannot be enforced, Catholic lawyers 
must use their wits to find a way by which such a contract can 
be made in legal form. Certainly the question is worthy of 
the attention even of the intellectually elect. A Catholic 
mother would look on death with added horror if she thought 
that when she was gone her husband might bring the children 
up in some other faith or drag them into the dark paths of 
agnosticism. Some say that it would deter mixed marriages 
if people clearly understood that an agreement as to the reli- 
gious education of unborn children was not binding. This 
hardly follows, however, for it is known to all that those who 
indulge in love dreams are apt, during those golden hours, to 
place faith in pledges that cannot stand the test of the first 
dreary day of married life. As a great poet has said: 

"Yet if thou swear'st, 

Thou may'st prove false; at lovers' prejuries 
They say Jove laughs." 

Well, three ways occur by which such an agreement can 
be made legally binding. 

First: The contract might specify a sum of money pay- 
able to the wife as liquidated damages for non-performance. 



35o AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [June. 

The objection to this plan is that if the Court held the con- 
tract invalid ab initio, it is unlikely that damages for breach 
could be collected. 

Second: A trust could be created in favor of the wife, the 
property to go to the children when they were twenty-one if 
they had been educated in the Catholic religion, otherwise to 
vest absolutely in the wife. It is thought that this would con- 
stitute a valid trust, but and unfortunately a but generally 
bobs up when a legal question is under discussion it would 
necessitate the possession of property by the husband, and as 
a trust constitutes a lien against property, it would undoubted- 
ly be objected to on that ground by the prospective bride- 
groom, or his watchful attorneys. 

Third : A simpler way than either of those suggested would 
be for the husband and wife to agree in writing prior to the 
marriage that in the event of children being born, two other 
persons, both Catholics, should act as guardians together with 
the father and mother. This plan would effectually dispose of 
the points raised in the case of Brewer v. Carey. If the mother 
of the children died, a " next friend " proceeding would then 
be unnecessary as three guardians would still survive to care 
for the infants' interests. It could not be said that the father 
had waived his natural rights for he would merely share them 
with others selected by himself and his wife. And as religion 
would not even be mentioned in the agreement, it is extreme- 
ly doubtful if the document could be objected to on that 
ground. To be sure the majority of the guardians might in- 
sist that the boys of the marriage be educated at Georgetown 
or Seton Hall rather than Yale or Princeton, and these insti- 
tutions might be criticised because they are well known to be 
owned and conducted by Catholic priests. But what then ? 
In Georgetown many subjects are taught besides Christian 
Doctrine ; and logic, the ancient and modern languages and 
the higher mathematics, as well as Church History, are im- 
parted to the students of Seton Hall. 




SIR WILLIAM BUTLER. 

BY SEBASTIAN MEYNELL. 

iHEN Mr. Roosevelt was in England last June, 
he sent, through a friend, a message to Sir Wil- 
liam Butler, expressing his admiration for his 
Great Lone Land, and his hope of an early 
meeting with its author. That meeting did not 
take place, for already the Irish Catholic soldier-author was 
confined to the sick-bed from which he was not to rise. A 
few days later came the news of his death. The end to a 
long and crowded career had come swiftly and peacefully, in 
his native Tipperary, its rigors consoled by the rites of the 
Church. 

The Great Lone Land was his first and most popular book. 
It has passed through some twenty editions, and, in a sense, 
time only adds to its freshness. The North American scenes 
which it describes are no longer to be looked at by the eye of 
man. When Butler set foot in Canada, forty years ago, the 
hungry tide from overcharged Europe had not yet eaten into 
the heart of the North Western wilderness. His pen has 
faithfully transcribed the old life of the prairie, over which 
the Indian tribes then freely warred and wandered, and the 
buffalo roamed in countless herds, with the moose and the 
other wild things of the waste. With The Great Lone Land 
must be mentioned a companion volume to which many will 
ascribe a literary merit beyond that of the more popular 
work. The Wild North Land expresses more perfectly the 
very genius of travel. It is the narrative of a winter journey, 
with dog-trains, from fort to lonely fort of the Hudson Bay 
Company, by frozen prairie or sub-arctic forest, or along the 
channel of sealed rivers stretching northwards towards the 
lifeless ocean. 

By these two volumes their author is most likely to be 
known on the North American continent. But the most fam- 
ous praises of Butler as an author (Ruskin's) were called forth 
by another book a little volume of miscellaneous papers en- 



352 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER [June, 

titled Far Out: Rowings Re-told, published in 1880. Ruskin, 
in the preface to Our Fathers Have Told Us, thus greeted its 
appearance: "A book has just been published by a British 
officer who, if he had not been otherwise and more actively 
employed, could not only have written all my books about 
landscape and pictures, but is very singularly also of one mind 
with me (God knows of how few Englishmen I can now say 
so) on matters regarding the Queen's safety and the nation's 
honor." Ruskin's tribute forms perhaps the best introduction 
to this brief account of the career, character, and opinions of 
Sir William Butler, drawn chiefly from the posthumously pub- 
lished Autobiography,* which adds to the dozen or more vol- 
umes produced during a career of busy external activity a 
work altogether worthy of its predecessors and of the life it 
records. 

It is the man rather than the soldier whom I will keep in 
view, the unit of the larger army the ever-marching, ever 
led-on Army of Human Beings. For this soldier always wore 
his uniform-harness in the full knowledge that beneath it he 
"had his soul to keep." Though constantly in service he led 
a life apart. In this many-sided character, we have the ideal- 
ist as well as the man of action, the man of independent out- 
look and wide sympathies as well as the soldier sworn to 
duty, the Irish patriot as well as the servant of the British 
Empire, the administrator whose persistent championship of 
the weaker nationalities of that empire found him at times in 
conflict with the official policies of which he was the instru- 
ment. His was a knighthood in a British military order; but 
his also was that "loyalty to one's thought" which constitutes 
the only knighthood worth the name. 

A Catholic Irishman, born in County Tipperary nine years 
before "Black 'Forty-seven," the year of famine, Butler in- 
herited his fighting spirit from his Hibernicised-Norman an- 
cestors, the Ormond Butlers; but his hatred of oppression and 
championship of the weak must have been first inspired by 
the cruel scenes of famine and eviction which emerge as the 
most vivid impressions of his childhood. One memory which 
he carried with him all his life was that of being hoisted in 
the stalwart arms of Daniel O'Connell, to the accompaniment 

* Sir William Butler: An Autobiography. By Lieut-General the Right Hon. Sir W. F. 
Butler, G.C.B. London : Constable & Co. 1911. 



i9i i.] Ssx WILLIAM BUTLER 353 

of the Liberator's stentorian "Hurrah for Tipperary"! If it 
is to the pages of his Autobiography that we must turn for 
the formal account of Butler's boyhood, its spirit is perhaps 
better conveyed in the opening chapter of his tale of Red 
Cloud: The Solitary Sioux a capital boys' book of stirring 
Red Indian adventure. The boyhood of the Irish hero of his 
fiction seems sketched from his own, with a reminiscent par- 
ish-priest as his hero's "schoolmaster for God." Ft all rings 
true, down to the last injunction of the Irish mother to the 
son never to be ashamed of faith or fatherland. That dual 
devotion was translated into living fact in the career which 
awaited the Tipperary boy of very real life. As Irishman and 
as Catholic he bore his witness very noticeably before the 
world. His early education was of the desultory and uncon- 
ventional type common among the impoverished Irish gentry 
of the period. "I often wondered in after life," he moralizes, 
"how the balance of the account lay, between the loss of 
school education caused by those famine years, and the gain 
of that other lesson of life its necessities, its sorrows, its hard, 
bed-rock facts which that terrible time had implanted in my 
mind." 

Butler, from his earliest days, had a restless passion for 
" seeing and knowing " ; a gaze intent upon the whole pageant 
of the world ; a desire to " drink life to the lees." It was 
his love of travel, of adventure, of soldiering that is to say, 
the idealized conception of soldiering present to a boy's fancy 
that made him choose a military career. He writes of the 
"noble profession of arms," much in the spirit of a knight- 
errant, a paladin from the middle ages drifted into the wrong 
century. From the aims of modern commercial jingoism he 
instinctively recoiled: they seemed to him a poor basis for 
soldiering. But fate introduced him to the British Army at 
an unpropitious moment for a young man ambitious of knightly 
service. The struggles of the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny 
were just ended, and the period of Great Britain's " Little 
Wars " did not begin immediately. From the start of army 
life he kept a note-book, and we can see how assiduously he 
cultivated the literary gift native to him. In India with his 
regiment shortly after the Mutiny, the observant subaltern 
made a record of his youthful impressions which reads even 
more freshly to-day, amid the prevalent native unrest, than 
VOL. xcm. 23 



354 Sf WILLIAM BUTLER [June, 

when he penned it fifty years ago. He wrote: "It is yet to 
be proved in our rapid development of intellectual power 
among the people of India, whether it be possible to graft 
upon the decaying trunk of an old civilization the young off- 
shoot of a newer and more vigorous one. . . . We pull 
down the barriers within which the native mind has hitherto 
moved, but the flood of his enquiry being set flowing, we 
cannot stay or confine it to our own limits." 

Regimental duty at Guernsey in 1866 was brightened for 
him by meetings with Victor Hugo. During one of these, 
the poet said to him abruptly " I have examined your face, 
and if ever I were to be tried, I would wish to have you for 
judge." At length, after twelve years of the usual routine of 
the peace soldier, varied only by change of station, the Red 
River Expedition of 1870 gave Butler his first chance. There 
was "no berth vacant," he was told, with the force sent 
against Riel and his discontented half-breeds in the Canadian 
North-West ; but Butler's resourcefulness circumvented all ob- 
stacles of red tape, and his own initiative and the friendly 
offices of Colonel Wolseley, who was in command, secured him 
employment. Wolseley, then the "coming man " of the British 
Army, was quick to note his young lieutenant's abilities; and 
there was thus begun a comradeship sealed by many a subse- 
quent service. " I always regarded you as a host in yourself," 
wrote Lord Wolseley to Butler during his last illness, " ready 
to undertake any difficult job, and the more dangerous it was 
the more you enjoyed it." Still, there was no hint yet of 
that career of military distinction which was to provide the 
ex-Commander-in- Chief of the British Army with matter for 
this retrospect. Indeed, the publication of The Great Lone 
Land, embodying the Red River experiences and subsequent 
travels as a Civil Commissioner to the Saskatchewan Indians, 
seemed rather to point to literary success. 

In 1872 Butler became a captain on half- pay, and the 
Army seemed likely to lose him. In the midst of blank pro- 
fessional prospects he found consolation in the thought, dear 
to Stevenson, that he was " free to wander." He speaks of 
the " irksomeness " of his "uniform-harness," and of "the 
spirit of adventure which only tended to sicken in the ranks." 
That spirit now turned his steps to regions more remote than 
the virgin prairies of Saskatchewan. "At that time, I was 



i9i i.] Sfx WILLIAM BUTLER 355 

boiling with the spirit of movement, and distance alone suf- 
ficed to lend enchantment to my prospect of travel. The scene 
could not be too remote, nor the theatre too lonely. The 
things I did not want to see or know of were trains and 
steamboats: the canoe or the prairie pony in summer, the 
snow-shoe and dog-sled in winter, one's own feet and legs at 
all times these were good enough for passing over the sur- 
face of God's wonderful world." Accordingly he made that 
memorable winter journey with dogs across northern North 
America which has its record in Ihe Wild North Land 

But all truant rovings came to an abrupt end with the 
Ashanti Expedition of 1874, and its summons to military ad- 
venture in West Africa. The contest which now awaited him 
was with hostile African nature rather than armed African 
man. Of the hour to hour fight with malarial fever in the 
tropical forest, the narrative remains fixed in the memory of 
all who have read it. But he barely came off victor at the 
last. For the fever, kept at bay by quinine and an iron will 
while work was to be done, reasserted itself on the voyage 
home, till he lay in his hammock as one dead. Indeed, he 
only escaped premature burial at sea through the obstinacy 
of an inquisitive sailor. But at last the death-stupor and 
the crisis of his fever passed, till at length : " As we slowly 
sailed into cooler latitudes the fever of the brain grew less; 
and at Madeira a Portuguese clergyman came off to the 
tossing ship, bad sailor though he was, to bring to the 
' ruckle of bones ' the final ministrations of that Faith, the 
tinkle of whose Mass-bell more continuous and far-reaching 
even than the loud drum-beat of England which the American 
imagined circling the earth and keeping company with the 
hours carries its morning message of mercy to the sinners of 
the world." 

Such was Butler's introduction to a continent where every 
effort of his life brought to him a "sense of ultimate frustra- 
tion." With a civil mission to Natal in 1875 came the oppor- 
tunity for first studying those South African problems which 
almost dominated his later career. Then, at a three years' in- 
terval, came the Zulu War, and his discharge of staff duties 
at the base of operations was marked by a task which he calls 
one of the saddest of his life. He had to arrange for the re- 
ception at Durban and tue transmission to England of the 



356 SIR WILLIAM BUTLER [June, 

remains of Eugene Louis Napoleon, Prince Imperial of France. 
Like the Napiers before him among British officers, Butler 
always found in Napoleon a fascinating object of military 
hero-worship. For the great Chief of War he had an over- 
mastering admiration. Butler could appreciate more then most 
the strangeness and the irony of the destiny which fated this 
young representative of England's mortal foe to fall, by the 
hands of savages, a volunteer in England's service. But a 
month before the tragady, Butler had wished God- speed to 
the young prince on his way to the front. 

The Irish soldier testifies in his Memoirs to those lovable 
qualities which impressed all who knew the Prince Imperial, 
" handsome, active, brave to a fault, the soul of chivalrous 
honor, yet withal of a singular grace and gentleness. He 
writes with feeling of the wanton sacrifice of this young life, 
an episode, and the circumstances attending it, which he re- 
garded as a graver blot upon British arms than many Isan- 
dulas. 

The scene of service next shifts to Egypt. Butler, now a 
colonel, was on the staff of the army which invaded the Nile 
Delta in 1882, and overthrew Arabi Pasha and his nationalist 
forces. His brilliant military work during the campaign had a 
characteristic sequel in the unofficial action which he took at 
its close, when the fate of the "rebel," Arabi, hung in the 
balance. The execution of Arabi under the shelter of Khe- 
divial authority he considered would be a disgrace to England, 
and he wrote to a military superior who was in touch with 
Mr. Gladstone a strong and generous letter urging that the 
prisoner should have a public trial. 

With this campaign begins the story of the English in 
Egypt. Succeeding events soon brought in their train Gor- 
don's mission to the Sudan and the belated effort to rescue him. 
The Gordon Relief Expedition provided Butler with a task 
that commanded his whole enthusiasm. It fell to him to de- 
vise, and to convoy over the Nile cataracts, the boat service 
for the conveyance of the British fighting forces and their 
supplies. " The grandest and noblest work in war tried in my 
time," he calls this Campaign of the Cataracts. After its col- 
lapse, he writes home;: " Is it not strange that the very first 
war in the Victorian era in which the object" (the rescue of 
Gordon) " was entirely noble and worthy should have proved 



i9ii.] Six WILLIAM BUTLER 357 

an utter and complete failure, beaten at the finish by forty- 
eight hours ? " Reviewing the sad but brilliant chapter of his 
Autobiography which deals with his own part in this abortive 
effort, and noting the dates and the successive stages in the 
River journey, it is hard to resist the conclusion that, if a free 
hand had been given him and if his efforts had not been foiled 
by the delays of others, the expedition would have been in 
time to save the Solitary of Khartum. 

Captain Sword and Captain Pen had a rare union in this 
Irish soldier, and four years later he published the biographical 
study of that fellow- fighter and fellow -Celt which forms the 
best brief memorial of General Gordon in the language. Other 
military biographies he wrote, but I mention this one because 
of the perfect sympathy which informs it, revealing much of 
the writer's own ideals and philosophy of life. Reading it, we 
understand how it is that such men as Gordon and Butler, 
who " have their souls to keep," do not always " hit it off " 
in the official world, where they get the name of being " bad 
subordinates/' The official mind in its foreign outlook has one 
main preoccupation, which may be summed up as "the main- 
tenance of imperial prestige." But such minds as Gordon's 
and Butler's formulate their own principle of action towards 
the native races and subject nationalities of an empire: " Ad- 
vise what is universally right throughout the world and what 
is best for the people themselves." In Gordon, moreover, 
Butler recognizes not only the " foremost man of action of his 
race and time," but the one whose " ruling principle was faith 
and good works." Elsewhere he calls him "the most success- 
ful ruler of Eastern and African races that England has pro- 
duced " ; yet Gordon died a plain Major-General, and long 
periods of unemployment were his. The official recognition 
he obtained supplies no measure of his fame. Butler, living 
longer, won greater professional honors, but not so great as 
lesser contemporaries obtained for slighter achievements. Read- 
ing Butler's own Life, we see how qualities similar to those 
he writes about in Gordon stood somewhat in the way of his 
own professional advancement. Soldiers of their stamp must 
ever be something more than mere military machines. Fight- 
ing is to them a means, not an end ; the soldier's true function 
constructive rather than destructive. If they pull down, it is 
only the better to build up again. 



3$8 Ssit WILLIAM BUTLER [June, 

General Butler's command in South Africa just before the 
great Anglo-Boer war opens out a tangled skein of politics 
which it would be vain for me to attempt to unravel here. 
Upon arrival in South Africa, Sir William Butler, in addition 
to the heavy military responsibilities of his post, had to dis- 
charge the civil duties of Deputy-Governor and High Com- 
missioner while Sir Alfred Milner was away consulting Mr. 
Chamberlain in England. When it became Butler's duty to 
write despatches to the English Colonial Office on the squab- 
bles of Johannesburg, he was at no pains to conceal his dis- 
taste for the tactics of cosmopolitan finance, pursuing its in- 
trigues under the cloak of patriotism. Finding forces at work 
to " inflame racial differences, mislead public opinion, and pro- 
duce strife with the Transvaal," he vainly tried to promote a 
better feeling in South Africa, and to warn his superiors at 
home of the dangers he saw ahead. From the first he saw 
clearly the magnitude of the war which England was entering 
upon in a spirit of blind optimism. But the fact that he had 
declared the coming war to be avoidable, and therefore crimi- 
nal, caused all his other opinions and recommendations to be 
received with suspicion. The estimate which he formed of the 
material and moral strength of the Dutch Republics met with 
incredulity alike at the Cape and in London. Reports became 
current that " his sympathies were with England's possible 
enemies." " I do not know who has spread these reports 
about my opinions," he writes to a London official at the 
time : " it is true that I have, and long have had, sympathy 
with the people of Dutch race in South Africa. Long ago I 
studied their history and formed my opinion about them, and 
these opinions I have openly stated in my writings for years 
past. But I have never held the opinion that the claims of 
British subjects upon the Transvaal Boers were unjustifiable, 
nor that resistance of the Boers to those claims was fair and 
right." 

Shortly after Milner's return Butler found himself obliged 
to resign his command. By this act, he seemed to outsiders 
to be deliberately turning his back upon the finest opportunity 
of his professional career; and, no doubt, to so keen a soldier, 
the sacrifice he made by quitting South Africa when he did, 
must have been in one sense great. For, in the ordinary 
course, he would doubtless have filled that position of promi- 



ipi i.] Sf& WILLIAM BUTLER 359 

nent command in the field during the ensuing struggle for 
which his gifts and experiences preeminently fitted him. But 
while his career may have paid forfeit in the loss of possible 
honors, public opinion, viewing the muddle and mismanage- 
ment of that time, came, before the end of his life, to do 
justice to the man who always staked more upon honor than 
he did on honors. 

With Butler's return from South Africa, his Autobiography 
ceases, so that we miss the chapters which would have told of 
the peaceful work of his last years in Ireland. But its import 
may be found in a book which he published less than a year 
before his death The Light of the West, a volume embodying, 
with other matter, some of the addresses he delivered in var- 
ious parts of Ireland during this time. In these addresses his 
message is direct to his countrymen ; he is concerned with 
" results to be achieved, endeavors to be undertaken, by Irish- 
men in their own country/' He had lived to see the Irish 
peasant, whose cause he had been pleading all his life, firmly 
planted on Irish soil, free, in great measure, to shape the future 
for himself. He did not stand up in these last years of his 
life in order to flatter. He would call the peasant, at need, to 
sobriety and industry, reproaching him with the field left un- 
tilled and the hay ungarnered. Always direct and outspoken, 
he puts the question, "Are we, as a nation, making the best 
use of our land ? " How to lessen and stop emigration (that 
ceaseless drain which is leaving the heart of Ireland bloodless), 
how to lessen or destroy drunkenness, how to subdue the 
spirit of gambling and betting " the insanity of the thing they 
call sport, which seems to me, when I read of it in the public 
journals, and turn from the page to look at the real condition 
of the island, to be the gigantic realization of a whole people 
fiddling and dancing while all their bogs and houses and barns 
are burning." Such are some of the economic and social pro- 
blems of present-day Ireland to which Sir William Butler turns 
in The Light of the West. " Nothing has ever been written in 
my judgment more fit to illumine the past and the present for 
Englishmen and Irishmen than some of the papers on Ireland 
in this little-known book." So writes Mr. Stephen Gwynn, 
M. P., in a recent issue of The Nineteenth Century. Of Butler's 
endeavors for Ireland, Mr. Gwynn is particularly qualified to 
speak, for he was the General's colleague on the Commission 



360 Six WILLIAM BUTLER [June. 

appointed to draw up the statutes of the new National Univer- 
sity, and also on the Board of National Education. 

But I will end by a final quotation from Butler himself a 
passage which will at once appeal to the American reader and 
also go far to justify, in his estimation, Ruskin's magnificent 
praises, already cited, of the Catholic soldier's style. The 
writer has been describing how St. Patrick first kindled the 
light of Catholic faith in Ireland the Light which was never 
to be extinguished despite ceaseless persecution and in con- 
tempt of every imaginable bribe, discovering, in the perman- 
ence of its brilliance, the supreme and solitary triumph of the 
Irish race. At length the time comes for the same torch to 
be born across the Atlantic : 

Yes, there was Light far away in the West : out in the great 
ocean, far down below the sunset's farthest verge, from west- 
most hill-top the New World lay waiting for the Light. It 
came, borne by the hands of Ireland's starving children. The 
old man tottered with the precious burthen from the fever- 
stricken ship ; the young child carried the light in feeble hands 
to the shore ; the strong man bore it to the Western prairies, 
and into the canons of snowy sierras ; the maiden brought 
it into the homestead to be a future dower to her husband and 
a legacy to her children. And lo ! ere famine's night had 
passed from Ireland, the Church of Patrick arose over all that 
vast new world of America, from where the great St. Lawrence 
pours its crystal tide into the daybreak of the Atlantic, to 
where California flings wide her golden gate to the sunsets of 
the Pacific. 



NOTE. Sir William Butler. An Autobiography is published in America by Charles 
Scribner's Sons, New York ; in England by Constable & Co., London. Price $4. 




THE FOUNDING OF NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL. 

BY MICHAEL HENRY LUCEY, PH.D. 

|HE fathers of the Society of Jesus, who were the 
pioneer priests of New York, and who established 
the first Catholic school on Manhattan Island, 
were compelled to close their school and leave 
the city on the accession of William and Mary 
in 1688. Almost a hundred years later, the evacuation of the 
city by the British removed the ban on Catholicity, and the 
Jesuits again openly began their missionary work. But even 
during the occupancy of the town by the British, there is good 
reason for believing that at least one Jesuit priest, the Rev. 
Ferdinand Steinmeyer, braved the dangers and entered the 
city in disguise. On these trips from Maryland he assumed 
the name of Farmer, and while in the city ministered to a 
small congregation which met in the home of a devout Ger- 
man in Wall Street. On the departure of the British forces 
he came openly to the city, and organized the small body of 
Catholics whom he found there. He remained with them un- 
til the arrival, in October, 1784, of the Rev. Charles Whelan, 
a former chaplain on De Grasse's fleet, who had come from 
Ireland in response to an invitation from the Catholics of New 
York. To him the Rev. Mr. Steinmeyer turned over the small 
congregation and returned to Philadelphia. 

New York was then the capital of the nation, and was, in 
consequence, the residence of the foreign ministers, several of 
whom, including the Spanish and French, were Catholics. 
During the annual sessions of Congress, Catholic members, the 
most distinguished of whom was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 
resided there. The presence of these distinguished Catholics 
greatly encouraged the struggling faithful of the city. The 
congregation, however, was *oo poor to secure a permanent 
place of worship and, accordingly, met in various halls. 

In April, 1785, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Consul General 
of France, applied on behalf of the Catholics to the city author- 
ities for the use of the Exchange on Broad Street, a building 



362 NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL [June, 

which was then unoccupied. Permission was refused. Under 
the leadership of the Consul General the Catholics then formed 
a society, and on June 10, 1785, became incorporated under 
the title of "The Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church in 
the City of New York." The first trustees were Hector St. 
John de Crevecoeur, Joze Roiz Silva, James Stewart and Henry 
Dufflin. 

Steps were immediately taken looking toward the erection 
of a church building. During the summer a lease of five lots 
on Barclay Street, extending through to Church Street, was 
bought. In August, Trinity Church, which owned the fee, en- 
couraged the Catholics by agreeing to sell them the reversion 
on easy terms, and later this was done. 

A carpenter shop which stood on the ground served as a 
temporary chapel, while the congregation was devising ways 
and means to secure funds for the erection of a suitable church. 
The means of the congregation having been exhausted in the 
purchase of the lots, it was deemed necessary to appeal to 
outside quarters for aid. 

One of the leading members of the Board of Trustees was 
Dominick Lynch, a native of Galway, Ireland, who had spent 
some time on the continent, and who had afterwards emigrated 
to New York, where he was engaged in business with Don 
Thomas Stoughton, later the Spanish Consul. Mr. Lynch, in 
a letter which accompanied one from the Board of Trustees 
addressed to the Rev. Augustine Kirwan, asking for aid, gives 
such a good account of the condition of Catholicity on Man- 
hattan Island at that time that it is here reproduced in part. 

You must be informed [he writes under date of September 
22, 1785,] that before the late Revolution, the Roman Catholic 
religion was never allowed to be exercised in the state. 
Upon the peace, Government thought proper to make no dis- 
tinction nor to give the smallest preference to any persuasions 
whatever. 

Therefore ours being carried on with prudence and modera- 
tion is upon equal footing, and every member composing it is 
entitled to all the privileges that any citizen can enjoy. In 
short they may be elected to the first post and employment. 
On my arrival here, seeing everything so favorable, I thought 
it would be a disgrace to our religion not to have a place of 
decency for divine worship. I therefore used every effort in 



19 ii.] NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL 363 

my power to forward such an undertaking. I prevailed on 
some few to engage in the purchase of a lot of ground for the 
purpose, which we have effected and are now preparing the 
foundation. Yet though great our exertions may be, it will 
be utterly impossible for us to complete this laudable plan 
without foreign aid and assistance. I apply to you for your 
kind and good interference in our behalf to carry on this work 
of God. Enclosed I send a petition from the trustees. I have 
no occasion to recommend it, as I am sure you will do what is 
possible in procuring a liberal collection which will reflect 
eternal honor on the town and county of Galway, and don't 
doubt in time but it may be in the power of the congregation 
to return it tenfold. I have set my heart on forwarding this 
business, and cannot point out to you the very great advance- 
ment it would be to our Faith, our having a decent church, 
with a good preacher, which would be the means of awaking 
in the hearts of thousands a religion in which their forefathers 
were educated, but for want of opportunity they have not in 
their power to exercise. Consider the extent of this state and 
not one church of our persuasion erected in it, the more glor- 
ious this work will be when completed which, under God I 
hope all benevolent well-disposed Christians will assist us in 
doing. As we cannot proceed much further without supplies, 
whatever collection you may make, I request you will remit to 
your relation in I^ondon, Mr. John Kirwan. 

Help was also sought for in other quarters, appeals being 
addressed to the Kings of France and Spain. Charles IV. of 
Spain did contribute one thousand dollars through his ambas- 
sador, but no response was received from the French King. 

Work was began on the new church in the autumn of 1785, 
and the next year the building had so far progressed that it 
was decided to dedicate it. This event took place on Novem- 
ber 7, 1786, in the presence of the Spanish Ambassador, Don 
Gardoqui, and several other gentlemen of distinction. 

The church did not, however, advance to completion as 
rapidly as it should. Dissentions arose between the people 
and their pastors. The faithful Father Whelan was forced out 
to make room for the Rev. Andrew Nugent, who was con- 
siderered an excellent preacher. But Father Nugent, in turn, 
was unable to maintain peace in the congregation, and was 
deposed by Dr. Carroll, the Vicar Apostolic, on the request 
of a majority of the trustees. The Rev. Mr. Nugent, however, 



364 NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL [June, 

had a following of his own, and for a time refused to surrender 
the church. The trustees then invoked the aid of the law 
against him and his adherents, and the Rev. William O'Brien, 
the new pastor, was left to do his work in peace. 

What with these dissensions and their own poverty, the 
congregation found themselves in sore straits. The church 
debt was pressing heavily on them, and they were scarcely 
able to pay the salary of their pastor. They appealed for aid 
in various quarters, more especially to the Spanish king and 
to his subjects, both in the old world and in the new. In a 
letter to Count de Moutiers, the Spanish minister, under date 
of June 13, 1789, the trustees say: 

This building (the church) hath been attended with more 
expense than at first expected, and the congregation, com- 
posed of the greatest numbers of poor though zealous people, 
instead of being able by their subscriptions to discharge a 
heavy debt, contracted for in the erection of the edifice, it is 
with difficulty a competence can be raised to support a clergj- 
man. 

Three years later matters had not improved. On April 

10, 1792, the trustees addressed the following memorial to 

Trinity Church Corporation. 

The trustees of the Church of St. Peter in the City of 

New York beg leave most respectfully to state the following 

facts : 

That encouraged by the spirit of liberality contained in the 
Constitution of this State (which has and must ever be the 
admiration of all who enjoy it), they were induced to erect a 
church to the honor of that Deity in whom all Christians con- 
fide, on lands belonging to your corporation. That at the 
time said church was erected the congregation were in united 
harmony and peace, but, unfortunately, certain differences 
that afterwards took place, and which we most sincerely 
lament, tended to depress and reduce our finances. That 
their said church has been compelled to borrow moneys, both 
from the Bank of New York and individuals for its support, 
which money to a very considerable amount is still unpaid. 
That from these circumstances, the remembrance of which to 
us is painful, and which cannot be pleasing for you to hear, 
we have been unable to discharge the ground rent, so justly 
your due, and having learned that the secretary of your cor- 
poration had received directions to commence suit for the re- 



i9i i.] NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL 365 

covery of the same, confident of your generosity, acquainted 
with your resources, and relying upon your charity, we are 
emboldened not only to pray for your interposition, but to re- 
quest your further benevolence. We earnestly solicit an 
abatement of the debt itself by arrears, and ol our annual 
rent, in such proportion as your liberality shall suggest, and 
we will, though poor, endeavor to (discharge it punctually, 
and as we increase in our temporalities, we shall with grate- 
ful hearts remember such relief as in our present distressed 
circumstances we hope to experience from the corporation of 
Trinity Church. 

It was not until 1796 that St. Peter's was able to pay 
the stipulated fee of $5,000 and take up the deed of the 
property. 

With these financial troubles, then, it is not to be won- 
dered at that the trustees could not see their way to assume 
the additional expense of a school. Even those churches which 
had been long established, and which had been liberally aided 
in times past by the state, found it difficult to maintain their 
schools. Dunshee, the historian of the Dutch Reformed School, 
speaking of this time says, " The period succeeding pro- 
tracted war has ever constituted the dark days of religion and 
literature ; and such was the crippled condition of the Colle- 
giate Church at this time that it was with .difficulty that the 
school was maintained." 

For a period of fifteen years, therefore, after the erection 
of St. Peter's no Catholic school was opened. It is necessary, 
then, to inquire what schools existed during this time, in 
which the children of the congregation might receive an edu- 
cation. 

There were at this time no public schools, nor was there 
any public aid given to such church schools as existed. The 
two most notable of these latter were the chanty schools 
connected with the Reformed Dutch Church and with Trinity 
Church. Several private schools existed, and to these the 
well-to-do Catholics se**t their children. But there was no 
provision for the education of the children of such Catholics 
as could not afford to pay fees to the private schools. 

In 1795, however, the people of the state of New York, 
as represented in the Senate and Assembly, realizing the im- 
portance of proper training for the future citizens of the 



366 . NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL [June, 

state, enacted a measure for the promotion of education, 
whereby $20,000 was appropriated annually for the support of 
schools in the different counties of the state. 

There being no public schools in the city, the question now 
arose as to the proper disposition of the funds to be derived 
from the operation of the law. On June I, 1795, accordingly, 
a committee was appointed at a meeting of the Common Coun- 
cil " to report to the Board the necessary steps to be taken 
on the Law passed at the last session of the Legislature on 
the subject of schools." As time went on three solutions were 
proposed, as follows: 

1. To apportion the fund among the various private schools. 

2. To apportion it among the various charity or church 
schools. 

3. To establish church schools. 

Each scheme had its advocates, but the two latter had the 
more numerous supporters. Before the establishment of the 
first Catholic parish school, therefore, we find the state support 
of church schools an important issue before the Common Coun- 
cil, and one which was decided in favor of the church schools. 

Bat now to consider the plans in detail. The committee 
appointed in June, 1795, had evidently been unable to arrive 
at any solution of the point at issue, for on April 25, of the 
next year, it was ordered that the clerk publish this advertise- 
ment in all the public newspapers: 

That all persons who have been employed in the city of 
New York in teaching the English language between the first 
Tuesday of April, 1795, and the first Tuesday of April last, 
are requested to deliver into the office of the clerk of said 
city, on or before the first day of June next, an account on 
oath of the number of Scholars taught by them respectively 
within said Period, and how long each of them were so 
taught, and what compensation has been received for the 
same. 

The schoolmasters filed their petitions in due form, and on 
September 22, the committee on the subject of schools 

made a verbal report thereon, and a question was raised for 
the consideration of the Board whether it would be proper to 
distribute any part of the moneys granted by the legislature 
for the encouragement of schools, and the moneys raised by 



19 1 1.] NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL 367 

tax in the city for that purpose among the Schoolmasters or 
Teachers in this city, and it was determined unanimously in 
the negative. 

Having decided this point the Board turned to other means 
of disposal, and a motion "was then made that the parcel of 
the said moneys should be granted and distributed to and 
among the charity schools of the religious societies in the city* 
upon which debates arose, and the question being put on the 
said motion, it appeared in the affirmative," the vote standing 
eight to three. 

A minority of the Council were of the opinion that public 
schools should be established and, accordingly, it was resolved 
that " application be made to the Legislature at their next 
meeting for legal provision to establish public schools in the 
city." 

Although we find this feeling in favor of public schools 
cropping out from time to time in the Council for the next 
five years, the general sentiment of the community was that 
education should be looked after by the various charitable 
and religious organizations, and finally this opinion prevailed. 

The distribution of the money above mentioned was left to 
a committee which, on October 24, 1796, reported that "they 
have weighed every circumstance and are of the opinion that 
the following distribution be made, which was agreed on by 
the Board, viz.: 

The Episcopal Charity School, 
The Presbyterian " 
The Reformed Protestant " 
The German Lutheran " . 
The Scotch Presbyterian " 
The African Free <c . 

1,944 ' 

On May 31, 1800, the proper disposal of the school fund 
was again brought up in the Common Council. The commit- 
tee which had charge of the matter reported that after paying 
the schools their respective shares there was left $29,869.16 
The members of the Council again considered the advisability 
of establishing one or more free schools, but favorable action 
was not taken, since the majority were opposed to the plan. 




368 NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL [June, 

The next year the church schools won a decisive victory. 
On April 8, a law entitled " An Act to direct certain moneys 
to be applied to the use of Free schools in the city of New 
York" directed that the Common Council pay to each of the 
schools named below one eleventh part of the school funds 
which remained in their hands. The trustees of the several 
churches were directed to invest their respective shares, and 
to expend the income in " the instruction of poor children in 
the most useful branches of common education"; to report 
annually to the Common Council the manner in which the 
principal had been invested, and how the income was being 
expended. The church schools enumerated by the act, were : 

Episcopal, Christ Church, First Presbyterian, Reformed, 
Methodist Episcopal, Scotch Presbyterian, United German 
Lutheran, German Reformed, First Baptist, United Brethren 
or Moravian, and African. 

Thus it was decided that church schools were to be the 
agents of the state in the education of the youth. But before 
the state had acted so decisively in the matter the authorities 
of St. Peter's Church had decided to provide means for the 
proper training of their children. Religious instruction had 
been looked after from the first, lessons being given on Sun- 
days in Christian Doctrine. Later two lessons were given to 
the children each week, and a singing master attended to " form 
and direct them." 

The congregation had now grown, and the burden of the 
church debt pressed less heavily. Bishop Carroll, who had 
visited St. Peter's, urged the pastor, the Rev. William O'Brien, 
to do all in his power for the education of the children of the 
parish, The pastor and trustees, seeing the need of a school, 
and feeling that now the congregation could support one, on 
March 30, 1800, adopted the following resolutions. 

Resolved : i That a free school for the education of chil- 
dren be and is hereby established, and that a proper master 
be chosen Superintendent of said school. 2 That a commit- 
tee be appointed to carry into effect the above resolution. 
3 That Messrs. Morris, Nay lor, C. Heaney and Rev. Mr. 
O'Brien be and are hereby charged for the due and immediate 
execution of the same. 

Despite the insistent tone of this resolution matters dragged 
along. On January 5, 1801, the pastor, writing to Bishop 



i9i i.] NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL 369 

Carroll, states that "the next object is a charity school." The 
school was established some time during the year 1801, but is 
not mentioned in the list of schools enumerated in the school 
act passed in April of that year, and hence did not benefit by 
its provisions. 

All the school fund, both principal and interest, having 
been disposed of, St. Peter's was left to struggle along as 
best it could. It was supported by money raised twice a year 
by the congregation, a charity sermon being preached on each 
occasion, as was the case in the other churches of the day. 
The school was conducted by lay teachers. At first there was 
only one, but later, as the number of pupils increased, two 
teachers were employed. In 1805 James Redmond and Thomas 
Kelly were the teachers. The school was evidently conducted 
in a room connected with the church, for Longworth's Direc- 
tory of 1805, gives the address of the teachers as 16 Barclay 
Street, which is the address likewise given for St. Peter's 
Church. 

At this time, 1805, St. Peter's School, although without 
the support of the public funds, and despite its late start, had 
outdistanced the other church schools in point of numbers. 
Under the caption "Schools," Longworth's New York Direc- 
tory of 1805 gives the following: 

There are charity schools attached to many of the churches 
in the city where the children of the poor members receive in- 
struction and clothing gratis. The most considerable are 
those of Trinity, the Dutch, the Presbyterian and the Roman 
Catholic Churches. The Scholars at the Trinity establish- 
ment amount to 86 ; those on the Dutch to about 70 ; those 
on the Presbyterian to 50 ; and those on the Roman Catholic 
to 100. 

The work of the school in common with the church 
schools was very simple. The children were instructed in the 
principles of religion; they were taught reading, writing, arith- 
matic, and the keeping of merchant's accounts. 

In 1805 a Catholic, Francis Cooper, was elected to the as- 
sembly, but found that the oath of office was one which he, 
as a Catholic, could not take. A general meeting of the Ro- 
man Catholics of the city was held on January 6, 1806, under 
the auspices of the trustees of St. Peter's Church. At this 
VOL. xcni. 24 



370 NEW YORK'S FIRST PARISH SCHOOL [June, 

meeting a memorial was drawn up in which grounds of oppo- 
sition to the oath were stated and relief sought. This mem- 
orial was presented to the Legislature, and had the desired 
effect. Mr. Cooper soon took his seat. 

Having now secured representation and a voice in the 
State Legislature, the Catholics sought to redress the inequal- 
ity under which they had been laboring. It will be recalled 
that by an act of the Legislature on April 8, i8oi,the school 
funds were distributed equally among the ten charity schools 
then existing, and the African Free School, each school get- 
ting one-eleventh of the fund. 

The Catholics, having now the largest charity school in 
the city, petitioned the Legislature to grant them the same 
amount as had been granted to the other charity schools. 
Through the efforts of Mr. Cooper and others the petition 
was granted, and on March 21, 1806, the Legislature passed 
an act "Respecting the Free School of St. Peter's Church in 
the City of New York." The document is of much interest 
and importance because it marks the first grant of public 
money to a Catholic school in New York State. It is as 
follows : 

Be it enacted by the People of the State of New York rep- 
resented in Senate and Assembly, that it shall be lawful for 
the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the City of New 
York to pay to the trustees of the Roman Catholic Congrega- 
tion in the City of New York the like sum as was paid to the 
other congregations respectively by virtue of an act entitled : 
"An act directing certain moneys to be applied to the use of 
free schools in the City of New York ' ' ; and the money paid 
to be applied according to the directions of the said act, and 
the treasurer of this state is hereby directed to pay to the 
said mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the City of New 
York, the sum so paid by them, out of the unappropriated 
money arising from the duties on sales at auction in said city. 

We have now reached a period in which the Free School 
of St. Peter's is in a prosperous condition; in which it has 
proved its worth, as is evidenced by its growth and the hearty 
support of the congregation; and in which it stands on a par 
with the other church schools in the matter of public support. 

In subsequent articles we will continue the history of the 
relations between the parish schools and the state. 




SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL. 

BY FRANCIS McCULLAGH. 

[HE decree separating Church and State in Portu- 
gal which was issued after Easter, and which is 
to come into operation on June I, will un- 
doubtedly mark a very critical point in the 
history of the Portuguese Republic. Why this 
should be the case it is not at first very easy to see. The 
Irish Church was disestablished without causing any great ex- 
citement even among Irish churchmen. In France and in 
Brazil Church and State were divided without either party suf- 
fering very much as a result of the operation. 

In Portugal, however, the union between Church and State 
is more intimate than it has ever been in any of the coun- 
tries alluded to. Moreover, the party who wishes to carry the 
measure is proportionately very small, and it is acting, not 
through a constitutional Government, but through a dictator- 
ship. There are over five millions of Roman Catholics in 
Portugal, against about forty thousand non-Catholics. Few of 
the former are in favor of the Separation Law, and not all 
of the latter. Consequently, the opponents of the measure feel 
themselves to be insulted and degraded as well as flouted. 
This feeling of insult and degradation is enormously intensified 
by the fact that the proposers of the law are giving them- 
selves no trouble to placate their opponents. On the con- 
trary they are forcing the measure on the country with the 
maximum of friction and tactlessness. The English Unionist 
party is complaining at the present moment of the violence 
with which the Premier is forcing the Veto Bill through Par- 
liament. Between the methods of Mr. Asquith, however, and 
those of Dr. Affonso Costa there is as much difference as be- 
tween the methods of a Mayfair hostess inviting her guests to 
try the hors d'ceuvre and those of a Holloway warder forcibly 
feeding a prisoner who refuses to take food. 

Whether the separation of Church and State in Portugal 



372 CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL [June, 

would be a good thing in itself is not, therefore, the point at 
issue. Personally, I am inclined to think that it would, if pro- 
perly carried out, be good for both Church and State. But 
this question is removed to quite another plane when the 
Frovinicial Government declares that it is only a step on the 
way to the extirpation of Catholicity. That being the case, 
I can quite understand how even Christians who do not be- 
long to the Catholic Church are opposed to the disestablish- 
ment of that Church in Portugal. For Roman Catholicism 
temporarily ceases under the circumstances to be an alien and 
hostile organization, and becomes, instead, an outlying in- 
trenchment of Christianity itself. 

Such being the feelings of some English Protestants with 
regard to this matter, one can imagine what the feelings of 
Portuguese Catholics are. Dr. Affonso Costa, the Portuguese 
Minister of Justice, has declared that the Catholics in Portugal 
are quite unconcerned, but a few days after making this de- 
claration he postponed till after Easter the publication of his 
ukase, in deference to the religious susceptibilities of the 
Catholics. 

As a matter of fact he was very much frightened by the 
outlook in the North, and it was fear of that outlook which 
induced him to postpone the promulgation of his law. And 
undoubtedly the situation in Northern Portugal was, and is, 
extremely grave. The royalists threaten to utilize the hatred 
of the people against the Separation Law. The Ministers have 
pledged themselves so often and so emphatically to that law 
that they cannot now retrace their steps. The enforcement of 
the new measure is practically certain, therefore, to mean a 
royalist insurrection in the North. May or June will, in all 
probability, see the flag of the Braganzas unfurled again in 
Portugal; will see the inauguration of a civil conflict which 
may last for years and which may end in the disappearance of 
Portugal as a separate nation and in the appropriation of her 
colonies by foreign Powers. 

If these disasters come, the blame for them must rest al- 
most entirely with Dr. Affonso Costa whose violence in con- 
nection with this measure is only equalled by his bad policy 
in falling to the rear when he sees the attack which he has 
provoked. His violence of language reached its culminating 
point a few weeks ago at a meeting of the Grande Oriente 



19 1 1.] CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL 373 

Lusitano Unido, a Portuguese freemason lodge. For a Cabinet 
Minister to deliver an important pronouncement at such a 
meeting was in itself a mistake. In every civilized country of 
the world, Cabinet Ministers prefer on occasions of great na- 
tional interest to make their views known in ancient municipal 
halls, in the splendid salons of venerable clubs, in places over 
which a halo is thrown by great names, the traditions of 
powerful parties, the records of a political activity extending 
over hundreds of years. Even Cabinet Ministers who have 
begun their career by waving red flags, soon fall into this 
large and stately habit, soon come to recognize the fact that 
for the time being they represent a nation and not a small 
clique of enthusiasts on whose shoulders they may have climbed 
into power. 

In Portugal alone things are different. There the Cabinet 
Minister cannot, unfortunately, forget the dynamitards' club in 
which he spent the happy days of his childhood or the fierce, 
narrow enthusiasms under the influence of which his mind was 
unalterably moulded and hardened into a shape not very desir- 
able. Accordingly when some great public announcement has 
to be made, it is still made in secret-society dens known only 
to the initiated and triply guarded from the observation of 
the uninitiated by passwords, grips, and symbols. There and 
there only can the wearied republican statesman breathe again 
the close, vitiated atmosphere which long habit has made 
pleasant, stimulating, and even necessary to him. There can 
he draw inspiration from the last pair of boots worn by Fer- 
rer, from the carabine that killed Dom Carlos, and from other 
holy relics of regicides and plotters. 

To return, however, to Dr. Affonso Costa's speech at the 
Grande Oriente Lusitano. It was full of a most unstatesman- 
like animus against the Portuguese church. It was delivered 
in a conclave of virulent freethinkers. No wonder that most 
of the Portuguese republican papers refused to print it. No 
wonder that Dr. Affonso Costa's colleagues were ashamed of 
it. According to the Lisbon correspondent of Ike Times, the 
Minister of Foreign Affairs explained, on being questioned with 
regard to this extraordinary utterance, that " Dr. Costa being 
on leave spoke as a freethinker, not as a member of the Pro- 
visional Government." * 

* I quote from memory. 



374 CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL [June, 

And, as usual, Dr. Costa himself was chilled and taken 
aback when, having issued from the heated dynamitards' den, 
he read his own remarks next morning in cold print and heard 
of the ominous manner in which they had been received in 
the North, He then attempted to hedge. We were told in 
effect by Lisbon telegrams that " in consequence of the Gov- 
ernment's regard for the religious susceptibilities of the people f * 
the law decreeing the separation of Church and State would 
not be published till after Easter." 

This mixture of recklessness and cowardice has marked 
every legislative step which the Provisional Government has 
so far taken. A few weeks ago a delirious decree, probably 
drawn up in some Carbonaria bomb-factory, abolished religious 
processions of all kinds throughout all Portuguese territory. 
A few days after, the Government hastily explained that it 
only meant Lisbon and Oporto. Before that, the Rent Law 
(it should have been called the " No Rent " Law), caused a 
chorus of disapproval to rise from both landlords and tenants. 
Thereupon Dr. Affonso Costa hurriedly drew back and issued 
innumerable modifications of that legislative achievement. The 
law under which the General Elections are to be held is prob- 
ably the worst law of its kind in existence. It was drawn up 
by an unscrupulous Monarchist " boss, 1 ' Hintze Ribeiro, as an 
infallible means of returning a government to power no matter 
how much the nation was opposed to it. The republicans de- 
nounced that law when it was made and they continued to de- 
nounce it until the monarchy fell. On March 24 they adopted 
it themselves. But here again a hasty retreat was made. Even 
the government's own supporters inveighed against it for this 
treachery. One republican paper in Oporto quite turned against 
the Provisional Government on this point. The republicans in 
that city built up a new organization called the " Republican 
Union," with repudiation of that iniquitous election law as its 
corner-stone. Then the Government hastened (on April 6) to 
make modifications and explanations innumerable. In this way 
it has earned the hearty contempt of its opponents as well as 
their hatred. It has shown that its malevolence is only bounded 
by its fear. 

How great that malevolence is so far as the Church is con- 
cerned, can be seen by a perusal of Dr. Affonso Costa's speech 
on the Separation of Church and State, which has appeared 



i9i i.] CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL 375 

in some republican papers. One of these papers is the Tempo, 
from which I quote, as follows: 

Dr. Affbnso Costa invoked the memory of Miguel Bom- 
barda, the soul of the anti-clerical movement and, after glory- 
ing in the fact that he was a Freemason, announced to his 
brethern the approaching promulgation of the law for the 
separation of Church and State. 

The orator admitted that the law had been criticized " and 
the most curious thing about this criticism was the fact that 
it came not only from monarchists . . . but from men 
whom he regarded as the best and most sincere republicans ' ' 
. . . But the speaker would listen to no protest. The 
moment for the promulgation of the law had come. 

Dr. Costa spoke in the presence of the Brazilian representa- 
tive, who warmly applauded. In Brazil, Church and State 
had been separated. The State had left the Church entirely 
to its own devices, nevertheless the membership and the 
wealth of the Church had increased. He spoke before a 
representative of France, the Socialist Zevaes, who enthusi- 
astically applauded ' ' Shall this law of Separation be French 
or Brazilian ? No. It shall be Portuguese." The audience 
loudly applauded the patriotic character of this declaration. 

In the celebrated pastoral [of the Portuguese Bishops], 
asphyxiated at the moment of its birth, the bishops had said 
that there were more than five million Catholics in Portugal 
and hardly forty or fifty thousand non- Catholics. He might 
ask if the bishops numbered as Catholics the unfortunates 
who were not able to speak for themselves, the idiots, the 
prisoners in the penitentiaries, the lunatics in Rilhafolles, the 
human derelicts who for want of positions or of a fixed resi- 
dence . . . are unable to get themselves entered in the 
census returns.* 

The Church had no such thing as five million followers in 
Portugal. It had some adherents, but the State which com- 
prised all the citizens was greater than the Church. The 
Church worked inside the State like any other commercial 
company. The State possessed, therefore, the right of con- 
trolling the Church. This grave duty could not be neglected. 

This is a close translation of what, according to the Tempo, Dr. Costa said, but though 
it is clear that the Minister intends to be insulting, it is not easy to understand exactly what 
it is that he means. Is it that " when the Census was taken, the Church put down large 
numbers of people as Catholics without consulting them? " If so, Dr. Costa is in error, for 
everyone was perfectly free to declare his religious belief ; while the number of people in 
mad-houses would make very little difference one way or the other. 



376 CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL [June, 

The Church must be controlled exactly like any other joint- 
stock company . . . The Government must know the 
nationality of the men who ruled it. The Government must 
ascertain if the Church gave refuge to criminals. It must be 
informed of all the ecclesiastical regulations and must forbid 
such regulations as were intended to coerce the mind of any 
man either by taking advantage of his ignorance or by domi- 
nating him through terror. In its work of propaganda the 
Church will enjoy liberty, but in the name of the same liberty 
it must submit to certain restrictions. The regime of separa- 
tion will serve to make the people find out little by little that 
the Church is nothing but a huge polvo.* It assumes many 
forms but it always has the one mission to suck the people 
dry. Henceforward this state of things will be remedied by 
the grant of life pensions to the clergy at present representing 
the Church throughout Portugal. 

The Government is admirably preparing the people for this 
law and the action of the new measure will be so salutary that 
in two generations we shall have completely eliminated from 
Portugal that Catholic religion which has been the chief cause 
of the deplorable state of decay into which this country has 
fallen. 

The tone of the above remarks seems injudicious, and the 
whole attitude of Dr. Costa on this question is not that of a 
moderate, patriotic and constitutional statesman who desires 
to deliver his country from what he regards as an incubus: it 
is rather that of a frenzied persecutor. It has, at all events, 
given the Catholics of Portugal the impression that the com- 
ing separation will not be a complete divorce but a separafdo 
na oppressao a subjection of the Church to servitude. 

And that this is the correct view to take, no unprejudiced 
student of Portuguese affairs can deny. The whole trend of 
republican policy supports it. When the revolution took place 
some republican heroes broke into a Lisbon schoolroom where 
two priests were teaching a number of boys and, after mur- 
dering these priests one of whom was a very aged man mu- 
tilated them before the schoolboys in a manner worthy of "Jack 
the Ripper." The Government made no inquiry into the crime. 
The anti-Catholic divorce law followed, then the refusal to 
recognize marriages registered only in the churches, then the 

*A fish, also called pourcountrel or many-footed, which assumes the color of its back- 
ground and never lets go of what it once gets hold. 



191 1.] CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL 377 

abolition of the oath in courts of justice. The name of the 
Supreme Being was ostentatiously omitted from all public 
documents, the words " Health and Fraternity " being em- 
ployed instead. All holidays were abolished and the observ- 
ance of Sunday rest is not now obligatory, for the new law 
on this subject makes it optional for employers to give their 
assistants a holiday any day of the week. In short the policy 
of the republic has been in the last degree not only anti- 
Catholic but even anti-Christian. 

It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the State will 
continue to persecute the clergy even after it has ceased to 
pay them. It has already attempted to impose on them what 
they regard as "a criminal silence," that is, it has attempted 
to prevent them from saying anything at all about politics. 
The Bishop of Oporto was recently suspended because he ven- 
tured to intimate in a pastoral that some of the acts of the 
republic were not friendly to the Church. It is true that here 
again Dr. Affonso Costa got frightened and, after dismissing 
the Bishop, granted him a pension, but the Minister's intense 
hatred of Catholicity had been plainly shown. 

On the same occasion all the clergy in the vast diocese of 
Oporto were arrested for reading the pastoral in question. 
Before this time, the Rev. Augusto Carlos Ferreira Coimbra, 
professor of mathematics in the seminary of Cabo Verde, was 
suspended for preaching against the new law of divorce. 

It is authoritatively stated that the preacher confined him- 
self to saying that no Catholic can make use of the facilities 
for divorce which the Provisional Government has placed at 
his disposal, and to protesting against the anti-religious laws 
of the Government. But even in this country (where, as 
President Braga would put it, we " groan " under a monarch- 
ical form of Government,) the Roman Catholic bishops and 
even the clergy of the established Church frequently speak in 
the same way without exposing themselves to punishment. 

If the new Portuguese Divorce Law were enforced in this 
country it would call forth protests from all religious denom- 
inations, save, perhaps, the Mormons. It is the most liberal 
divorce law in Europe, more liberal even than the French 
divorce law inasmuch as it sanctions divorce by mutual con- 
sent. Even when the French clergy were paid by the state 
no punishment was inflicted on the bishops for publicly pro- 



378 CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL [June, 

testing against the legislation of the Republic. Cardinal An- 
drieu spoke very strongly at Bordeaux, Mgr. Gieure spoke 
strongly at Bayonne; but the Cabinet wisely took no notice 
of what either ecclesiastic said. 

In the case of the Rev. Augusto Carlos Ferreira Coimbra, 
mentioned above, the Portuguese Government took action 
under article 137 of the Penal Code or rather under a forced 
official "interpretation" of that law against which the best 
men of all parties in Portugal protested at the time it was 
made. The republicans are thus using for purposes of op- 
pression the very worst laws of the defunct monarchy or 
rather of the unprincipled and corrupt politicians who ruined 
the monarchy. 

Under the monarchy those laws were most exceptional and 
were only, in some instances, brought into existence at times 
of acute crisis and during some of the dictatorships which 
Portugal has seen during the last half century. But the 
republicans are making every-day use of them. This cynical 
disregard of promises and of principles does not tend, natur- 
ally, to make people trust the republic. 

The law under which the present elections are being held 
is, as I have already pointed out, a chef d'ceuvre of corruption, 
and owes its origin to a most unprincipled monarchical "boss," 
Hinze Ribeiro. For a dozen years and more the republicans 
protested against it with indescribable fury and indignation. 
Now they are using it themselves. In the time of Franco, the 
Government acquired for a few months the right of having 
political offences tried in Lisbon or Oporto by magistrates who 
were under the special orders of the Minister of Justice. The 
Republicans have now made that exceptional system a per- 
manent institution. 

The late Sr. Augusto Fuschini, a republican and an ex- 
minister whose recent death drew bitter editorial tears from 
the republican " Mundo," deplored some months ago, in the 
" Imparcial " the republic's preference for what he called 
"Ids de excepcdo" (exceptional laws). He wrote as follows: 

Exceptional laws, easily become instruments of perse- 
cution. Pombal expelled the Jesuits. Aguiar expelled the 
Friars. Each adopted this course at different historical crises 
and for different reasons. Aguiar wanted to save a liberty 
menaced by an army of 80,000 rich and disciplined monks. 



i9i i.] CHURCH AND STATE IN PORTUGAL 379 

But the Government of the Republic cannot shelter itself be- 
hind these obsolete expulsion laws adopted as a temporary- 
expedient. A true democracy like ours, conscious ot its 
strength and of its duties, ought not to feel itself called upon 
to prohibit the existence in this country of certain religious 
Orders. By expelling them it only copies, in an inverse 
manner, the tyranny of those reactionary nations which pro- 
hibit associations of Freethinkers. Exceptional laws bearing 
on religious matters present grave inconveniences, are peril- 
ous and difficult to execute, and easily lend themselves to 
sophistry and persecution. 

Those exceptional laws are still more dangerous when they 
are also vindictive laws, drawn up in a passion of hatred and 
administered in a spirit of revenge. That the Portuguese Sepa- 
ration Law comes under this description is clear from the decla- 
rations of its author which I have already quoted. It is clear also 
from the declarations of other republicans. Speaking at Oporto, 
on April 3, Dr. Alexander Braga, the President's brother, 
quoted in effect the statement of Dr. Affonso Costa that the 
government has the right to control the Church and to legis- 
late for it " as for any other Limited Liability Company." Dr. 
Braga continued: 

The State has the right to know what persons are at the 
head of the Church it they are respectable persons, for- 
eigners, or criminals. The State has the right to supervise 
the religious teaching given by the Church so as to prevent 
that teaching being employed as a poisoned weapon. State 
control will be useful not only for the State but for the 
Church itself, which will thus be purged of suspicious char- 
acters. 




THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA * 

BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER. 

[T is related that when Father Junipera Serra 
founded the Mission of San Antonio de Padua 
at Los Robles, having halted and carefully sur- 
veyed the place, he selected a plain skirting 
the bank of the river for the site of the Mission. 
Then at once suspending from the branch of a tree, the bell 
he had brought, he began to ring it, crying aloud : " Oh, 
Indians, come, come to the Holy Church. Come to receive 
the faith of Jesus Christ." On being remonstrated with by 
Padre Miguel Peiras for his impetuosity, Serra replied : " Ah, 
let me satisfy the longing of my heart ! Would to God the 
voice of this bell could resound throughout the whole world ! " 
Though San Antonio stands desolate and alone to day 
amid the rugged mountains of Santa Lucia, the voice of its 
bell still cries aloud in the wilderness, telling the story of the 
sacrifice and faith of its saintly founder. Nay, more: borne 
on the vibrating melody of the bells of San Gabriel Archangel 
and San Juan Capistrano, come the echoes of that sublime 
courage, heroism, aspiration, conflict, and triumph, that defeat 
and despair^ inextricably interwoven with the founding of the 
Spanish Missions in California. 

Never can the imaginative tourist forget the first sight of one 
of those ruined adobe Missions. An old building of any descrip- 
tion has a certain pathos, it is so like a human thing. Its 
windows are eyes which regard one mournfully and seem to 
say: "Come, I have a strange story to tell you." One in- 
stinctively thinks of the lives of those who have been sheltered 
by its walls their sorrows, joys, loves, and hates, their ambitions 
and disappointments. If it be an historic mansion, one quickly 

* The memory of St. Francis of Assisi will be honored publicly at the celebration at San 
Diego, Cal., to commemorate the breaking of the ground for the Panama California Exposi- 
tion. This celebration will be held in July beginning with religious and civic ceremonies on 
July 19, and ending July 22 with a parade and attendant pageantry representing twenty-one 
Franciscan Missions of California. The date of this celebration is the same as that on which 
the first Mission of California was founded by Father Junipera Serra in 1769. [EDITOR C. W.] 



i.] THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 381 

re-peoples it with the illustrious dead. At fancy's magic in- 
vocation, a line of fair women and brave men file through the 
empty rooms. Perhaps the rustle of a stiff brocade is heard 
once more, or it may be the clank of a fiery sword. Long- 
fellow says : 

" All houses wherein men have lived and died 
Are haunted. Thro* the open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide 
With feet that make no sound upon the floors." 

The European traveler who is conversant with history, 
poetry and romance, and who possesses imagination and senti- 
ment, appreciates this truth as he stands within castle or 
cathedral, whose almost every stone has some tale to tell. 
And he, who has crossed the burning, fiery American desert, 
choked and stifled with its frightful sandy dust, with eyes 
aching from the fierce white light of the alkali plains, as he 
comes within sight of the trembling blue of the glorious Pacific, 
looks upon that majestic ruin, the mission of San Juan Capis- 
trano, (St. John the Captain,) as upon the shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land. Dominating the whole peaceful green 
valley, it stands forlorn, dismantled, but like a dethroned and 
dying monarch, commanding respect and homage. Gone are 
its lofty towers save the broken shell, in which, one above 
another, hang the great bells ; the ruined corridors and arches 
alone remain to tell their strange story. Melrose or Holyrood 
has not more beautiful surroundings. Before the Mission 
stretches the broad expanse of the Pacific, while its background 
is a rampart of the everlasting hills. 

San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776 by Father Serra, 
the Franciscan priest who was sent on this errand directly 
after the expulsion from Mexico of the Jesuits. General Jose 
de Galvez had been sent in 1767 by King Charles III. of 
Spain to take possession of the Californias, and to convert the 
Indians found there. His orders were to plant a Mission and 
garrison for " God and the king," first at San Diego, then at 
Monterey, and then half way between these points, the latter 
to be called Buena Ventura. Galvez and Serra worked to- 
gether for the colonization of California, and it was during this 
period of the Franciscans that San Diego, Los Angelos, San 



382 THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA [June, 

Juan Capistrano, San Louis Rey, San Gabriel, San Buena Ven- 
tura, San Luis Obispo, San Fernando, San Pedro, and Santa 
Barbara pueblos, or towns, were all founded. Practically the 
chief significance of the founding of the Missions is that these 
Franciscan padres first began the colonization of California, 
being the pathfinders and map-makers, as well as the archi- 
tects and builders. 

Father Junipera Serra was a loyal and zealous son of the 
Church. Highly educated and cultivated, a brilliant and elo- 
quent orator, he yet had no other ambition than to preach 
Christ Crucified to the savages of the New World. He was 
profoundly impressed with the thought that these Indians would 
never know eternal life unless some one proclaimed to them 
the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, putting behind him the things 
of this world, gladly, humbly, prayerfully, he went into the 
forests of California to do his duty. 

The first Mission founded by the ardent apostle was that 
of San Diego in 1769, The conditions under which this Mis- 
sion was founded were of an especially dramatic character. 
It was the beginning of the realization of the priest's ambition. 
Fired with enthusiasm, he quitted San Fernando, in Mexico. 
After a four months' journey, reaching San Diego with sick 
and dying sailors on board both his ships, with insufficient 
provisions, with angry and insolent Indians to harass him on 
his landing, he yet kept the holy fire ablaze on the altar of 
his heart, and made ready to found his first Mission. Erecting 
a rough wooden cross, which looked seaward, and buildirg a 
rude booth of branches and reeds, Father Serra offered Mass in 
the presence of Galvez' troops, his own sailors, and the curi- 
ous and amazed Indians. The congregation sang "Veni Cre- 
ator," the standard of Spain was flung to the breeze, the water 
was blessed, the bell was rung, and a volley from the muskets 
of the troops furnished smoke for the incense. Thus was the 
first Mass celebrated in the wilds of California, and the country 
taken for the glory of " God and King Charles of Spain." 

Scarcely a month later occurred the first attack of the In- 
dians on this historic Mission. The savages were, however, 
repulsed, and in a few days began bringing their wounded to 
be cared for at the Mission. Here was Serra's golden oppor- 
tunity to win their hearts. By the exercise of that wonderful 
charity and patience which characterized his whole blameless 



i9i i.] THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 383 

life, he soon gained the friendship and confidence of the In- 
dians. The site of the Mission was removed in 1774, and in 
1813 the church was built, the ruins of which are now shown 
to the tourist. The main building is ninety feet long, the adobe 
walls of which are four feet in thickness, the doorways and 
windows being made of burned tiles. Two giant palm-trees 
stand guard over the crumbling ruins; indeed these huge palms 
are a feature of nearly every Mission ruin fit symbol, perhaps, 
of the spiritual victory which the Church militant obtained in 
the wilderness of a strange land. 

The bells from this Mission have been removed to Oldtown, 
the old Spanish quarter of San Diego. Lashed to a huge beam, 
they hang outside the little 'dobe chapel where, it is said, Father 
Gaspara, the fighting priest, united the gentle Ramona, the 
heroine of Helen Hunt's novel, to Allesandro, her Indian lover. 
Strike them, and they ring as sweet and true as when Padre 
Serra first blessed them. The surroundings are picturesque 
though mournful. 

Oldtown, even in its out-at-elbow, poverty-stricken condi- 
tion, has yet a pathos and dignity which command one's respect 
and sympathy. Once from these broken casements lovers 
leaned; once sounded the gay click of castanets and the soft 
tinkle of the guitar; once rang those silver bells, summoning 
all devout believers to Mass. To-day it is indeed a deserted 
village. Not a face looks forth from the windows. An air of 
profound silence and melancholy broods over the place. Only 
a few swarthy, dirty Mexicans lounge yonder in front of that 
old 'dobe, lazily rolling their cigarettes and eyeing the Amer- 
icanos with languid insolence. But the sun gladdens with its 
splendor, soft breezes steal gently from the sapphire bay, and 
the ruins of old San Diego, like the graves of the dead, are 
covered with myrtle and roses. 

The Mission of San Carlos Borromeo, at Monterey, was next 
founded on June 3, 1770. This was one of the wealthiest of 
all the Missions. It has recently been restored, and is one of 
the greatest objects of interest in that region. Monterey was 
especially dear to Father Serra. Here he labored and suffered 
more than in any other Mission, here he died, here rests his 
body, and here on a lofty eminence, near the presidio, stands 
the superb monument built by Mrs. Leland Stanford to his 
memory. It is a life-size statue representing the padre just 



384 THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA [June, 

stepping from his boat upon the rocks at Monterey. He is in 
priestly vestments, and holds his prayer book clasped to his 
heart with one hand, while the other is extended as if invoking 
prayer. The face is most beautiful, wearing the expression of 
lofty and sweet serenity, characteristic of those who have at- 
tained the heights of self-immolation and of that peace which 
passeth all understanding. 

One of the most picturesque and, at the same time, well- 
preserved of the Missions is San Gabriel Archangel, near Pasa- 
dena. It is the oldest Mission now existing in a reasonable 
state of preservation. It has a most quaint bell-tower, in which 
hang four bells. There are niches for six bells, but two have 
vanished one illustrating only too well Shakespeare's words, 
" to what base usage must thou come at last," being the din- 
ner bell at Santa Anita, the ranch of " Lucky " Baldwin, the 
former famous sportsman. 

The Mission of San Gabriel Archangel was founded in 1771. 
During the twenty- five years of its building over four thousand 
Indians were baptized. In 1806 there came to take charge of 
this Mission Padre Jose Maria Zalvidea. He was the original 
of the priest, Father Salvierderra, who figures so prominently 
in Ramona. Under his efficient management the Mission grew 
rich and prosperous. The flocks and herds multiplied; the 
padres built mills and aqueducts, the remains of which are yet 
to be seen. It may be that the surroundings have much to do 
with the attractions of this surpassingly lovely Mission; surely 
they enhance its charms. Pasadena, that fairest of all Califor- 
nia's fair daughters, lies only five miles away ; the San Gabriel 
valley, through which one drives to reach the Mission, is a 
veritable promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, 
a land of olives and wine, of figs and grapes, a garden full of 
sweet and rare perfumes and gorgeous coloring, while above 
and over all this enchanted region this Hesperides of the New 
World towers the glorious range of the Sierra Madre. 

Within the next five years the important Missions, San Luis 
Obispo and San Francisco de Asis, were founded. To the dis- 
aster which befell the first-named Mission we are indebted for 
the picturesque brick that protect many of the Missions. Three 
times was San Luis Obispo burned, and this train of misfortune 
caused one of the padres to make roof tiles that would suc- 
cessfully resist fire. 



i9i i.] THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 385 

Padre Luis Martinez, who for a long time was in charge 
of this Mission, is another character who figures prominently in 
Helen Hunt's widely read novel. 

San Luis Obispo was somewhat shattered by the earth- 
quake of 1812, and to-day adds one more to the list of these 
ruined, deserted memorials of former beauty and power. 

The founding of San Juan Capistrano came next, the same 
year as the declaration of our Independence. Originally built 
almost entirely of stone and mortar, it solved in one part of 
the building that most difficult of architectural problems, the 
triple arch. The Indians themselves, guided by the padres, 
built this Mission; and as a well-known writer says: "A 
semi-savage origin is traceable in all one sees. The long 
row of arches is stately after a barbaric fashion. 

Many are the traditions which cluster around San Juan 
Capistrano. Bonsard, the notorious pirate, once seized and 
occupied it for a three days' debauch, to the great scandal of 
the priests and neophytes, who fled by Taabuco Creek until 
the freebooters finished their revel and swaggered off again to 
sea, leaving desolation and chaos behind. 

In 1833 came the long-dreaded order of secularization and 
the political tornado of spoliation descended upon San Juan 
Capistrano, as well as upon the other Missions. The herds 
were scattered and slain; the books and church records were 
ruthlessly destroyed ; to those of the Indians who were deemed 
sufficiently civilized were allotted lands, and they were no longer 
under the control of the Franciscan fathers, though still many 
came as ever to them for guidance and advice. The magnifi- 
cent Mission was bought by private individuals for the paltry 
sum of $710. It has, however, since been restored by order 
of the courts to the Catholic Church, and within its crumbling 
walls services are now held by the priest of the village of 
Capistrano. 

Santa Clara Mission, of whose pristine glory the only ves- 
tige to-day is a ruined 'dobe chapel, was the scene of many 
stirring events. Yoscolo's rebellion was perhaps as exciting 
as any. Yoscolo was a young Indian who had been trained 
by the padres, and who at twenty-one was made chief of the 
Indians about the Mission. He was responsible to the padres 
for the management of the tribe, but he was not amenable to 
VOL. xcm. 25 



386 THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA [June, 

discipline, for when some of his followers committed certain 
depredations he refused to permit them to be punished by 
the padres, and revolted with 500 of his tribe. 

The rebels broke open the Mission stores, and seized blan- 
kets, arms and whatever they could conveniently carry away, 
Next they besieged the convent where Indian girls were being 
educated, and carried off 200 maidens to the mountains. 
From his fastness in the range above Mariposa, Yoscolo in- 
augurated a system of brigandage equal to any ever carried 
out in Italy. He became a terror to the country, but was at 
last killed in battle by the troops of the Mission, and his head 
was stuck on top of a pole, which was placed in front of the 
church as a warning to other recalcitrant Indians, 

One of the most beautiful of all the Missions is Santa 
Barbara, founded in 1782. This was the swan's song, the last 
great work of the noble Serra's life. The governor decided 
that before the Mission should be finished the presidio must 
be built for the protection of all concerned. Serra concurred 
in this plan, and worked heartily with the soldiers as they 
built their barracks and storehouses. At length he was 
obliged to go to Monterey, whither he departed, as usual, 
on foot. He saw Santa Barbara only once after that, and 
was bitterly disappointed at the tardy building of the Mis- 
sion, crying out in anguish as he beheld its unfinished state, 
" Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He send 
laborers into His vineyard." Soon after he died, in the seven- 
tieth year of his age. 

Year after year the slow building of this noble Mission 
went on. At last, in 1820, it was completed and dedicated 
with most imposing ceremonies and great rejoicing. By virtue 
of its prosperity Santa Barbara was always heavily taxed ; but 
when Mexico declared its independence, it was plundered on 
all sides. Although secularization accomplished some of its 
disastrous work here as elsewhere, the buildings have always 
remained in the hands of the Franciscans, and the Mission 
now forms a part of the province of the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus, and has become an Apostolic College for the education 
of novices. To-day the Mission is in good repair, and the 
garden a dream of beauty, with its long rows of stately palms, 
graceful feathery pepper and haughty eucalyptus trees, its 
beds of tropical flowers, its dim, winding paths, and drowsily 



i9i i.] THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 387 

murmuring fountains; a place in which to dream, to remem- 
ber, and to pray. 

This article would be incomplete without mention of that 
majestic and imposing ruin San Luis Rey, founded after Serra's 
death by Padre Feyri. By many this magnificent Mission is 
deemed the monarch of them all. No other had so fine a 
church. Its dimensions were 160 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 
60 feet high, with walls 4 feet in thickness. Its tower held 
eight bells. One corridor alone had 256 arches, and the gold 
and silver ornamentation of its altars was superb. 

Here let me disgress a moment to speak of the present 
condition of the Mission Indians, which is absolutely deplor- 
able. After the suppression of the Missions they were for- 
gotten by all. To be sure there were Indian agents, but the 
reservations were undefined, and the tribes scattered far and 
wide. Several years ago Congress appointed a commission to 
establish reservations for the Mission Indians. As a result 
there are at present about twenty-five reservations, ranging in 
size from eighty acres to several thousand in San Diego and 
Inyo Counties. 

Under the regime of the Franciscans, the Indians were 
gathered around the Mission Churches, and their lives were 
regulated by these devout men. At stipulated hours they at- 
tended Mass, went to their daily toil, and assembled for even- 
ing devotions. They were taught to cultivate the land, plant 
grains and fruits and to live decently. When secularization 
came, it brought a host of the evils of civilization to these 
creatures. Their moral condition to-day is frightful. They 
drink, gamble, and race horses, while purity among the women 
is unknown. They are dirty, lazy and ungrateful. Far, far 
better had it been to have left the Franciscan fathers in con- 
trol of them. Secularization took away from them all that 
they had, and gave them absolutely nothing in its place. 

Eastern people who have never visited the Far West can 
have no conception of the horrors of Indian existence. Let 
the tourist visit an Indian village or pueblo, and for him 
Dante's "Inferno" will have lost many of its terrors. The 
noble red man is very picturesque in full dress and war paint 
on the stage, or within the covers of a romance, but once 
see him and smell him at close range, visit him in his hogan 
or tepee, and as Mr. Kipling would say, " it is quite another 



388 THE OLD MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA [June, 

story." And yet these educated, cultivated, brilliant Fran- 
ciscans loved these degraded beings. 

After the wicked order of secularization reached San Luis 
Rey, the good Padre Peyri sorrowfully decided that he must 
leave the place where, for thirty years, he had labored so 
earnestly for the bodily and spiritual welfare of his Indian 
children. Dreading the farewells, he stole away by night to 
San Diego ; but the Indians knew, when they missed him the 
next morning, what his unaccustomed absence portended. 
Mounting their ponies in haste, five hundred rode after him, 
and reached San Diego just as his ship was leaving the harbor. 
With cries and tears, and prayers, these savages Hung them- 
selves into the waters and swam after the outgoing ship. 
Standing on the deck, Padre Peyri waved them his farewell, 
and made over them the sign of the cross. 

Such is the closing, pathetic chapter of a history filled 
with romance and heroism. The tumbling ruins of these Missions 
are fast disappearing before the relentless advance of a cynical 
and materialistic century. 

Still there are many in this prosaic day who love to muse 
upon the past and listen to tales of good and brave deeds. 
And if some day you stand in the drowsy, perfume-laden 
gardens of Santa Barbara, or among the mournful ruins of 
San Juan Capistrano, I doubt not imagination will conjure be- 
fore you a notable array of shadows. It may be a Franciscan 
priest in stole or cassock, who will glide through the arches 
near you, or perhaps, with clatter of armor or clank of sword, 
one of Galvez* dashing officers may swagger across your path. 
Perhaps a dusky face framed in coarse black hair may peer 
dreadfully at you from behind a broken column, or the wicked 
features of the swashbuckler and pirate flash through the 
crumbling casement. And if you listen intently, there may 
be borne again from out the dim historic past the roll of 
drums and the rattle of muskets, the chant of voices, or the 
tolling of a solemn bell, as once more the warriors of Galvez 
and the soldiers of the Cross take possession of California 
"for God and the king." 






A REQUEST. 

BY SIR WIU.IAM F. BUTI^R, G.C.B. 

Give me but six-feet-three (one inch to spare) 
Of Irish ground, dig it anywhere; 
And for the poor soul say an Irish prayer 
Above the spot. 

I<et it be hill where cloud and mountain meet, 
Or vale where grows the tufted meadow sweet, 
Or botreen trod by peasants' shoe-less feet ; 
It matters not. 

I loved them all the vale, the hill, 
The moaning sea, the flagger-lilied rill, 
The yellow furze, the lake-shore lone and still, 
The wild bird's song. 

But more than hill or valley, bird or moor, 
More than the green fields of my river Suir, 
I loved those hapless ones the Irish Poor 
All my life long. 

lyittle I did for them in outward deed, 
And yet be unto them of praise the meed, 
For the stiff fight I waged 'gainst lust and greed 
I learnt it there. 

So give me Irish grave, 'mid Irish air, 
With Irish grass above it anywhere ; 
And let some passing peasant give a prayer 
For the soul there. 



flew Boohs. 

THE INTELLECTUALS : AN EXPERIMENT IN IRISH CLUB LIFE. 
By Canon Sheehan, D.D. New York: Longmans, Green 
& Co. $1.50. 

A new book by Canon Sheehan generally causes a stir in 
Catholic literary circles. His admirers are many, and whether 
they will be satisfied with The Intellectuals > his latest work, 
remains to be seen. The book may be described as a literary 
experiment on a social experiment. A young, enthusiastic 
priest in the south of Ireland is struck by the happy idea of 
gathering together a few of the more intellectual persons of 
his neighborhood, and forming with them a club wherein all 
kinds of subjects may be debated freely. The meetings are to 
take place in the members' houses in rotation, and essays, 
poems, and discussions on these, will be the order of the day. 
The plan of the book gives to the author a wide scope for 
writing in his most learned style, and he certainly avails him- 
self of it. The most abstruse, difficult, and esoteric themes 
are dealt with, and to add to the literary flavor there is a 
considerable number of poems. 

The great drawback about the book is the absence of that 
general interest attached to a narrative. Each chapter ses- 
sion is the term used could be taken out, and its removal 
would hardly affect the remaining portion of the book. A 
faint connection there certainly is between one session and 
another by the presence of a mild and unobtrusive love 
theme; but from the beginning the reader can see how mat- 
ters are to end. Were it not for the caustic sayings of the 
Doctor we should feel rather doubtful of the success of the 
book. As it stands, opinion will be divided as to whether the 
author has advanced or receded from the high standard he 
once gave us. 

Taken as a whole the club started by Father Dillon was a 
great success from every point of view. To our mind this 
was inevitable, for it is a foregone conclusion that when half 
a dozen people, each of whom has reached that degree of 
perfection that five languages besides English can be rattled 
of! at will, band together for mutual enlightenment their su- 
perabundance of learning will tide them over many difficulties. 
The really remarkable point about the characters in this book 






i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 391 

is the philosophical temperament of the ladies. This was, in 
our humble opinion, the key to the successful issue of the 
club. When a lady begins to talk something like philosophy 
or to quote Latin the average man hangs his head in fear and 
trembling, and is willing to agree to anything. Where all 
submit, or agree to differ, there will surely be peace and con- 
tentment, ending perhaps in a couple of marriages. The pos- 
sibility of the latter is suggested to us by the author. 

THE DOORKEEPER AND OTHER POEMS. By the late John W. 
Taylor, M.Sc., F.R.C.S. New York: Longmans, Green 
& Co. $1.25. 

Those of us who remember Dr. Taylor's Coming of the 
Saints a volume in which, with rare charm of imagination, 
was bound up something of the dim mysteriousness, the high 
and radiant heroism which clung about the dawn of Christian- 
ity will welcome sadly enough this posthumous collection of 
his poems. It is but a little book, built up [in the leisure of 
a life full of service: the life of a busy surgeon and physician, 
with scant time for " cultivating the Muses." But its pages 
are their own justification. They are not indeed, how should 
they be ? of equal artistic excellence. But they are invariably 
true to the spirit of art; and they show a scholarly and sym- 
pathetic familiarity with the best that has been known and 
thought down the ages. 

The poems, almost without exception, are exceedingly de- 
vout. The little Franciscan pieces are of great sweetness and 
naivete ; while those which deal with more modern conditions 
the " struggle of life," the " refusal of life "voice their own 
problems poignantly and truly. 

Mrs. Taylor's Memoir of her husband is itself the raw 
material of much high poetry. It tells of a life which in large- 
ness, serenity, and tenderness of view, in refinement of thought, 
in self-devotion, and fidelity to spiritual ideals, recalls the gra- 
cious life of Aubrey de Vere. It would seem that Dr. Taylor 
never actually entered the Church. But the poems of this 
intimate collection, even more convincingly than the imagina- 
tive studies of the earlier volume, reveal an essentially Cath- 
olic attitude toward life and God even an abiding fellowship 
with the saints, who came more than once to their reverent 
brother upon earth. 



392 NEW BOOKS [June, 

FIRST NATIONAL CATHOLIC CONGRESS. Leeds 1910. Offi- 
cial Report. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.25. 

No more interesting and vital book has come to our desk 
for a long time than this official Report of the First English 
Catholic Congress held last summer in Leeds. 

The English, as a people, seem to be much given to creating 
public opinion in respect to great issues by public gatherings, 
and they are wont to impress their purpose by outward sym- 
bols, processions, banners, costumes, to an extent which is 
uncommon on this side of the Atlantic. 

This first National Catholic Congress was lacking in noth- 
ing that goes to make up a big demonstration, and what is 
much more desirable, it emphasized the extent and character 
of Church work in this, the second half-century of English 
Catholic emancipation. The city of Leeds gave their Catholic 
guests a hearty welcome by the presence of its Lord Mayor 
and the Aldermanic Board the Church was represented by 
some fifteen or more visiting bishops under the presidency of 
the Archbishop of Westminster, there were titled names in 
Church and State, but the main feature was the presence of 
delegates and representatives from the many Catholic organi- 
zations throughout England. This Congress was the presenta- 
tation to English Catholics and to the world generally of the 
many varied phases of organized Catholic activity, it was a 
demonstration of life of what has been attempted and what 
has been accomplished and hence it was a work of mutual 
encouragement, of co-ordination and review, it was a renewal 
of energy and hope, a reaching out to wider aims. 

Every sphere of Catholic action had its exponent, every 
phase of modern life, its critic, and the papers on Socialism, 
Education, the Working Man and Woman, the Poor Laws, 
Temperance, the Civil Disabilities of Catholics, Missions to 
Protestants, Federation are all worthy of careful perusal, since 
they are concreted experience of Catholic men and women, 
experts in their own field, who are using up-to-date methods 
in helping along the solution of these great problems. 

For our readers, and particularly for the many among them 
who are giving thought and service, as well, to social problems, 
this Report is a splendid summary of Catholic loyalty and ac- 
complishment in fields which are remarkably like those of our 
own country. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 393 

THE PATRICIAN. By John Galsworthy. New York : Charles 
Scribner's Sons. $1.35. 

We may as well tell at once the " story " of this novel. 
Lord Miltoun, the heir of his house, is destined for a parlia- 
mentary career. His success is assured until he gives his 
heart to Audrey Noel, a woman not of his class and married, 
separated from her husband but not divorced. He decides 
that he must give up either the woman or the career. He 
decides to give up the latter. Then comes forward, in the 
person of old Lady Castelrey, Authority with a big A which 
interpreted means family pride and tradition, position and social 
standing. Audrey Noel cares not for Miltoun's career, but 
(how amazingly unselfish is the love of these heroines of fic- 
tion!) does desire above all things his happiness. Authority, 
through Lady Castelrey, shows her that if Lord Miltoun gives 
up, as he intends to do, public life for her sake, he will be 
wretchedly unhappy in spite of his love. Mrs. Noel saves him 
any annoyance and like the Arab folds her tent and silently 
steals away. And Lord Miltoun continues his public life. 

Again, a daughter of the same house, high-spirited, viva- 
cious, falls in love with an adventurer, Courtier. Authority 
here again triumphs. Courtier sees her walking with another 
man a man of her own class, while he is enjoying, in antici- 
pation, an appointment she has made with him for an hour 
later, and he, too, hastens away from England to foreign parts. 

So runs the story. Commonplace in outline it is and as old 
as story-telling itself but apart from the bald artificiality which 
is evidently brought in to fit the author's purpose (such as, 
for example, the legal and religious ties that bind Audrey 
Noel) the genuine power of Mr. Galsworthy has made the 
commonplace glow with intense, dramatic interest. His virtue 
and his weakness is that he is an impressionist. What he 
does tells of unusual strength, of almost unique power among 
present-day writers. But one feels, viewing his work, that it 
is incomplete. The reader expects great things. He gets the 
beginnings or the outlines, but the consistent great thing 
never realizes. The last chapters of the book are a decided 
falling off a disappointment. 

Mr. Galsworthy has endeavored to show how the upper, the 
privileged class of English society intends to face the social 
forces that to-day are bent upon its destruction. In the 



394 NEW BOOKS [June, 

illustrations that he uses one feels that he has not touched 
the problems. The same situations might arise and do arise 
among the families of any class, high or low, rich or poor, 
privileged or non-privileged. 

The book offers no solution not that the author is obliged 
to give one but even in the problem he puts before him he 
is at sea. There is a hint at the end of a solution but it re- 
solves itself into a classical fatalism. The upper class with its 
rock-ribbed respect for authority evidently has not the author's 
sympathy; neither has the proletariat, for one cannot help 
thinking that the author often repeats to himself the words of 
Horace: odi profanum vulgus et arceo. 

The solution, as far as one can judge, which the author 
would offer for the great social strife is that noble men of 
both sides will come forward and lead society back to sane- 
ness and sobriety. This is but a shirking of the problem. 
And, indeed, we feel that the indefiniteness of statement both 
in problem and in detail, the repeated tributes of worthiness 
and righteousness to both sides, the unscholarly antithesis 
of law and liberty, authority and individualism, the exposition 
of conscience as rejecting the gnat and swallowing the camel, 
the weak surrender to every character as to a thing moulded 
and fixed by fate, all betray a palpable confusion of princi- 
ples and an ignorance of the fundamental truths that govern 
the welfare of any and of all human society. We have the 
right to exact that knowledge even from a novelist when he 
attempts to solve, or begins to solve, social questions. 

There are many truths put forth in this novel, many pas- 
sages that are excellent; but truth is so mixed up in its 
presentation with error that it is hard to distinguish it; and 
we cannot but feel at times that Christian truth itself is satir- 
ically caricatured. 

Mr. Galsworthy loves external nature. He uses it as a 
prelude to most of his chapters. It voices his message ; it in- 
terprets the moods and actions of his characters; it sings, 
sorrows and rejoices with them, and we believe that Mr. 
Galsworthy is more of a poet than an exact thinker even for 
a novelist. What he sees he sees well. His is a graphic 
power of description; but in measuring reality, in sounding life 
to its depths and to measure demands the possession of a 
standard Mr. Galsworthy fails. 



i.] NEW BOOKS 395 

SOCIALISM. A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. By Oscar D. Skelton. 

$1.50 net. 

THE STANDARD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL POPU- 
LATION OF AMERICA. By Frank H. Streightoff. $i net. 
(Hart, Schaffner, and Marx Prize Essays in Economics), 
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company. 
The prizes offered by Messrs Hart, Schaffner, and Marx 

for the best investigations of present economic problems by 

the younger generation of American students, have already 

furthered the production of several noteworthy publications. 

Two of the most recent are before us now. 

Professor Skelton's book is in certain respects the most 
satisfactory of the many attempts already made to interpret 
and criticize scientific socialism for the benefit of the thought- 
ful, yet not technically inclined, public. Beginning with a rapid 
survey of pre-Marxian systems, he then proceeds to present 
the socialistic indictment of the existing order and, in contrast, 
to enumerate the counterbalancing considerations which social- 
ists are commonly disposed to minimize or totally overlook. 
Three chapters are devoted to a brightly written and pene- 
trating analysis of the fundamental principles of Marx's teach- 
ing: the materialistic conception of history; the labor theory 
of value and the theory of surplus value; and the law of capi- 
talist development. Then comes an exposition of modern re- 
vised socialism, its ideals and its activities. The book is cleverly 
written and well adapted for purposes of practical discussion. 

It is worthy of mention that Mr. Streightoff's essay sub- 
mitted in class B (undergraduates of any American college) 
was deemed of sufficient merit for consideration in class A 
(open to any American without restriction) and was awarded 
the First Prize (six hundred dollars) in that class. 

At the first inspection three things strike us in this book: 
the author's systematic methods of work, his wide reading, his 
terse sentences. At once scientific and intelligible, his treatise 
helpfully promotes the discussion of a vital and very complex 
subject which of course, for many years to come, will still 
bristle with unsolved difficulties. In the main the writer has 
aimed at originality only in collating data and testimony, and 
gives a general view of a large field instead of concentrating 
upon any one special point. 



396 NEW BOOKS [June, 

To give a resume of the book: 

Unemployment at present is a burden on the country and 
a curse to millions of individuals ; it must be remedied by 
wise temporal distribution of public work, free state employ- 
ment bureaus, and the lessening of accidents and occupational 
diseases. 

Millions of men are getting less than a living wage; this 
must be remedied by unions, immigration laws, and minimum 
wage boards. 

The homes of several million laborers are far below a rea- 
sonable standard of comfort and of morality; this calls for 
state tenement house and health codes, and greater social ac- 
tivity on the part of the Church. 

One third of the American industrial people through ig- 
norance or poverty is inadequately nourished, a high per- 
centage is insufficiently clothed, and health is frequently un- 
dermined by these causes combined with long hours and un- 
sanitary conditions of labor. Higher wages, popularization of 
domestic economy, encouragement, medical supervision and 
labor legislation must be depended on for progress here. 

Industrial education, finally, is perhaps the most powerful 
factor in the promotion of a higher standard of living. But 
even when greater physical comfort has been attained, the 
most important part of man's nature will be still unprovided 
for, unless both employer and employee recognize the divir.e 
authority of Christianity. 

The frequent and careful use of statistical tables is one of 
the excellent features of the author's work. 

THE MEANING OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. By Albion W. Small. 
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. $1.50. 

In his own audacious and suggestive way Professor Small 
insists in these ten lectures on the complexity of social prob- 
lems, the present lack of co-operative investigation team- 
work on the part of the various social specialists, and on the 
innate capacity of social science to do pretty much everything 
worth doing and incidentally to become the only conceivable 
body of vital religion. The discussions are amusing and stim- 
ulating. Our appalling ignorance with regard to commonplace 
subjects of study say the French Revolution or the American 
Civil War is delineated so convincingly as to rob all but the 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 397 

bravest and most sanguine of all hope of ever thoroughly 
knowing anything. In the united and persistent efforts of 
social scientists, however, the author sees the promise of a 
future compared with which our present stage is less than 
babyhood an " uncharted future," an orbit that we have no 
power to calculate. 

Needless to say the book is crowded with those curious 
anomalies which so frequently reveal some broad-minded, lib- 
erty-loving, justice- seeking sociologist to be narrow, intolerant, 
unfair. The Professor here permits himself to be dogmatic; 
he even descends at times to scorn. He laughs at the Catho- 
lic notion of doctrinal infallibility which would be unbecom- 
ing even were he confident that ke understood it perfectly. 

AMERICAN CORPORATIONS. The Legal Rules Governing Cor- 
porate Organization and Management with Forms and Il- 
lustrations by John J. Sullivan. New York : D. Appleton 

& CO. $2. 

In the book before us, Professor Sullivan presents the prac- 
tical rules governing the formation and conduct of corporations 
in the United States. Prepared with a view to the needs of 
the general reader, it brings within his reach precise informa- 
tion with regard to a subject which has been and will continue 
to be a matter of absorbing interest to the American business 
man. Owing to the striking differences in the state regula- 
tions, it is no small convenience to have at hand the detailed 
information here given. The appendices enumerate the gen- 
eral statutes of the various states with regard to incorporation, 
and the penalties incurred by foreign corporations disregard- 
ing local laws. Both the student of economics and the teacher 
of law will find the volume serviceable. 

THE LIFE OF ROBERT BROWNING. By W. Hall Griffin. Com- 
pleted and edited by Harry Christopher Minchin. New 
York: The Macmillan Company. $3 .50. 

From time to time, no doubt, some curious searcher will 
still uncover a minor fact or two significant for the interpre- 
tation of Browning's work, but with the publication of the 
present volume the great mass of biographical material is evi- 
dently exhausted. Over Mrs. Orr, Professor Dowden enjoyed 
the advantage of the published Letters of Robert Browning and 



NEW BOOAS [June, 

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett. Professor Griffin possessed the fur- 
ther privilege of having Domett's unpublished diary put at his 
disposal. Unhappily Professor Griffin died when he had only 
half finished the writing of his book. Mr. Minchin, however, 
seems to have completed the work conscientiously and with 
success. 

The present volume is a record rather than an interpreta- 
tion. Its tone is discriminating. The breach with Macready 
is rather fully explained and fairly too. Two appendices give 
five poems not commonly published, and a translation of some 
documents in the Casanatense Library bearing on the murder 
of Pompilia. 

AS PAPAL ENVOY DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR. By the 
Abbe Bridier ; translated by Frances Jackson ; St. Louis : 
B. Herder. $3.25. 

The life story of an eye witness of the fateful days of the 
French Revolution; of one who stood side by side with the 
victims of the massacres of September, yet survived to write 
their eulogy; who lived in hiding, eluding a warrant of arrest 
through the Terror, yet exercised the duties of Vicar Aposto- 
lic and continued a detailed correspondence with the Holy 
See; who, under the Directory, again suffered imprisonment, 
could not fail to thrill with its intense human interest. 

Such is the story of Louis Siffren Joseph de Salamon, 
Member of the Parliament and of the Chambre des Vacations 
of France; Papal Internuncio and Vicar Apostolic; Adminis- 
trator of the Diocese of Normandy; Auditor of the Rota, and 
Bishop of Orthozia in partibus; and, after the Restoration, 
Bishop of Bellay and of St. Flour. It is now given in a most 
attractive make-up to the English-reading public. The recital 
is intimate, personal, written fourteen years after the events 
recorded, for the eye of a friend only. With the Gallican 
" mania for confession " Monseigneur de Salamon conceals 
nothing from the details of his menu to the secret sins of his 
soul. The big and the little elbow each other in his charac- 
ter and leave him very human, and very amiable. His equal 
frankness regarding others has left us never-to-be-forgotten 
portraits of men and women who rose above human frailty to 
heroic heights or fell below it to cruel depths. Besides this 
intimate introduction to men and women of his day, and a vivid 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 399 

picture of the times, the writer places beyond question the au- 
thenticity and formal promulgation of the Brief against the 
Civil Constitution of Clergy; tells of the final deliberations of 
the Chambre des Vacations, of which he was the sole member 
to escape arrest and the scaffold; and claims to have nego- 
tiated a Concordat between Pius VI. and the Directory in 
1796. "The Concordat of 1801 is carried back to 1796! 
Attributed to Pius VI. and the Directory and no longer to 
Pius VII. and the First Consul ! Negotiated by the Abbe de 
Salamon and no longer by Consaloi " says the Abbe Bridier 
in 1890 in the Introduction to the first French Edition of 
" The Unpublished Memoirs of Monseigneur de Salamon, In- 
ternuncio at Paris During the Revolution from 1790 to 1801." 
No wonder he deplored the missing correspondence with the 
Cardinal Secretary of State ! A few years later a portion of 
the Correspondence was discovered in the Vatican Library by 
the Vicomte de Richemont, and edited by him in 1898 as 
" The Secret Correspondence of the Abbe de Salamon in 
charge of the Affairs of the Holy See during the Revolution 
with Cardinal de Zelada." Unfortunately the letters found 
are of an earlier period and the world must still wait for a 
confirmation of this astonishing reversal of history. 

THE OXFORD BOOK OF ITALIAN VERSE. Chosen by St. John 
Lucas. Oxford University Press. $2. 

Handsomely bound and printed and including a summary 
history of Italian poetry from San Francesco to Carduccii 
these discriminating selections from Italy's sweet singers and 
grave bards well display the distinctive qualities of Italian verse. 
The introduction would have been no less valuable had 
some kindly friend chastened it of the too frequently recurring 
evidences of an odium theologico-poeticum ; the Jesuits were not 
wholly to blame for all the literary flatness and bad taste of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book contains 
an Index of Authors and an Index of First Lines. It lacks 
a Table of Contents. 

LIFE THROUGH LABOR'S EYES. Essays, Letters, and Lyrics 
from the Worker's Own Point of View. By George Mil- 
ligan. St. Louis: B. Herder. 30 cents. 

In the hope of championing and enlightening their com- 



400 i NEW BOOKS [June 

rades a small band of Liverpool dockers once founded and for 
more than a year published a little paper called The Mersey 
Magazine. It was in the columns of that publication, now de- 
funct, that much of the present book first appeared in print. 
The author thinks and writes with no little force, for he thinks 
and writes with intelligence and sincerity. We meet often 
enough with the published reflections of some workingman 
possessed of the gift of literary expression; it is but seldom 
however, that such writers rank with Mr. Milligan in sane 
originality. Filled with practical good sense, worded pointedly, 
penetrated with a noble enthusiasm, inspired with boundless 
faith in the social value of religion, this little volume will be 
intelligible to any workingman and profitable to any reader. 

MEMORABILIA. Gleanings from Father Wilberforce's Note 
Books. With an Introduction by Vincent McNabb, O,P. 
New York: Benziger Brothers. $i. 

For a numerous, and we believe steadily growing body of 
readers, there is a particular charm in whatever comes from 
Father Wilberforce's pen. When he presented the treatises of 
Blosius to the English-speaking devout world he performed a 
service that will not be readily forgotten; the old ties were 
strengthened and new ones formed, when in the recently pub- 
lished Life of Father Wilberforce, we learned how truly his 
writing had been the sincere reflection of his own holiness. 
And now Father McNabb has been good enough to glean from 
Father Wilberforce's note books many a page of beauty and 
inspiration and to bind them into a little volume oi reflections 
and meditations. As the editor truly says : 

Not one of these meditations was merely spoken or written. 
They were thought ; and above all they were lived. . . !< 
If anyone chooses to take this little book with him into the 
desert of a retreat he may do so in the full assurance of being 
companioned by no mere literary product fashioned for sale in 
an hour of leisure, but by real meditations woven and dyed in 
the loom and vat of a brave man's thinking and doing. 

EYERYWOMAN: A MODERN MORALITY PLAY. By Walter 
Browne. New York: The H. K. Fly Company. $i. 

The most striking thing about this play is the evident sin- 
cerity of the author, and his desire to give to a phase of 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 401 

modern life a mysticism which seems at first sight to be 
rather out of place. Yet it is not so. Our surprise at the 
quaint style of the play comes from the unusualness of em- 
ploying the methods of the thirteenth century in this mater- 
ialistic twentieth. To the reader who knows anything about 
the history of mediaeval Mystery, Miracle, or Morality plays 
Everywoman fails in not having the one great essential of 
such plays a religious atmosphere. Besides this want of a 
definite religious idea or dramatic scheme the author thwarts 
his purpose by neglecting to keep his language under firm 
control. 

The play is divided into five acts, or canticles as they are 
termed. Everywoman is in quest of love, and when Modesty 
is driven from her, she sinks lower and lower in her pursuit 
of what she deems to be the ecstacy of happiness. Her two 
other companions are Youth and Beauty who accompany her 
for a part of her journey. Flattery first leads her astray, and 
then she falls in with Wealth, who becomes her companion 
along with Vice, Greed, and Chorus girls who are the personi- 
fication of certain unwomanly traits. The scene where Every- 
woman is seated on the supper-table surrounded by these, 
drinking champagne and bending the knee before her, and 
that immediately following it when she begins to awaken to 
her own degradation are the two best parts of the play. 

In a few places there is some clever punning on the titles 
and qualities of the persons of the drama. The author also 
drives home some telling truths, and makes us feel that had 
he given more labor to his work, and been less indulgent in 
self-criticism, he would have produced something worthy of a 
lasting place in dramatic literature. 

CHURCH SYMBOLISM. By the Very Rev. M. C. Nieuwbarn, 
O.P. Translated from the Dutch by the Rev. John Water- 
reus. St. Louis: B. Herder. 75 cents. 

This is one of the subjects about which the Catholic laity 
is lamentably ignorant, and a small and cheap treatise is a 
real want. We are not going to say that the ptesent one 
fills that want, for we have some serious faults to find with 
Father Nieuwbarn's book. First of all Symbolism is a subject 
upon which the wildest theories may be built, the wildest 
TOL. xcm. 26 



402 NEW BOOKS [June, 

assertions may be made, and yet the greatest difficulty will be 
experienced in determining what is exactly correct and what is 
incorrect. The symbolism (which the author defines as "the 
science of symbols, that is the knowledge of the meaning of 
certain signs, emblems, figures, representations, memorials, 
allusions, by which another thing, is known or inferred be- 
longing to a higher and nobler sphere ") which would be clear 
to one mind would be lost upon another. Hence there is 
ample room for fantastic assertions, and we feel constrained 
to say that Father Nieuwbarn has admitted a lot of absurd, 
nonsensical symbolic interpretations, especially in the second 
part of his book. 

No matter how childish the symbolism may sometimes be- 
come, it is always connected with something liturgical, and in 
connection with the subject to which the symbolism is attached 
there should be no hesitation about accuracy. In one instance, 
and it is a remarkable one, we have failed to find this necessary 
accuracy. On p. 63 the author speaks of the consecration of 
altars, and his language shows that he either does not know 
the liturgical laws of the Church concerning altars, or his 
translator has failed to interpret him properly. He speaks of 
crosses being hewn in "the stone slabs"; he should know 
that such an altar could not be consecrated; and in the same 
paragraph he lays stress on " the altar stone " in contradis- 
tinction to the table of the altar. In common, everyday talk 
this passes without the necessity of explanations, but in a 
liturgical treatise the nicety and exactness of liturgical ex- 
pression should be adhered to. Father Nieuwbarn would have 
done much more good if he had devoted half a dozen pages 
to the symbolism of a fixed altar, and left out a correspond- 
ing number of pages concerning the wild guesses on the sym- 
bolism of plants and trees. 

There are many illustrations decorating the book. Some 
illustrate the text; others only fill up space. We cannot 
understand why a modern book connected with the liturgy 
could not give a chance to a modern artist to illustrate it 
according to modern ideas. Why, for instance, should we be 
forced to look upon such a stupid illustration as that of the 
consecration of a church (p. 43) where we see a bishop about 
fifteen feet tall (if any laws of perspective are accepted) at- 
tended by something like a Chinese infant? Could not any 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 403 

Catholic modern artist draw a better picture than this in five 
minutes ? 

To add to these shortcomings we are afraid that Father 
Nieuwbarn has not been very fortunate in his translator. 
There are some expressions that show an imperfect knowledge 
of English, though we are obliged in strict justice to say that 
they will not interfere with the ordinary reader's enjoyment 
of the book, which is worth reading. We hope that it will 
reach a second edition so that its author may have an oppor- 
tunity of removing the imperfections now disfiguring it. 

AN EXCERPT FROM RELIQUIAE BAXTERIANAE. AND AN 
ESSAY BY SIR JAMES STEPHEN ON RICHARD BAXTER. 
London: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.75. 

There is nothing in this volume that will appeal to the 
general reader, but for the close student of history, particu- 
larly of the Cromwellian period in England, there will be 
found considerable to interest. About sixty pages are occu- 
pied with a portion of the autobiography of Baxter, who is 
described as the most voluminous theological writer of Eng- 
lish Protestantism. Sir James Stephen in his long essay cred- 
its Baxter with one hundred and sixty-eight folio and quarto 
printed volumes. As he was a prolific writer, so was he an 
omnivorous reader, and Catholic as well as Protestant writers 
became his daily pabulum. In spite of the narrowness of the 
age in which he lived, and in spite of the extreme narrow 
theological opinions he had imbibed, he has a good word for 
the writings of St. Thomas, Scotus, and Durandus. " I much 
value the method and sobriety of Aquinas, the subtlety of 
Scotus and Ockam, the plainess of Durandus . . ." 

Born in 16*5 he had a stormy life. From Episcopalian- 
ism he gradually withdrew into Puritanism, and accordingly 
suffered severely at the hands of the law. Nothing could 
curb his pen, with the inevitable result that he was generally 
in hot water. A confirmed opponent of a married clergy 
during the earlier part of his life he stirred up all the powers 
of the wits by entering upon marriage in his fiftieth year 
after he had been expelled from his parsonage with a young 
girl not turned twenty. This wife predeceased him, and he, 
broken down from imprisonment, died in 1691. The strange 
thing about Baxter is that, notwithstanding his wonderful 



404 NEW BOOKS [June, 

powers for work, he was an invalid all his life. "The mourn- 
ful list of his chronic diseases/' writes the essayist, in this vol- 
ume, "renders almost miraculous the mental vigor which bore 
him through exertions resembling those of a disembodied 
spirit." 

The Protestant Bishop of Chester writes a Preface to the 
volume, and supplies some notes and appendices. Of the 
Preface we have nothing remarkable to note, but we feel that 
His Lordship went out of his way in the notes to color them 
according to his own views; and, ii signs prove anything, he 
writes himself down as a man of narrower opinions than the 
subject of his labors. 

''PHE following eight publications come to us from Benziger 
* Brothers, New York : The Life of St. Leonard, Surnamed 
the Solitary of Limousine, France, translated by Comtesse 
Marie de Borchgrave D'Altena (40 cents) is a neat little volume 
that will help much to make St. Leonard better known. Before 
the ruthless devastation of the Protestant Reformation there 
were in England alone 152 churches dedicated to this saint 
The brief history of The Order of the Visitation (60 cents 
net) is an interesting sketch from the pen of the Right Rev. 
Abbot Gasquet, O.S.B. Mementoes of the English Martyrs and 
Confessors for Every Day in the Year (45 cents) by the Rev. 
Henry Sebastian Bowden is valuable both for history and per- 
sonal devotion. Its extracts are necessarily short, but they 
bring home to us very vividly what the faith meant to that 
goodly company of faithful. A clock upon the stairs knows 
much, very much of the history of the house wherein it dwells 
and we find how true this is by reading : What the Old Clock 
Saw (75 cents) by Sophie Maude. The title fits the tale ad- 
mirably. The story is light, readable and distinctly Catholic 
in tone. A small volume entitled The English Loufdes (70 
cents) by Father Clement Tyck, C.R.P. tells us of a new grotto 
of Lourdes built some two years ago at Spalding, Lincoln- 
shire, England. The booklet gives the historical details of the 
growth of the shrine. Feasts for the Faithful (30 cents) is a 
booklet which gives for children appropriate instructions on 
the Feasts of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. A 
Short Course in Catholic Doctrine for non- Catholics Intending 
Marriage with Catholics (10 cents) by the Rev. J. T. Durward, 



NEW BOOKS 405 

is a timely, practical pamphlet. The Child Prepared for First 
Communion by Rev. F. M. DeZulueta, S.J., is particularly use- 
ful at the present time. It sells for $2.25 per one hundred 
copies. 

ANEW edition of Mrs. Bessie R, Belloc's Historic I Nuns 
(75 cents) comes to us from B. Herder, St. Louis. The 
life stories of such noble women as Mary Aikenhead, foundress 
of the Irish Sisters of Charity; Catherine McAulay, foundress 
of the great Order of Mercy; Madame Duchesne of the 
Madames of the Sacred Heart, and our own Mother Seton find 
a place in the volume. THE CATHOLIC WORLD heartily re- 
commends this second edition as it did the first to its readers. 

'THE GOLDEN WEB. (By Anthony Partridge. Boston: 
J- Little, Brown & Co. $1.50.) The Golden Web is a tale 
of mild mystery, hinging on the struggle for possession of the 
title-deeds to the " Little Anna " gold mine. It will innocently 
while away an hour of fatigue, while the treatment of its not 
very novel theme displays some interesting phases of the most 
modern light fiction. For one thing, we have a story of mur- 
der, theft, and fraud, which yet contains no technical villain. 
The most unexpected situation in the book is developed by 
the admission of the heroine, after she has bewildered the hero 
by protesting that she has never been in the place where she 
clearly has been or held the conversation with him which he 
distinctly recalls. The natural explanation (in fiction) would 
be based on some theory of duplex personality or the sub- 
conscious self. The one given in the book is so likely that it 
never enters our minds. The heroine told a lie! 

T^ATHER TIM, by Rosa Mulholland (London : Sands & Co. 
-* 90 cents) tells in simple language of the work of a young 
Irish priest, first in a little mountain village, and later in a 
parish in the slums of Dublin. The author pictures vividly "the 
bewildering mixture of tragedy and grotesque humor" which 
make up Father Tim's experience. The drink question in its 
various phases enters largely into the story. 

CHARACTER GLIMPSES OF THE MOST REVEREND 
|y WILLIAM HENRY ELDER, D.D., is a most happy and 
fitting memorial to the late distinguished Archbishop of Cm- 



406 NEW BOOKS [June 

cinnati. The editors have gathered together a number of let- 
ters written by the late Archbishop Elder during his boyhood 
and student days at Mt. St. Mary's and to within a few years 
of the end of his life, and the greater part of the volume con- 
sists of these letters. It is published by Fr. Pustet & Co,, 
New York. $1.25. 

IN view of the happy increase of frequent Communion among 
our people, we recommend with special emphasis as a 
helpful, stimulating volume, Devotions for Holy Communion, 
with a preface by Alban Goodier, S.J., issued from the Rock- 
hampton Convent, England, and published by Benziger Brothers, 
New York. $i. The volume is particularly useful because it 
includes the devotional writings that have the approval of age 
long Catholic tradition. It gives selections from the Missal 
and the Breviary, the Paradisus Animae, The Imitation, and 
includes the psalms that foreshadow the delights of devotion 
to the Blessed Sacrament. 

UNION WITH JESUS is a small pamphlet by the Very Rev. 
Canon Antoni, encouraging the faithful to receive Holy 
Communion as often as they assist at Mass. It is published 
by Benziger Brothers, New York. 5 cents. 



\ 



CW. THOMPSON & CO., Boston, have published The 
tie Past, ($i) a cycle of eight songs of child life. The 
words are by Josephine Preston Peabody; the music by William 
Spencer Johnson. Both words and music are delightfully sim- 
ple, and the songs should serve well in both the kindergarten 
and the home. 

THE Life of St. Bridget of Sweden, by Francesca M. Steele 
(New York : Benziger Brothers. 75 cents), is a small, well- 
written volume by the author of Anchoresses of the West. The 
work adds but little to Mrs. Partridge's volume in the " Quar- 
terly Series," but first presentations of the lives of the saints 
are always welcome. 

THIS volume (The Lands of the Tamed Turk: or The Balkan 
States of To-day. By Blair Jaekel. Boston: L. C. Page 
& Co. $2.50) is number thirteen in the profusely illustrated 
and ornately bound " Little Pilgrimages " series. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 407 

T IGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LIFE ON THE PACIFIC 
k COAST. By S. D. Woods. New York : Funk & Wagnalls Co. 
$1.20, This volume of graphic, well-presented reminiscences 
of life and doings in California during the last kalf of the cen- 
tury just past is sure to have many readers among that elder 
generation contemporary with its author. Its character study 
is accurate, its description vivid and its style attractive. 



o 



UR LORD'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. Thoughts 
on Foreign Missions. Adapted from the German by a 
Member of St. Joseph's Society, Mill Hill. (New York: Ben- 
ziger Bros. 55 cents.) Solid as it is, urgent as is the need from 
which it has sprung we fear that this book will not accom- 
plish its purpose of fostering the interest and increasing the 
support of Foreign Missions among the Catholics of the 
United States. It lacks vivid presentation of facts and, for a 
missionary publication, is much too heavy in tone. 

FROM the publishing house f Pierre Tequi, Paris, we have 
received L'Evangile et le Temps Present ', par 1'Abbe Perrin, 
which presents a series of studies on the gospel for each Sun- 
day of the year, especially adapted to the needs of the present 
day. Plans <T Instruction pour le Diocese de Nevers, par Mgr 
Lelong is a new and enlarged edition of a useful book for 
preachers. Le Ange Gardien, par 1'Abbe P. Feige, contains 
thirty simple and practical meditations for the young. L'Art 
d* Arrive* au Vrai, par J. Balmes, is a translation of a Spanish 
work into French by E. Manec. It deals with the realities of 
man's present life and his immortal future. Jeunesse et Piete, 
par PAbbe Niorice, is a collection of conferences addressed to 
young boys. 

T A VALEUR SOCIALE DE L'EVANGILE, par L. Gar- 
" riguet, is one of a series of studies on Morals and Sociol- 
ogy, and is published by Bloud et Cie., of Paris. Le Posi- 
tivism* Chretien, par Andre Godard, also comes from the same 
publishers. It is a new edition of a work well known in the 
field of Christian apologetics. 

SURSUM CORDA. HAUT LES COEURS, par B. Contret, 
is a simple recueil of thoughts or short reflections for 
Christian souls, published by Pontioy of Paris. Bossuet et les 



408 NEW BOOKS [June, 

Protestants, par TAbbe Julien, published by Gabriel Beauchesne 
et Cie., of Paris, traces the controversies of Bossuet on funda- 
mental points of doctrine, in such a manner as to present an 
exposition of Catholic dogma with regard to the Lutheran and 
Calvinistic variations. Suzel et sa Marraine is a simple story 
for girls, published by T. Paillart, Paris. 



T^HE short and cheap publications of Bloud et Cie continue to 
be of timely interest and importance. Those of the clergy 
and laity who are familiar with French will find them of ex- 
ceptional value, and our regret is that we have not got a 
series in English corresponding to them. 

To mention some of the later pamphlets of this Science et 
Religion series: In Le Dogme M. Charles refutes Loisy and Le 
Roy and explains the orthodox teaching on the question of 
dogma. In Les Jeunes Filles Francaises M. Feyel discusses the 
education of women, contrasting the methods of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries with those of to-day, and advocates 
higher education for women. The question of allegiance to 
faith and allegiance to country is discussed by M. Julien in 
Civisme et Catholicisme. M. Fonsegrive writes a most valu- 
able discussion on the essentials of true art in literature, 
painting, etc., in Art et Pornographie. The life of a poor reli- 
gious who became one of the purest glories of Paris and who 
was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor but 
who never wore it is told in Sceur Rosalie by M. Laudet. 
A brief but comprehensive church history will be found in 
Historie de VEglise by MM. David and Lorette. An inspiring 
knowledge of the martyrs will be gained from Le Martyr- 
ologe by Dam Baudot. 



jforeign periobicate* 

7 he Tablet (15 April): A recent decision of the Holy See 
states that the Decree " Maxima Cura " on the adminis- 
trative removal of priests having the care of souls, ap- 
plies to England and the United States. "Lambeth 

and Upsala: A New Departure." For many years the 
Anglican Church, through her official representativer, 
has sought closer relations with the Established Church 
of Sweden. The writer shows to what results such an 
alliance would lead, because of the Swedish Church's 
attitude on the questions of episcopal consecration and 
succession. 

(22 April) : Two correspondents write to call attention 
to the way in which Catholic emigrants are left to drift 
for themselves on their arrival at Canadian ports. Prot- 
estant denominations are represented in the emigration 
sheds during the arrival of vessels; "but there is no 

office for the Catholic priest." Catholic Scotland will 

keep the centenary of one of her greatest bishops since 
the Reformation, Bishop Hay, in the course of the com- 
ing autumn. 

(29 April): "A Stupendous Moral Revolution." Within 
a comparatively few years, the Chinese Government has 
succeeded in eradicating a secret vice which had en- 
slaved millions the use of opium. It is hoped that 
the evil will be a thing of the past within two years. 

The Archbishop and clergy of Tuam have drawn 

up a resolution recommending "the teaching of agricul- 
ture on thoroughly practical and up to -date lines to the 
youth of Ireland." 

(6 May): President Taft's proposals for a treaty of un- 
conditional arbitration were heartily endorsed by the 
nation at a great gathering in the London Guildhall. 

Mgr. Moyes writes on "Catholics and the Pageant 

of London." 

Dublin Review (April) : " Lord Acton and the French Revo- 
lution," by W. S. Lilly, gives Lord Acton's interpreta- 
tion of the numerous causes, and the famous Declara- 
tion of 1789 which he says "outweighs libraries, and is 
stronger than all the armies of Napoleon." The funda- 



410 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June, 

mental principle was, "that the majority of the French 
people claimed to govern themselves with a power pro- 
portioned to their numbers." Father John Chapman, 

O.S.B. commenting on Doctor Ryder's Essays, shows 
the merit of hesitating judgments and mature delibera- 
tion. Doctor Ryder's literary output was infinitesimal 

in quantity but of the finest quality. Abbe Dimnet's 

book "Les Soeurs Bronte" according to Alice Meynell 
is a valuable work. The work of the Brontes was " not 
humorous but impassioned, and passion speaks the uni- 
versal tongue, whereas humor laughs and thinks in her 
own dialect." Alone among the many writers who have 
commented on Charlotte Bronte's life, M. Dimnet gives 
a just judgment of the bitter woman with her arrogant 
thoughts of herself and wounding thoughts of others. 

The Month (May): "Supposed Cases of Diabolical Possession 
in 1585-6," by Rev. J. H. Pollen relates some curious 
and apparently to some extent superstitious exorcisms 

among the English Catholics. Father Gerard gives 

"the Strange History of Eels" that they originate in 
the ocean as flat transparent bodies, mount rivers, and 
after maturity return to the ocean. " Christian 
Charity in Hong Kong," by Alfred Cunningham de- 
scribes the work of an orphan asylum conducted by 

the Little Sisters of the Poor. Rev. J. R. Meagher 

attributes to "Catholic Social Action in Bergamo" the 
greater loyalty of the Catholics of this diocese. 

Irish Ecclesiastical Record (April): "Death Real and Appar- 
ent" Rev. Jokn J. Sheridan, C.C., regards the prudent 
yet liberal administration of the sacraments to one ap- 
parently dead, though possibly alive. The author con- 
cludes: "It is better to expose a sacrament to danger 
of invalidity, than man to the danger of eternal dam- 
nation." "Holy Week in Spain," by Rev. M. J. 

O'Doherty, D.D. "Outside Oberammergau with its 
Passion Play, there is no place in the world where the 
story of Calvary is brought so vividly home to one as 
in the streets of a Spanish city during the days of 

Holy Week." "Scholastic Philosophy." Rev. D. 

O'Keefe, M.A., touches, among other things, upon the 
scientific mind and Neo-scholasticism. 

The National Review (May): In "Episodes of the Month" 



1 9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 411 

Lord Willoughby De Broke offers some suggestions on 
the Reform of the House of Lords, and the situation as 

it presents itself to-day. "When England Awakes" 

is a further defence of a recent statement made by the 
author, W. Morton Fullerton, to the effect that " It is 
important not to misconstrue the European situation in 
so far as it affects French interests; it is important to 
see it, for instruction's sake, as it is viewed through 
French spectacles," and a plea for still more cordial re- 
lations between England and France. "The Case for 

Woman's Suffrage," is an argument for the " antis " by 

Lord Ebury. Richard Bagot under the caption "The 

Triumph of Italy " glories in the recent Italian celebra- 
tion which he heralds as a victory over " tyranny, op- 
pression, foreign dominion, ignorance, superstition and 
priestcraft." It is such an article as one might expect 

from the author. " American Affairs " are reviewed 

by A Maurice Low. 

The International Journal of Ethics (April): In "The Question 
of Moral Obligation," Ralph Barton Perry, discusses 
what acts are obligatory ; or what act or type of action 

is such that I ought to perform it? " The Spencerian 

Formula of Justice," by H. S. Shelton, " Every man is 
free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes 
not the equal freedom of any other man." Shelton, 
however, cites instances and declares many more could 
be given, which are sufficient to show that, admitting 
the general validity of the principle, it is futile, in so 
involved and complicated a civilization as our own, to 
press it to minute detail, and still more useless to apply 
it ruthlessly in one direction, if we admit huge breaches 
in another. 

Revue du Clerge Fran$ais (i April): Carra de Vaux presents 

an historical sketch of the religion of Islam. F. 

Martin criticises the work of " A New Painter of the 
Gospel," Mr. William Hole, who in the opinion of the 
critic, " has a right to all our eulogies," and to whom 
also he assigns a place of eminence among such artists 

as Moreau, Schnorr, Hoffman, and Tissot. Under the 

heading, " History and Erudition," Ch. Urbain considers 
among other subjects, the philosophic doctrines of the 



412 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June, 

eighteenth century, a manual of critical history of French 
literature, the commencement of the Bulgarian nation. 
(15 April): E. Mangenot treats of "The Two Geneal- 
ogies of Our Savior," reviewing the study of M. Heer, 
" privat-dozent " at the University of Freiburg. " What- 
ever may be the value of certain arguments of detail," 
he says, " the most important result of the study of M. 
Heer, is, that if the genealogy of the first Gospel is 
that of St. Joseph, the genealogy of the third is that 
of the Blessed Virgin Apropos of the "Social Move- 
ment" Ch. Calippe presents an article on the "Fight 
against Public Immorality," in which he discusses the 
French law against public immorality, individual action, 
the French leagues against immorality, white slavery, 

and other topics. P. Batiffol writes of "The Essence 

and Origin of Catholicism according to Harnack and 
Sohm." 

(i May): P. Godet presents an article on "The Theol- 
ogy about Mary, Yesterday and To-day." In his 

" Chronicle of Apologetics," J. Bricout writes of the 
following topics: "The Order of the world," apropos of 
a recent work, " The Marvels of the Eye"; "The Prob- 
lem of Evil, in which he notices a new edition of P. 
de Bonniot's book on the subject; "The Historical Value 
of the Gospels, commenting on "The Canonical Gos- 
pels," by M. Lepin; " Bossuet and the Protestants"; 

"The Systematic Mind of M. Harnack," Eugene 

Evrard gives a sketch of " Literature in the Making." 

A. Villein writes on the decree " Maxims Cura." 

Revue Thomiste (March-April) : Rev. C. Henry, P.B., concludes 
his article on the " History of Proofs for the Existence 
of God," reviewing the work of the theologians from 
the Middle Age to the end of the scholastic epoch. 
This second installment begins with William of Auxerre, 
and includes, among others, Alexander Hales, Albert the 
Great, and St. Bonaventure. The author in conclusion 
devotes several pages to St. Thomas Aquinas. -The 
second part of Le Guichaoua's " Progress of Dogma 
According to the Principles of St. Thomas," also appears. 

In treating of "Maladies of the Will," Edouard 

Hugon, O.P., distinguishes three pathological states which 
influence liberty: (i) those which directly influence the 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 413 

will ; (2) those which directly affect the nervous system 
and indirectly the will, eg., hysteria; and (3) those af- 
fecting both body and mind, e.g. 9 a hypnotic sleep. 
tudes (5 April): " Ultramontanism and Local Traditions," by 
G. Neyron. The nineteenth century has witnessed in 
France the suppression of local differences contrary to 
unity of doctrine, and the return to unity of liturgy. 
The Church of France has left untouched the security of 
its most venerable and cherished traditions by becoming 
more closely united with the Church of Rome, Gallican- 
ism and Ultramontanism are henceforth names of an- 
other age. "'L'Union Fasneliale' of Charonne." B. 

Marty outlines the work done and the methods em- 
ployed by this social organization, it is somewhat akin 
in nature to the "College Settlements" of England. 
" Unpublished Letters of Lamennais to De Coux." 
These five letters (1832-1835) give evidence of the great 
friendship which existed between these two men, and at 
the same time throw considerable light upon the state 
of Lamennais' mind previous to and after the appear- 
ance of the Encyclical " Mirari Vos." - "A Poet of 
the Romagna-Giovanni Pascoli." L. Chervoillot gives an 
appreciation of this Italian poet's works: "though he has 
suffered shipwreck of his religious convictions, still his 
imagination and heart have remained Catholic." 
(20 April) : " A New Plan for the Union of the Churches." 
The plan proposed by Prince Max of Saxony for the 
union of the churches is considered by J. Urban to be 
impracticable, perhaps impossible. "We should be zeal- 
ous for breaking down barriers which retard this union, 
but we should have the same zeal never to sacrifice a 
single point of certain Catholic dogma with the view of 
bringing over more easily our separated brethren." 
"The Question of Pure Love Apropos of Fenelon." 
S. Hasent first lays down the principles established by 
the Catholic Church in this matter previous to Fene- 
lon's age; then gives the position of Fenelon and his 
opponents, with the strong and weak points of each ; 
and finally the exact sense of Fenelon's condemnation 
by Rome. "Charles de Pomairols." This is an ap- 
preciation of the works of the poet, "The Lamartine 
of the Fireside," by P. Bernard. "Excavations in 



4U FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June, 

Samaria" is an account by A. Condamin of the work 
accomplished by the first expedition sent out from Har- 
vard University. " Exegesis of the New Testament." 
Under this title L, de Grandmaison reviews the latest 
works of Harnack and Loisy at considerable length. 
Of Loisy's work "Jesus et la Tradition Evangelique" 
he says, "It is inconsistent; it is already obsolete." 

Le Correspondent (10 April): " The Prime -Ministers of Finance 
of the Third Republic" by A. de Foville, is the second 
and last account of the administration of Fouyer Quertier. 

With this issue ends the fourth installment of the 

private letters of Empress Marie Louise to the Duchess 

of Montebello. "About Italy," by Pierre de Quirielle, 

is a description of the beauties of Italy as seen in the 
writings of various authors, " France and the Otto- 
man Empire," by Andre Cheradame is a study of 
the relations between these two countries, political 

and financial. "Holy Week in Venice," by Jacques 

Normand, is a description of the magnificent cere- 
monies as seen by the writer. "The Economic Life 

and the Social Movement," by A. Bechaux discusses 
such important subjects as length of hours of labor, 
salaries of men and women, and parliamentary reform 
in voting. 

(25 April): "French Colonization in Tunis," by Louis 
Arnould discusses the climate, and agricultural possi- 
bilities under such a scheme. " The Seminary of Issy 

During the Commune," by Henri Welschinged describes 
the outrages committed on the sacred property by the 
French soldiers and the massacres of the clergy.' 
"Some Founders and Collaborators of the First Cor- 
respondant" by Charles Sainte-Foi, deals with the 

early struggles of this magazine. " From Borrelli to 

Baratier" by Avesnes describes the literary works of 

these officers of the French army. "Ingres," by 

Georges Lecomte discusses the work and influence of 

this French artist. "In Albania," by M. Weissen 

Szumlanska is a description of the cities, people and 
customs of Albania. 

Revue Pratique d* Apologetique (i April): "For Humanity, Re- 
ligion and Country," by Alfred Baudrillart, is a con- 
sideration of Catholic missionary work in the East. 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 415 

" From Wittenberg to Rome," by E. Moura, gives 

briefly a comparison of the German and English con- 
verts. The convert, M. von Ruville, is especiaily con- 
sidered. His book, " Back to Holy Church," is reviewed, 
[particular mention is made of the chapters on the Eu- 
charist, Authority, Love and Liberty in the Church.] 
(15 April): "The Human in Things Divine," by H. 
Lesetre. The author treats his subject under three 

headings: the Incarnation, the Bible, the Church. 

"Another Defeat for Haeckel," by G. Lapeyre. The 
article is a criticism of a brochure, by Haeckel entitled, 
" Sandalion. A Public Answer to the Accusation of 
Falsifications made by the Jesuits." 

Revue Benedictine (April): Dom A. Wilmart has an article on 
"The Latin Versions of the Epistles of Evagrius to the 
Virgins." The author upholds the authenticity of the 
works of this learned monk of the fourth century and 
gives the Latin text of one of the epistles.-^ In "A 
Study of Arnobius the Younger" the Semi-Pelagian of 
the fifth century, G. Morin sets forth all the biographi- 
cal notes available, together with an examination of the 
works of Arnobius. Besides being the author of a Com- 
mentary on the Psalms [the only work usually ascribed 
to him] Dom Morin concludes that Arnobius wrote at 
least three other treatises, one of which has been at- 
tributed to St. John Chrysostom. The series of " Un- 
published Letters of the Benedictines of St. Maur" be- 
gun by Berliere in the January issue is continued. 
Twenty-one were given in the earlier number ; seven- 
teen more, ranging from 1722 to 1806 are published 
now. 

La Civilta Cattolica (15 April): The opening article describes 
the nature of the crisis that now threatens the institu- 
tion of the family as a result of the breaking up of the 
foundations of society by modern irreligious ideas. 
Thus far it has resisted these forces but statistics) of 
births and divorces clearly show that it is beginning to 

feel their effects. "The Patriotic Celebrations of 

1901," are discussed in an article which recites the his- 
torical incidents of 1861 and their development up to 
the present day, and justifies the action of the late Pope 
and Pius X. in declining to modify their attitude towards 



416 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [June. 

the state. "The Schools in France" concludes with 

some encouraging facts regarding the action of Catho- 
lics in protection of their children against the anti- 
religious schools, teachers, and text books. A further 

installment of the story of " Leo N. Tolstoi " deals with 
his religious aberrations and describes the manner in 
which he floundered mentally from one error to another, 
partly through ignorance but partly also through lack 

of humility. " A Visit to Montecassino " is continued, 

Books reviewed are Nicola Franco's Defense of 

Christianity and the Union of the Churches. The author 
is a Uniat Greek priest and his book is on the whole 
commended although it is pointed out that he is rather 
loose in some of his statements regarding the views of 
his opponents the sixth volume of Baumgartner's great 
work on the World's Literature, dealing with Italian 
writers, and a highly interesting book on Nicolas Cous- 
sin, confessor of Louis XIII. and Richelieu which does 
tardy justice to a man who has been much maligned 
and misunderstood. 

Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (1911, No. 4): Under the caption 
"St. Ignatius of Loyola as seen by a Liberalist," M. 
Reichmann, SJ. reviews adversely a work by Wilhelm 
Ohr, entitled "The Jesuits." K. Frank, SJ,, contri- 
butes the first of a series of articles on " Modern Science 
on the Descent of Man." He sketches what morphology, 
paleontology, embryology and "blood- reaction " have to 
say on the question. Far from proving man's descent 
from brute animals, he thinks they tend to create a pre- 
sumption against such a theory. 

Biblische Zeitschrift (April): Dr. Andreas Eberharter gives 
reasons why it is not possible to conclude from the 
presence of certain Hebrew nouns a post-exilic origin 

of certain books of the Old Testament. Dr. Paul 

Heinisch discusses Wisdom 8, 19, 20 and finds the opinion 
which would maintain that sacred writers were dependant 
on Plato for his views on anthropology is incompatible 
with the context. Ch. Sigwalt writes on the " Chronol- 
ogy of Esdras IV. Dr. Theophil Bromboszez criticises 

Professor Belser's chronology of the history of our Lord's 
Passion. 



IRecent Events. 

The new Ministry has found itself 

France. involved in a sea of troubles both 

internal and external. So serious 

are the events that have taken place in France itself that the 
enemies of the country, or at least, of its existing institutions, 
look upon them as signs of national decadence, and even the 
friends of the present form of government are far frcm feeling 
satisfied. A wide-spread spirit of revolt not confined to the 
recent strikers permeates many of the population. Even in 
the Chamber itself something of the same spirit is shown by 
the dislike which exists of a really strong government. M. 
Briand used to say that, so long as he was at the head of the 
government, it would govern. Such utterances seemed to in- 
dicate a somewhat imperious spirit. The fact was, however, that 
he perceived that the real need of France at the present time, 
was a just and strong government, and wished to offer a rem- 
edy for the existing evils. When he found himself too weak 
to do this, he resigned, rather than make the situation worse 
by concession to the elements of disorder. 

The present Ministry reposes for support upon the sections 
on the left of the Chamber, and even upon the Socialists who 
look upon M. Jaures as their leader. It came into power, not 
indeed with the declared object of yielding to certain demands 
which M. Briand looked upon as unjust, but with the expec- 
tation that such a policy would be pursued. But, it has had 
to act in just the opposite way, and to take so decided a 
stand against strikers, and disturbers of the public peace, and 
destroyers of property that had it not been for the troubles 
in Morocco it would have lost the support of those upon 
whom it depended for existence. The trouble in Morocco, as 
involving national honor and duty, found for the government 
supporters in other parts of the Chamber, and so has ren- 
dered its existence more stable. 

The disturbances in the Aube department were serious, 
indeed, but those in the Marne were even worse. In both 
departments they sprang from the same cause. By a recent 
law champagne grown only in the department of Marne was 
entitled to be sold as Champagne pure and simple. This was 
not pleasing to the dwellers in the Aube Department. There- 
VOL. xcm. 27 



418 RECENT EVENTS LJune, 

upon the Senate passed a resolution in favor of abrogating the 
privilege of the Marne Department, by taking away the limita- 
tion hitherto established. This in its turn was not pleasing 
to those who were enjoying this privilege, and they proceeded 
to make their displeasure felt in very decided ways. 

In the Aube Department mayors and municipal councils 
resigned office, as well as most of the members of the Council- 
General. The motto of the Republic " Liberte, Egalite, Frater- 
nite," which adorns all public buildings in France, was in many 
places effaced with red paint. Large numbers of the inhabi- 
tants refused to fill up the papers for the quinquennial census. 
Tax-assessment papers were burned wholesale in the market- 
places, to show the determination not to pay taxes. Proces- 
sions of wine-growers and laborers in eighty communes marched 
with banners, declaring that Liberty is rot and Fraternity and 
Equality lies. The red flag was hoisted in many places and 
the Tricolor torn down, and this in the presence of local 
senators, deputies and government officials. Oaths were im- 
posed upon the parliamentary representatives that they would 
defend the rights of the department; and sympathy not only 
with these demands but also with the ways taken of manifest- 
ing them was openly shown by those whose duty it was to 
defend law and order. This, indeed, is one of the characteris- 
tic features of the occurrences that have taken place the fact 
that those in authority used their influence and power to abet 
and not to suppress disorder. A member of the Senate ad- 
dressing the crowd at Bar-sur-Aube said: " Continue to refuse 
to pay your taxes, and lay down your public offices; and if it 
should chance that an attempt is made to compel you by 
armed force to pay your taxes, you will answer force with 
force. For the moment we are temporizing. Let there be no 
violence to-day. But if it prove necessary, we will march to- 
gether. You know what that means. 1 ' In fact the main fea- 
tures of the jacquerie which attended the outbreak of the 
French Revolution in 1789 have been reproduced in the re- 
cent disturbance in the Aube Department. 

In the Marne the proceedings were even worse. The in- 
terests of the wine-growers and laborers in that department 
are opposed to those of the same class in the Aube Depart- 
ment, and when it seemed probable that the demands of the 
latter were going to be granted the former thought it neces- 
sary to make themselves heard. When the Senate passed a 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 419 

resolution in favor of abrogating territorial delimitation, the 
Marne vignerons rose as one man. They burst into wine-cellars, 
destroyed countless bottles of wine, and sacked the private 
houses of obnoxious wine merchants. It is noteworthy that 
the rioters, except in a few cases, abstained from actual plun- 
der. It was by destruction Sabotage that they wished to 
manifest their discontent. The plant for making champagne 
was in many places totally wrecked. In one place some ten 
thousand or twelve thousand peasant wine-dressers swooped 
down upon the valley armed with bludgeons. They trampled 
over the brown vineyards just when the young slips were some 
six inches or eight inches above the ground. The shoots were 
broken off, the straw thatching made to protect the shoots 
burned. Similar occurrences took place in many parts. It was 
done deliberately and with organization. Certain large wine- 
makers have been in the habit of importing grapes from other 
districts when the crop in the Marne district was short, thereby 
disappointing the expectation of the small growers of grapes, 
that they would be able to sell at an enhanced price their 
produce to those large makers of wine. For the past two years 
they have suffered in this way, and their disappointment, 
coupled with the proposed abrogation of limitation, has led to 
these excesses. No government, of course, could acquiesce in 
such proceedings. Large numbers of troops were accordingly 
sent to the disturbed districts, and these were able to bring under 
control fthe unruly mobs and to prevent the extension and 
continuance of the riots. But sullen discontent cannot be 
driven out by force. That a real remedy may be found, the 
injustices complained of must be removed. This the govern- 
ment is endeavoring to do by referring the whole limitation 
question to the Council of State. This body is a permanent 
part of the French Constitutional organism, the function of 
which is to advise the President and the Government, and to 
guide their decisions in cases of difficulty. It has no initiative, 
and only gives its opinion on cases voluntarily laid before it, 
but hitherto it has been looked upon as a duty to accept the 
decisions which it gives. 

While the disturbances in the two departments in which 
champagne is made were by far the worst, in other parts of 
France there were strikes which tended to increase the gen- 
eral uneasiness. Dock laborers at various ports placed hinder- 
ances in the way of the ordinary course of commerce. The 



420 RECENT EVENTS [Jane, 

threat of a general strike which the revolutionary Confedera- 
tion of Labor permanently holds out, is a constant source of 
apprehension and dread hanging like a nightmare over the 
nation. The demands for reinstatement made by former em- 
ployees who were dismissed for the part which they took in 
the Railway strike last autumn, to which M. Briand refused 
the support of the Government, have been endorsed by a vote 
of the Chamber; but as they have no power to carry it into 
effect on the Railways privately owned, and as the Companies 
refuse to comply with a demand which they look upon as 
both unjust and illegal, the only effect has been to add to 
the general dissatisfaction. In consequence of the deep sense 
of uneasiness so widely felt the government took the same 
step that M. Briand took last year for taking which he was 
so bitterly condemned. It prohibited all labor processions and 
similar demonstrations in Paris on May Day and brought troops 
into Paris to enforce the prohibition. M. Jaures was very 
much disappointed, but the rest of France applauded this 
action. 

In higher circles evidences of corruption have manifested 
themselves, but as the government has taken prompt measures 
to punish the malefactors, the state of things need not be 
looked upon as hopeless. Three men have been arrested 
charged with the revelation of the secrets of the Foreign 
Office, two of them being officials in the employment of the 
State. An officer in charge of the accounts of the same office 
has suffered the same fate, being charged with dishonestly 
appropriating to his own use the funds entrusted to his care, 
and one of the leading architects of the country has been 
arrested as an accomplice. The latter however has been able 
to show his innocence. The sale of decorations has led to 
still further arrests, but not of persons connected with the 
State. 

The general impression that all is not right in the moral 
development of France under the Third Republic is rendered 
stronger by so many occurrences of such an unsavory charac- 
ter ; while the fact, that owing to the great fall in the birth 
rate, it is being found difficult to maintain the strength of 
the army, and that in consequence satisfaction is being felt 
that negroes from the African possessions of France are show- 
ing promise of being able to fill the vacant ranks, cannot be 
made a matter of congratulation. There is one thing, how- 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 421 

ever, which may be looked upon as satisfactory, the hands 
of the Ministry have been so full that they have not been able 
to find time to take the expected steps to drive religious in- 
struction from all schools. 

To all these internal troubles must be added the necessity 
which has arisen to take action in Morocco. The Sultan 
Mulai Hafid has proved himself rather worse than the average 
type of absolute rulers, and by his exactions has driven a 
large number of the tribes over whom he is supposed to rule 
into open revolt. They have joined in a common attack 
upon Fez the capital. This involves danger to the foreign 
residents in that city, and to France has been confided the 
duty of protecting them, and as moreover French officers are 
in command of such forces as the Sultan possesses an expedi- 
tion has been found necessary for their relief. France no 
longer cherishes the desire to conquer Morocco, but it is easy 
for hostile critics to say that she has such a desire, and 
this is what writers in German newspapers did. The German 
government, however, has not so far manifested any open dis- 
trust of French intentions. The same thing may be said of 
Spain. There are Spaniards who wish to make Spain predom- 
inant in Morocco, and who would be glad to resist any ex- 
tension of French power in that country. In fact, the King 
is credited with the desire that Spain should be compensated 
by Morocco for its loss of the Colonies. Certain organs of 
the press have gone so far as to propose that Spain and 
Germany should join hands to act against France. The Spanish 
government, however, refuses to favor any such project, al- 
though troops have been moved in view of possible action. 
While it is not probable that there will be any serious com- 
plications with either Germany or Spain, the possibility of such 
events cannot be denied, and the French Government cannot 
walk too warily in so suspicious a world. 

There has been a period of almost 
Germany. complete quiescence in Germany 

so far as internal politics are con- 
cerned. The Emperor has been paying a visit to the island 
of Corfu, to which he has so often resorted before, and where 
he has a palace named the Achilleion. He has been fortunate 
on this occasion, for during his stay one of the most remark- 
able discoveries of the remains of the classical world has been 



4*2 RECENT EVENTS [June, 

made in the immediate neighborhood. A colossal statue of 
a Gorgon being pursued, it is thought, by the goddess Diana 
has been brought to light. The Emperor daily visited the 
scene of the operations, and showed the enthusiasm befitting a 
professional archaeologist. The King of Greece bestowed 
upon his Imperial Majesty the right to carry out the full 
investigation of the site. 

The closeness of the relations between Germany and Aus- 
tria-Hungary was shown by certain incidents which took 
place on the way to Corfu. Not only did the Kaiser visit 
Vienna, being received there by the Emperor- King and the 
heir to the throne, but after he had left Venice, he found 
himself in the midst of the reserved squardron of the Austrian 
Fleet which had of a set purpose taken a route out of its 
ordinary course in order to show him honor. And during his 
stay at Corfu the same fleet again appeared on the scene, 
and was reviewed by his Majesty. No one doubts that the 
meaning of this was to make clear to the world the strength 
of the ties which bind together the two empires. As to Italy 
and its position in the Triple Alliance a perpetual doubt exists. 
The fact that the Kaiser paid no visit to Rome in this, the 
Jubilee year of national unity, might have been taken as an 
indication of the assertion that Italy was not content with its 
place in the Alliance, had it not been that the visit to Rome 
was made by the Crown Prince of Germany on his return from 
his tour in the Far East. This visit was declared by the King 
of Italy to be a pledge of the intimate friendship existing be- 
tween Italy and Germany, and Italian unity and German unity, 
he said; were bound together and made efficient by the co- 
operation of the Triple Alliance. The speeches made at the 
banquet given to the Crown Prince were looked upon by the 
Roman newspapers as a fresh confirmation of the desire of the 
German and Italian governments to weld more closely the friend- 
ly relations between the two countries ; and an excellent impres- 
sion is said to have been made in Germany by the warm re- 
ception which the Crown Prince received in Rome. The 
doubts of some, however, will still remain especially as it is 
said, we know not how truly, that the German Emperor has 
a personal dislike to the King of Italy. 

What effect the French Expedition to Fez will have on the 
relations between France and Germany it is too soon to say. 
If the government follows the leading of a certain part of the 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 423 

Press, the settlement made by the Algeciras Act and the sub- 
sequent Agreement between France and Germany will be set 
aside. France, these newspapers say, is bent on the military 
conquest of Morocco, a thing which it is the duty of Germany 
acting along with Spain to prevent. Time will prove which 
counsels will prevail. The Pan- German League has issued a 
pronouncement in which the division of Morocco between Ger- 
many and France by negotiation with France is declared to be 
the duty of the government, the whole of the Atlantic sea- 
board of Morocco to fall to the lot of Germany. 

A general election is to be held 
Austria-Hungary. J n the present month in which the 

perennial question between the 

Germans and the Slavs who shall be predominant will be 
fought once again. The end of the last Reichsrath was by 
no means peaceful, and in the end it was found necessary to 
make use of that Emergency Clause in the Constitution which 
enables the Sovereign to do by decree what Parliament has failed 
to do. The supplies which the Reichsrath neglected to vote, 
are therefore to be raised by ministerial decree. The electoral 
campaign is expected to be short and in many districts fierce. 
The moderate elements will be on the defensive, and it will be 
surprising if the present Ministry of Baron Bienerth should 
receive the support of the electors. Doubts exist as to the 
adequacy of the present financial system to supply the military, 
naval, economic, and cultural needs of the state. The Austrian 
Budget is said to be one of the least elastic, and recent military 
and naval expansive call for large additional expenditure. There 
is scarcely a branch of productive activity in Austria that is not 
hit repeatedly by some form of direct taxation: and indirect 
taxation weighs upon the lower middle and working classes 
more heavily than in Fratfce, Italy, and Germany. 

The health of the Emperor has been the subject of a good 
deal of discussion. In such matters there is wont to be a great 
deal of economy practised as to telling the truth, and in the 
present instance this general practice has been exemplified in 
a somewhat remarkable way. On the one hand it was asserted 
that notwithstanding certain precautions that had been taken, 
his Majesty was perfectly well. On the other hand, when it 
was desirable to give a reason for postponing the visit of the 
King of Servia, the poor state of the Emperor's health served 



424 RECENT EVENTS [June. 

as an excuse. Why such futile efforts to conceal the truth 
should be made, what good purpose they serve, no one can tell. 

How misleading the news is which 
Portugal. from time to time appears even in 

papers of high standing, may be 

judged from a paragraph which appears in a recent issue of 
the Continent. Referring to the proposed law for the Separa- 
tion of Church and State in Portugal, this paper severely ani- 
madverts on what it styles the " stubborn intransigency " of 
Pius X,, as made evident by his treatment of both France and 
Spain, and in a still greater degree by his way of dealing with 
the Portuguese proposal even though, as the Continent ex- 
pressly asserts " The Portuguese authorities, in comparison with 
the French and Spanish statesmen, are very much more com- 
plaisant and have offered the Pope opportunities to abate his 
antagonism without humiliation/' How little truth there is in 
this statement will appear from the following account of the 
provisions of the proposed law, from which it will be seen that 
so far from being better than the French they are much worse. 
Not only are all the present possessions of the Church to be 
appropriated, but also all future acquisitions ; if a congregation 
desires to build a new church, the building is to pass after 
ninety-nine years to the State. All gifts made to the Church 
are to be handled by parochial commissions, and the Church 
is to receive only one tenth, the remainder to be distributed 
as the government thinks fit. The State is to appoint the pro- 
fessors in seminaries ; these seminaries are to be reduced from 
thirteen to five in number ; convents of nuns are to be abol- 
ished, priests are to be encouraged to marry, by pensions to 
be given to their wives and children. The stipends which are 
to be given to the priests themselves, the giving of which at all 
is considered by the Continent as so striking a mark of the 
liberality of the government, are to remain under the control 
of the parochial commissions and other State bodies, and those 
are generally opposed to the Church. It is hard to see how 
any Pope, or, in fact any one who is friendly to the Church 
or to religious freedom, could approve of proposals so dis- 
tinctively anti-religious and even despotic. Nothing could be 
more opposed to American principles. 



With Our Readers 



THE " ultra-moderns" claim to " accept life on its own terms," 
yet they clamor for liberty and laughter and they throttle pain 
with physical and mental anaesthesia. Wherein is the acceptance ? 
They stand for realism, " refuse to recognize idealism as in any way 
divorced from reality," yet limit reality to the grasp of the senses, 
or at most, the content of subjective experience. And from this 
gross materialism, or nebulous subjectivity, the ideal i. e. y the spir- 
itual may not be divorced ! In this unnatural effort to make all 
things one, thought is tossed from one dilemma to another. Ma- 
terialism lifts up Nature as a goddess ; Rationalism proclaims Man, 
God; or Pantheism incarcerates the Creator in creation, and wor- 
ships indiscriminately. As a logical sequence Christ's Humanity is 
revered, while His Divinity is minimized or denied. Men stand by 
as He blesses the children, and walk with Him among the flowers 
of the field, but shrink and turn from the skull-shaped, cross-crowned 
hill of Calvary. 

* * * 

T ITERATURE to-day is replete with this spirit. Typical of it, 
i-/ representative, perhaps, of the best it has to offer, is "The 
Piper" by Josephine Preston Peabody. "The Piper" has been 
crowned as a work of art by the Stratford Memorial Prize, and 
hailed by dramatic critics as an American drama which will stand 
" the test of the printed page as well as the acid test of the theatre." 
leaving aside this field of criticism, we wish simply to study the 
current of the play's thought, the message it bears from the 
spirit of to-day. The spirit of the day is the Piper. Whether you 
see in him the old god Pan bursting the bonds of supernatural, dog- 
matic religion, and setting men free to worship natural beauty, 
or the Christ spirit in the world, loving the children, " for of such is 
the kingdom of Heaven " he is still the New Era, piping away the 
younger generation from old ideas and shackling traditions. For if 
he be Christ, he is Christ as the age conceives Him One who has 
merged the first commandment in the second and bids us look no 
higher than man for God ; if he be Pan, he is a monotheistic Pan, 
somewhat touched by the influence of Christ these last two thousand 
years; and so the New Era stands, half Christ, half Pan. It takes 
its divinity /rortf Pan,5itSjhumanity from Christ. 



426 WITH OUR READERS [June, 

'THE theme of this symbolic poem is liberty and laughter. Every- 
1 thing must be free : 

* ' How can I breathe and laugh 
While there are things in cages ? ' ' 

It finds Christ a " Lonely Man" outside the Church and 
"wants to make Him smile." Joy comes of contact with earth, 
from the " live laughter trickling everywhere." This common ele- 
ment of water has power to wash away the conventional, the un- 
natural and effect the rebirth to natural love, the true miracle of life. 
The sinless animal outranks the sinful man, and is to be reverenced 
with the children. 

" 'Tis some white creature 
Seeking her whiter lamb." 

The suffering of Veronica, the Mother-love, touches the heart of 
Nature, and hence the heart of the Piper, and from her and the Cru- 
cified he learns to bow, to pardon, and to sacrifice. Here the theme 
rings true. Christ triumphs over Pan and bids him lead back the 
children from the paradise of delight a fool's paradise, after all, 
where joy vanished with the rainbow, and nightmares returned with 
the dark to life as it is and make it better, to faulty mothers, who 
are still mothers, to sinful fathers who still have their claim, to the 
battle of good with ill, and the joy found in duty. Here the Piper 
leaves them. They have learned their lesson. Perhaps the Piper 
has learned his too. He must go elsewhere 

" There's so much piping left to do." 



THE old legend of the Piper as recorded in the tablet of Hamlin 
and told by Browning stands for the universal truth that every 
man, who in heart and act fails to ratify the promise of his lips made 
either to God or man, pays a penalty to justice. In her elaborated, 
modernized version Mrs. Preston Peabody marks this universal 
truth by presenting it against a background of prejudice. Injustice, 
selfishness and greed appear less as individual sin, than the result- 
ant of external worship. A system is condemned rather than a sin- 
ner for the grievous fact that men may bow their knees before God 
with hearts hard toward their fellow men. She pleads for a liberty 
that protests against dogma, a laughter which cannot face death, a 
love which calls all fear " craven." 

The Medieval Church, the Catholic Church, is the symbol of 
externalism, formalism and superstition "Turn, turn there's 
nothing in it." Intercessory prayer is dubbed superstition by an 
age which buries its dead out of call and knocks on wood ! Religion 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 427 

" preaches, " Nature " pipes. " All prayer is belittled; the people 
return from Mass stiffened; " it does no good at all " "let it be 
singing " ; prayers are mumbled " ; the world's great body of song, 
and greatest literature of praise the Psalms are "droned" or 
"whined." " Eternal psalms and endless cruelties." The priest 
is a stick who voices the dead letter of the law a * ' grave-maker ' ' 
who would speed the passing soul not " drag her back to sorrow." 
The Church teaches only death, judgment, hell, salvation worked 
out in fear and trembling : 

" That daily fear 

They call their faith, is made of blasphemies 
That would put out the Sun and Moon and Stars, 
Early, for some last judgment ! " 

The] Church's purpose in life is to cage bodily, spiritually, 
spiritually by her doctrine, bodily in convents. 

" A maiden shut away 

Out of the light. To cage her there for life ; 
Cut off her hair ; pretend that she is dead. 

' * Youth to the grave 

And all the cast-a-ways that Holy Church 
Must put in cages, cages to the end." 

Vicarious suffering is travestied by this maiden to be caged. 
" A penance for them all. She weeps but she must go." The pro- 
cession moves to the strains of the Dies Irae. Lo ! the Piper sounds 
the dance- spell ! the new era will not tolerate this sacrifice of life, 
this caged existence, this pretense ; with the dance-spell the love of 
the open, the honest, breaks in upon the bewildered religious and 
they are swept away by it like leaves before the wind. 
* * # 

IT is the old shop-worn superficial lie. The world must have its 
scapegoat ; the Piper must have his foil, and the Church has 
long played the part. 

It is small matter that in her liturgj she calls upon " all the 
earth," " sun and moon," " young men and maidens " to praise and 
sing to the Lord ; that her son Francis who died in the century of 
this story was the greatest lover of God's creation, as well as the 
greatest ascetic ; that the true spirit and product of the Medieval 
Church may be read by all in Gardner's St. Catherine, I/ewis* St. 
leresa, Thompson's St. Ignatius ; that she has reared men and wo- 
men who not only lived joyously, but suffered and died joyously ! 
She too takes tribute from nature, but in the name of the Triune 
God, as the outward sign of His inward grace ; in her arms men are 



428 WITH OUR READERS [June, 

" born again of water and the Holy Ghost " ; with the golden grain 
and the blood-red grape she sets the marriage feast of the soul with 
Christ, but it is transubstantiation, it is the insistence upon the Holy 
Ghost which differentiates her from the Piper. For her there is no 
pantheistic God-abiding power in the water alone. Yea, God is 
everywhere, but ever above and distinct from His creatures, giving 
all things, blessing all things unto their use and His glory. 
* * * 

THE Church stands for proportion, for reality. She balances the 
reality of the material with the reality of the spiritual, her mis- 
sion is Christ's, to weld together the human and divine; she faces 
winter as well as summer, death and birth, sin and innocence, sor- 
row and joy. She points to the Crucified Christ as the answer to the 
riddle of life. She sees on Calvary Divine Wisdom as well as Divine 
lyOve ; she sees the penalty of sin lifted up and redemption won, 
hardship become light, sorrow turned to joy, labor to love. 

Outside her, men may deny matter to affirm spirit, or deny spirit 
to glorify matter. Onesidedness, intellectual monomania is the trade 
mark of heterodoxy. In bold and picturesque contrast M. Chester- 
ton describes the Church as a great boulder poised with such nicety, 
so balanced in her excrescences that she is never overturned. This 
solidity, this 'poise, this balance of orthodoxy are at once the most 
realistic and idealistic of facts, incomprehensible to an age when 
thought is so fluid it takes the form of every passing moment, and 
faith, like a cameleon, suits its color to every mind it rests upon. 



TTONESTY is at a premium in the literary world of to-day; at 
JL1 least in that portion of it which is infected with the anti-relig- 
ious and the anti-clerical fever. Dishonesty has often at its com- 
mand such cleverness, such subtlety, that it seems to deceive even 
the elect. A book will be put forth with all the ostensible marks of 
respectability yet in reality its soul is an agent of indecency and of 
falsehood. So cleverly is the trick done that the unsuspecting 
reader accepts the book as a commendable work, and unless enlight- 
ened by some more far-seeing reader passes it on to another with 
words of praise. 

* * * 

IN those exciting melodramas that we used to enjoy in our younger 
days, there was no one whom we hated more intensely than the 
well-bred villain who was apparently a thorough gentleman, but ac- 
tually a betrayer of souls and bodies. How enthusiastically we 
hissed him ; how we gloated over his downfall ! This well-defined 
sense of right and wrong ; this enthusiastic love of good and pas- 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 429 

sionate detestation of all that savors of evil are most valuable assets 
all through life. In the drama of life itself presented to us by play- 
wright and novelist the same villain would receive the same summary 
treatment, only that clever writing and literary grace so often make 
the villain the hero; and we find ourselves applauding him whom, 
were we to know him as he is, we would detest. 

* * * 

IN a book lately translated from the French and entitled : Marie 
Clare there is presented to us the story of convent life. The 
villain, which is the book itself, says that he will tell us a true story. 
The book is advertised as a work of genius. The praises of many 
critics accompany it. Chapter after chapter unfolds itself with the 
seemingly single purpose of picturing convent scenes just as they 
are. The story is very human, told with the simplicity and the art- 
lessness of genius. Now and then an appreciative word for the sis- 
ters is inserted, and the book seems to make for itself only the mod- 
est claim of a series of simple, graphic, appealingly human and true 
pictures of the almost uneventful life of one who lived within con- 
vent walls and saw convent life as it is. 

* * 

BUT read a little more closely, dear friends. You will not see a 
word that tells of the faith, the hope and the charity of the re- 
ligious : nothing of the sacramental life ; nothing at all of the super- 
natural. You will see such things as this : that the Sisters of 
Charity spurn as loathsome a crippled deformed child who is in their 
charge ; that the other children who propose a novena for their com- 
rade's cure must carry it out in secret ; that one nun is picked out 
as specially worthy of praise, loving and lovable. It is all done so 
cleverly, so innocently. There is nothing of the baldness with which 
we must show it here. Between this dreamy and moody nun and the 
cure* occurs the denouement usually presented in books of the Maria 
Monk, 7 he Confessions of a Nun or 7 he Secrets of the Confessional for 
Men Only type ; but in no vulgar, repulsive way. No, indeed. Did 
we not say that the villain was silver-tongued and respectable and 
well-bred and never discourteous ? Such is a book of which we have 
been asked to speak and on which we have thought it well to speak 
for we know that some have been deceived by its righteous preten- 
sions. 

* * . ,-. v * 

rail appearances it is the story of a childhood and a girlhood 
spent innocently, first in the convent school and then at work 
on a farm. In reality, it is the story of immorality. It is an unfair, 
insidious attack upon an order of pure, consecrated women. In loy- 
alty to truth, in loyalty ^to the [millions of heroic women, faithful 



430 WITH OUR READERS [June, 

beyond words in their single-hearted service for God and humanity, 
Catholics cannot but passionately resent such a cruel and unjustifia- 
ble attack. ^ 

IN a letter to the London Tablet Father Vincent McNabb. O.P., 
says that if Francis Thompson had been properly taken care of 
he would not have written "The Hound of Heaven. " All we can 
say in answer is, O felix culpa ! 



IF any one wishes to know how in the eyes of an undergraduate 
this old, tired, and sinful world of ours will glow with heroic 
virtue, let him for his pleasure, if not for his instruction, read an 
article in the May Atlantic Monthly, entitled: "The Two Genera- 
tions/' 

The only connection which the coming generation has with its 
fathers and mothers is one of necessity that of physical birth. 
They (the coming generation) are otherwise double orphans. 
" The rising generation has to work out the problem all alone. 
Pastors, teachers, and parents flutter aimlessly about. " Nay ; the 
lonely orphans are handicapped in having progenitors. "An un- 
pleasantly large proportion of our energy is now drained off in fight- 
ing the fetishes which . . . the older generation passed along 
to us." "The modern parent is hopeless; school discipline is al- 
most nominal ; church discipline practically nil." But let no one 
worry ; out of the ashes of the past the new generation is arising 
undaunted, vigorous, greater than has been. They will have 
learned social virtues better than their forbears ; they will be seri- 
ous ; sober ; without envy ; independent ; with expansive outlook ; 
thoughtfully considerate of their avocations ; spiritually sensitive ; 
not mercenary ; laudably ambitious ; with reserves of ability and 
effort ; facing difficulties, greater than had their predecessors, with 
silent and almost Spartan heroism ; with a broader horizon ; passion- 
ate for information ; truthful and frank ; facing any and every issue, 
with positive faith, in striking contrast with : " The nerveless nega- 
tions of the elder generation," doing commonly the things done fifty 
years ago only by rare and heroic souls, like Kingsley, Ruskin, and 
Maurice ; having a religion based on social ideals, refusing to deify 
sacrifice and suffering ; possessed with entire faith in themselves. 

Yes ; a paper embodying all this appears in the Atlantic Month- 
ly. The Atlantic calls it "suggestive." It is eminently so. The 
writer's professor (Columbia University) sent it because he " was 
struck by the force and sincerity of the argument." 

Are not these circumstances and the paper itself an instructive 
commentary on the " education " of the day ? 



19 ii.] BOOKS RECEIVED 431 

A PAMPHLET entitled : " Socialism in the Schools, " by Bird S. 
Coler, is worthy of thoughtful reading by everyone who has 
the interests of his country at heart. The title tells of what the 
pamphlet treats. It might advantageously be lengthened by exam- 
ple and reference, but it repeats a .call that ought not to be disre- 
garded. Mr. Coler pleads for the necessity of religious instruction 
in our present system of public instruction. He asks how it can 
practically be arranged, and answers : 

The State can take supervision of all schools public and private, 
insist upon character and competence in the instructors, and then pay each 
school upon a. pet capita basis for the secular education furnished. . . . 
The situation as it stands now is that the Socialistic minority controls the 
system of public education, and the Roman Catholic Church has made a 
stand and is doing its own educational work, and is demanding that either 
taxation for school purposes cease as regards Roman Catholics, or that the 
Catholic schools be paid for the secular instruction they give. The Protest- 
ant churches are beginning to awaken to what it all means, and truly it is 
high time that they ceased to surrender the faith of their Children to the 
Socialistic demands of a godless school. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York : 

The Chief Ideas of the Baltimore Catechism. By John E. Mullett. A Conversion and a 
Vocation. By Sophia Ryder. 90 cents net. A Medieval Mystic. By Dom Vincent 
Scully, C.R.S. 75 cents. The Children's Charter. By Mother Mary Loyola. 65 
cents net. Early First Communion. By F. M. de Zulueta, S.J. 50 cents net. The 
Ten Commandments. By Sisters of Notre Dame. 10 cents net. The Juniors of St. 
Bede's. By Rev. Thomas Bryson. 85 cents. Doctrine Explanations. Part I. By 
Sisters of Notre Dame. 10 cents net. An Awkward Predicament. A Comedy in Three 
Acts. By Madame Cecelia. Writ in Remembrance. By Miriam Nesbitt. 45 cents 
net. Hero Haunted. By David Beare, S.J. A Soggarth's Last Verses. By Matthew 
Russell. 50 cents. 
THE MACMILLAN Co., New York : 

The Income Tax. By Edward R. Seligman $3.50 net. The Ladies' Battle. By Molly 

Elliot Seawell. $i net. 
FREDRICK PUSTET & Co , New York: 

Ecclesiastical Chants. In accordance with the The Vatican Edition. By Dom Dominick 
Johner, O.S.B. 35 cents net. The Eucharistic Liturgy. In The Roman Rite. By 
Rev. E. S. Berry. 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, New York: 

City Bibliography for Greater New York. By Reynolds. 
D. APPLETON & Co., New York: 

The Training of Children in Religion. By George Hodges. $1.50 net. 
R. FENNO & Co., New York: 

Sir John Hawkwood. By Marion Polk Angellotti. $1.20 net. 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, New York : 

socialism : A Critical Analysis. By O. D. Shelton, Ph.D. $i net. The Cintessa's Sister. 

By Gardner Teall. $1.20. 
CHRISTIAN PRISS ASSOCIATION, New York: 

Religious Questions of the Day. By Right Rev. Alexander MacDonald, D.D. $i 

net. Meditations on the Blessed Virgin. By Francis Gabuin, S.J. $i net. 
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York: 

The Second Spring. A Sermon. By John Henry Newman, D.D. Edited by F. P. 
Donnelly, S.J. 50 cents net. The History of Trade Unionism. By Sydney and 
Beatrice Webb. New Edition. $2.60 net. 



432 BOOKS RECEIVED [June 1911.] 

A. C. McCLURG & Co., New York: 

From Rough Rider to President. By Dr. Max Kullnick. Translated from the Original 

German by Fredrick von Reithdorf, Ph.D. $1.50 net. 
GlNN & Co., New York: 

Education as Growth or the Culture of Character. By L. H. Jones, A.M. $1.25 net. 

Latin for Beginners. By Benjamin L. D'Ooge, Ph.D. $i net. 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York: 

Love and Marriage. By Ellen Key. $1.50 net. 
JOSEPH F. WAGNER, New York: 

Marriage and Parenthood. By Rev. Thomas Gerrard. $i net. 

B. W. HUEBSCH, New York: 

Sidelights on Contemporary Socialism. By John Spargo. $i net. 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York: 

The West In the East. By Price Collier. $1.50 net. 
UNITED STATES CATHOLIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY, New York: 

Historical Records and Studies. Vol. IV. Parti. 
JOHN JOSEPH McVEY, Philadelphia : 

Messages of Truth. By Thomas a Kempis Reilly, O.P., S.T.L. 50 cents. 
WHITCOMBE & BARROWS, Boston: 

Studies In Invalid Occupation. By Susan E. Tracy. 
L. C. PAGE & Co., Boston: 

Abroad With the Fletchers. By Jane Felton Sampson. $1.75 net. George Thornton. By 

Norval Richardson. $1.75 net. 
B. HERDER, St. Louis : 

Who Are the Jesuits? By Charles Coppens, S.J. 50 cents net. Jesus the Bread of 
Children. By F. M. de Zulueta, S.J. 35 cents. Leaves from My Diary. By Right 
Rev. Abbot Gasquet, O.S.B. 75 cents net. Elementary Lessons on the Holy Eucharist. 
By Dom Nolle, O.S.B. 45 cents doz. The American Catholic Who's Who. Edited 
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LITTLE BROWN & Co., Boston, Mass, : 

Crime, its Causes and Remedies. By Cesar Lombroso. 45 cents net. 
PITTSBURG CARNEGIE LIBRARY, Pittsburg: 

Books by Catholic Authors. A Classified and Annotated List. 35 cents. 
THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS, Fordham University, New York : 

The Thirteenth .Greatest of Centuries, ad edition. By James J. Walsh, M. D. $3.50 net. 
THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Melbourne: 

Billie. By Marian Agatha. From Darkness to Light. By Emily Buchanan. Pam- 
phlets ; One Penny each. 
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The Purple East. By J. J. Malone, P.P. 3*. 6d. 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, Washington : 

Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, igio. 
KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Topeka, Kan. : 

Seventeenth Biennial Report of the Kansas Stale Board of Agriculture. 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. Bureau of American Ethnology: 
Handbook of American Indian Languages. By Frank Boas. 
GABALDA ET CIE., Paris: 

La Valeur Educative de la Moral Catholique. Par R. P. M. S. Gillet, O.P. 3 fr. 50. 
Les Caisses d' Espaigne. Par. M., F. Lepelletier 2 fr. La Vocation au Secerdoce. Par 
F. J. Hurtaud. tfr. 
PERRIN ET CIE, Paris : 

Souvenirs de Jeunesse 1828-1835. Par Charles Sainte-Foi. 5 fr. 
P. LETHIELLEUX, Paris: 

Vocation Sacerdotale. Par Pierre Bouvier. I fr. L' Action Catholique. Discours 

Prononce's en Divers Congres. Par M. A. Janvier, O.P. 4/r. 
PIERRE TEQUI, Paris: 

Le Salut Assure" par la Devotion & Marie. I fr. Pensies et Maximes du R. P. Ravignan. 
Introduction par Charles Renard. o Jr. 50. Loi d' Exile. Par Edmond Thiriet. 
3/r. 50. La Piete": Le Zele. Par Abbd P. Feige. 3 fr. 50. 
HACHETTE ET CIE., Paris: 

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GABRIEL DUCHKSNE ET CIE., Paris: 

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ALPHONSE PICARD ET FILS, Paris : 

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Lamennais. Introduction de Paul Agnius. $fr. 50. 




THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. JULY, 1911. No. 556. 

THE DARK AGES. 

BY HILAIRE BELLOC. 

5O far we have traced the fortunes of the Roman 
Empire, that is of European civilization and of 
the Catholic Church with which that civiliza- 
tion was identified from the origins both of the 
Church and of the Empire, to the catastrophe 
of the fitth century. We have seen what the measure of that 
catastrophe was. 

There was a gradual decline in the power of central au- 
thority, an increasing use of auxiliary barbarian troops in the 
army upon which Roman society depended, until at last in the 
fifth century, authority, though Roman in every detail of its 
form, was no longer exercised from Rome, but was split up 
into a number of local governments. We have seen that the 
administration of these fell usually to the chief officers of the 
Auxiliary barbarian troops. 

We have seen that there was no considerable infiltration 
of barbarian blood, no " invasions 'Mn our modern sense of 
the term (or rather, no successful ones) no blotting out of 
civilization, still less any introduction of new institutions or 
ideas drawn from barbarism. 

Britain, the strongest example of all, for in Britain the 
catastrophe was most severe, was reconquered for civilization 
and for the Faith by the efforts of St. Augustine, and from 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL XCIII. 28 



434 THE DARK AGES [July, 

the end of the seventh century, that which is in future to be 
called Christendom, and which is nothing more than the Roman 
Empire continuing though transformed, is again reunited. 

What followed was a whole series of generations in which 
the forms of civilization were set and crystalized in a few 
very simple, traditional and easily appreciated types. The 
whole standard of Europe was lowered to the level of its 
fundamentals, as it were. The primary arts upon which we 
depend for our food and drink and raiment and shelter sur- 
vived intact. The secondary arts reposing upon these failed 
and disappeared almost in proportion to their distance from 
fundamental necessities of our race. History became no more 
than a simple chronicle. Letters, in the finer sense, almost 
ceased. Four hundred years more were to pass before Europe 
was to reawaken irom this sort of sleep into which her spirit 
had retreated, and the passage from the full civilizaton of 
Rome through this period of simple and sometimes barbarous 
things, is properly called the Dark Ages. 

It is of great importance for anyone who would compre- 
hend the general story of Europe, to grasp the nature of 
those half-hidden centuries. They may be compared to a 
lake into which the activities of the old world flowed and 
stirred and then were still, and from which in good time the 
activities of the Middle Ages, properly so-called, were again 
to flow. 

Again one may compare the Dark Ages to the leaf- soil of 
a forest. They are formed by the disintegration of an antique 
florescence. They are the bed from which new florescence 
shall spring. 

It is a curious phenomenon to consider: this hibernation, 
or sleep, this rest of the stuff of Europe. It leads one to 
consider the flux and reflux of civilization as something much 
more comparable to a pulse than to a growth. It makes us 
remember that Rhythm which is observed in all forms of 
energy, and doubt the mere progress from simplicity to com- 
plexity which is guessed at and which any one postulates as 
the law of history, but remains a mere hypothesis. 

The contemplation of the Dark Ages affords a powerful 
criticism of that superficial theory of social evolution which 
is among the intellectual plagues of our own generation. 
Much more is the story of Europe like the waking and the 



i9ii.] THE DARK AGES 435 

sleeping of a mature man, than like any indefinite increase in 
the aptitudes and powers of a growing body. 

Though the prime characteristic of the Dark Ages is one 
of recollection, and though they are chiefly marked by this 
note of Europe sinking back into herself, very much more 
must be known of them before we have the truth even in its 
most general form. 

I will put in the form of a category or list the chief 
points which we must bear in mind. 

In the first place, they were a period of intense physical 
strain ; Christendom was beseiged from all around. It was 
held like a stronghold, and in those centuries of struggle its 
institutions were moulded by military necessities so that Chris- 
tendom has ever since had about it the quality of a soldier. 
There was one unending series of attacks from the North, 
from the East and from the West ; attacks not comparable to 
the raids of external hordes eager only to enjoy civilization 
within the Empire, small in number and yet ready to accept 
the faith and customs of Europe. The so-called "Barbarian 
invasions" of the fifth and sixth centuries had been partially 
of this kind. The mighty struggles of the eighth, ninth and 
tenth centuries were a very different matter. Had the mili- 
tary institutions of Europe failed in that struggle, our civili- 
zation would have been wiped out : and indeed at one or two 
critical points in the eighth and ninth centuries all human 
judgment would have decided that Europe was doomed. 

In point of fact, as we shall see in a moment, Europe 
was saved. It was saved by the sword and by the intense 
Christian ideal which nerved the sword arm. But it was only 
just saved. 

The first assault was from Islam. 

This was no mere rush of barbarism. The Mahommedan 
world was as cultured as our own in its origins. It main- 
tained a higher and an increasing culture while ours declined, 
and its conquest, where it conquered us, was the conquest of 
something materially superior for the moment over the re- 
maining arts and traditions of Christian Europe. 

Just at the moment when Britain was finally won back and 
the unity of the West seemed to be recovered (though its life 
had fallen to so much lower a plane), we lost North Africa. 
Immediately afterwards the first Mahommed force crossed the 



436 THE DARK AGES [July, 

Straits of Gibraltar; and in a few months after its landing 
the whole of the Spanish Peninsula, that strong rock as it had 
seemed of ancient Roman culture, the hard Iberian land, crum- 
bled, politically at least, and right up to the Pyrenees, Asia 
had it in its grip. In the mountain valleys alone, and espe- 
cially in the tangle of highlands which occupies the north- 
western corner of the Spanish square, individual communities of 
soldiers held out. From them the gradual reconquest of Spain 
by Christendom was to proceed, but for the moment they were 
crowded and penned like men fighting against a wall. 

Even Gaul was threatened, and a Mahommedan host poured 
up into its centre. Luckily it was defeated ; but Moslem gar- 
risons continued to hold out in the Southern districts, notably 
near the Mediterranean. 

Southern Italy was raided and partly occupied. The islands 
of the Mediterranean fell. 

Against this sudden successful spring which had lopped off 
half of the West, the Dark Ages, and especially the French 
of the Dark Ages, spent a great part of their military energy. 
The knights of northern Spain and the chiefs of the uncon- 
quered valleys recruited their forces perpetually from beyond 
the Pyrenees, and the Valley of the Ebro was the training 
ground of European valor for three hundred years. 

This Mahommedan swoop was the first and the most dis- 
astrously successful of the great assaults. 

Next came the Scandinavian pirates. 

Their descent was a purely barbaric thing, numerous and for 
centuries unexhausted. They harried all the rivers and coasts 
of Britain, of Gaul, and of the Netherlands. They appeared 
in the Southern seas and their efforts seemed indefatigable. 
Britain especially (where the invaders bore the local names of 
"Danes") suffered from a ceaseless pillage, and these new 
enemies had no attraction to the Roman land save loot. They 
merely destroyed. They refused our religion. Had they suc- 
ceeded they would not have mingled with us, but would have 
ended us. 

Both in Northern Gaul and in Britain their chieftains ac- 
quired something of a foothold, but only after the perilous 
moment in which their armies were checked, and they were 
constrained to accept the common religion of the society they 
attacked. 



i9ii.] THE DARK AGES 437 

This critical moment when Europe seemed doomed was the 
last generation of the ninth century. France had been harried 
up to the gates of Paris. Britain was so raided that its last 
independent King, Alfred, was in hiding. 

Both in Britain and in Gaul Christendom triumphed, and 
in the same generation. 

Paris stood a successful seige, and the family which de- 
fended it was destined to become the royal family of all 
France at the inception of the Middle Ages. Alfred of Wessex 
in the same decade recovered South England. In both prov- 
inces of Christendom the situation was saved. The chiefs of 
the pirates were baptized, and though Northern barbarism was 
a material menace for another hundred years, there was no 
further danger of our destruction. 

Finally, less noticed by history but quite as grievous, and 
needing a defence as gallant, was the pagan advance over the 
North German Plain and up the valley of the Danube. 

All the frontier of Christendom upon this line from Augs- 
burg and the Lech to the course of the Elbe and the North 
Sea was but a line of fortresses and continual battlefields. 
The attack was not racial. It was Slav, Pagan German, even 
Mongol. Its character was the advance of the savage against 
the civilized man, and it remained a peril two generations 
longer than the peril which Gaul and Britain had staved off 
from the North. 

This, then, is the first characteristic to be remembered in 
the Dark Ages: the violence of the physical struggle and the 
intense physical effort whereby Europe was saved. 

The second characteristic of the Dark Ages proceeds from 
this: it may be called Feudalism. 

Feudalism is apparent in the laws of, and is the accepted 
theory of society in, the Middle Ages; but its vital origins lie 
in the Dark Ages before them. 

Briefly it was this : the passing of actual government from 
the hands of the old provincial centres of administration into 
the hands of each small local society and its lord, and from 
such a basis the reconstruction of society from below, these 
local lords associating themselves under greater men, and these 
again holding together in great national groups under a national 
overlord. 

In the violence of the struggle through which Christendom 



43* THE DARK AGES [July, 

passed, town and village, valley and castle, had often to de- 
fend itself alone. 

The great Roman landed estates, with their masses of de- 
pendents and slaves, under a lord or owner, had never disap- 
peared. The descendants of these owners formed the fighting 
class of the Dark Ages, and in this new function of theirs, 
perpetually lifted up to be the sole depositories of authority 
in some small imperilled countryside, they grew to be the in- 
dependent units of the State. For the purposes of cohesion, 
that family which possessed most estates in a district, tended 
to become the leader of it. Whole provinces were thus formed 
and grouped, and the vaguer sentiments of a larger unity ex- 
pressed themselves by the election of a family, one of the 
most powerful in every county, who would be the overlord of 
all the other lords great and small. 

Side by side with this growth of local independence, and 
of voluntary local groupings went the transformation of the 
old imperial nominated offices into hereditary and personal 
things. 

A count for instance was originally a "comes" or "com- 
panion " of the Emperor. The word dates from long before 
the break-up of the central authority of Rome. A count was 
an official ; his office was revocable, like other official appoint- 
ments; he was appointed for a season and to a particular 
local goverment. In the Dark Ages the count becomes her- 
editary. He thinks of his government as a possession which 
his son is to have after him. He bases his right to it upon 
the possession of great estates within the area of his govern- 
ment. In a word he comes to think of himself not as an offi- 
cial at all but as a feudal overlord, and all society and the 
remaining shadow of central authority itself agrees with him. 

The second note then of the Dark Ages is the gradual 
transition of Christian society from a number of slave-owning, 
rich, landed proprietors taxed and administrated by a regular 
government, to a society of fighting nobles and their descend- 
ants, organized from a basis of independence in a hierarchy of 
lord and overlord. 

Later an elaborate theory was constructed in order to ra- 
tionalize this living and real thing. It was pretended that the 
King owned all the land, that the great overlords "held" 
their land {of him, the lesser lords holding theirs hereditarily 



i9ii.] THE DARK AGES 439 

of the overlords and so forth. This was legal theory only 
and so far as mens' views of property went, a fiction. The 
reality was what I have described. 

The third characteristic of the Dark Ages was the curious 
fixity of morals, traditions, of the forms of religion, and of all 
that makes up the basis of social life. 

We may presume that civilization originally sprang from a 
soil in which custom was equally permanent. 

We know that in the great civilizations of the East an en- 
during fixity of form is normal. 

But in the general history of Europe during her three 
thousand years, it has been otherwise. There has been a per- 
petual flux in the outward form of things, in architecture, in 
dress, and in the statement of philosophy as well (though not 
in its fundamentals). 

In this mobile surface of European history the Dark Ages 
form a sort of island of changelessness. There is an absence 
of any great heresies in the West, and, save in one or two 
names, an absence of speculation. It was as though men had 
no time for any other activity, but the ceaseless business of 
arms and of the defence of the West. 

Consider the life of Charlemagne who is the central figure 
of those centuries. It is spent almost entirely in the saddle. 
One season finds him upon the Elbe, the next upon the Pyre- 
nees. One Easter he celebrates in Northern Gaul, another in 
Rome. The whole story is one of perpetual marching and of 
blows parrying here, thrusting there, upon all the boundaries 
of isolated and beseiged Christendom. He will attend to 
learning but the ideal of learning is repetitive. An anxious 
and sometimes desperate determination to preserve the mem- 
ory of a great but half-forgotten past is the business of his 
court, which dissolves just before the worst of the Pagan as- 
sault; as it is the business of Alfred who arises a century 
later, just after the worst assault has been finally repelled. 

Religion during these centuries settled and consolidated as 
it were. An enemy would say it petrified, a friend that it 
was enormously strengthened by pressure. But whatever the 
metaphor chosen, the truth indicated will be this : That the 
Catholic Faith became between 600 and 1,000 utterly one 
with Europe. The last vestiges of the antique and Pagan 
civilization of the Mediterranean were absorbed. A habit of 



440 THE DARK AGES [July, 

certitude and of fixity even in the details of thought was 
formed in the European mind. 

It is to be noted in this connection that geographically 
the centre of things had somewhat shifted. With the loss of 
Spain and of Northern Africa, the Mahommedan raiding of 
Southern Italy and the islands, the Mediterranean was no 
longer a vehicle of western civilization but the frontier of it. 
Rome itself might now be regarded as a frontier town. The 
eruption of the barbarians from the East had singularly cut 
off the Latin West from Constantinople and all the high cul- 
ture of its Empire, and the centre of that which resisted in 
the West, in geographical nucleus of the island of Christen- 
dom, which was beseiged all around, was Gaul, and in par- 
ticular Northern Gaul. Northern Italy, the Germanies, the 
Pyrenees and the upper valley of the Ebro were essentially 
the marches of Gaul. Gaul was to preserve all that could be 
preserved of the material side of Europe, and also of the 
European spirit. And therefore the new world when it arose, 
with its Gothic Architecture, its Parliaments, its Universities, 
and, in general/ its spring of the Middle Ages was to be a 
Gallic thing. 

The fourth characteristic of the Dark Ages was a mater- 
ial one and was that which would strike our eyes most im- 
mediately if we could transfer ourselves in time, and enjoy a 
physical impression of that world. This characteristic derived 
from what I have just been saying. It was the material coun- 
terpart of the moral immobility or steadfastness of the time; 
and it was that the external forms of things stood quite un- 
changed. The semi-circular arch, the short stout pillar, oc- 
casionally but rarely, the dome, these were everywhere the 
mark of architecture. There was no change nor any attempt at 
change. The arts were saved but not increased, and the whole 
of the work that men did with their hands stood fast in mere 
tradition. No new town arises. If one is mentioned for the 
first time in the Dark Ages whether in Britain or in Gaul, 
one may fairly presume a Roman origin of it, though there be 
no actual mention of it handed down from Roman times. 

No new roads were laid. The old Roman military system 
of highways was kept up and repaired, though kept up and 
repaired with a declining vigor. The wheel of European life 
had settled to one rate of turning. 



THE DARK AGES 441 

Not only were all these forms enduring, they were also few 
and simple. One type of public building and of church, one 
type of writing, everywhere recognizable, one type of agricul- 
ture, with very few products to differentiate it, alone remained. 

The fifth characteristic of the Dark Ages is that which has 
most engrossed, puzzled and warped the judgment of non- 
Catholic historians when they have attempted a conspectus of 
European development; it was the segregation, the homogene- 
ity of and the dominance of clerical organization. The hier- 
archy of the Church, its unity and its sense of discipline was 
the chief civil institution and the chief binding force of the 
times. Side by side with it went the establishment of the 
monastic institution which everywhere took on a separate life 
of its own, preserved the arts and letters, drained the marshes 
and cleared the forests, and formed the ideal economic unit for 
such a period ; almost the only economic unit in which capital 
could then be accumulated and preserved. The great order of 
St. Benedict formed a framework of living points upon which 
was stretched the moral life of Europe. The vast and in- 
creasing endowments of great and fixed religious houses formed 
the economic fly-wheel of those centuries. They were the 
granary and the storehouse. But for them the fluctuations 
proceeding from raid and from decline would in their violence 
at some point or another have snapped the chain of economic 
tradition and we should have fallen into barbarism. 

Meanwhile the hierarchy as an institution I have already 
called it by a violent metaphor, a civil institution at any rate 
as a political institution, remained absolute above the disintegra- 
tion of the time. 

All natural things were slowly growing unchecked and dis- 
turbing the strict lines of the old centralized governmental 
order which men still remembered. In language Europe was 
a medley of infinitely varying local dialects. Thousands upon 
thousands of local customs were coming to be separate laws 
of every separate village. 

Legend was obscuring fixed history. The tribal basis from 
which we spring was thrusting its instincts into the old strict 
fabric of the state. Status was everywhere replacing contract, 
and habit replacing a reason for things. Above this medley 
the only absolute organization that could be was that of the 
Church. The Papacy was the one center whose shifting could 



442 THE DARK AGES [July. 

not even be imagined. The Latin tongue in the late form in 
which the Church used it was everywhere the same, and every- 
where suited to rituals that differed but slightly from province 
to province when we contrast them with the millioned diversity 
of local habit and speech. 

Whenever a high civilization was to rearise out of the soil 
of the Dark Ages, it was certain first to show a full organization 
of the Church under some Pope of exceptional vigor, and next 
to show that Pope or his successors in this tradition at issue with 
new civil powers. Whenever central government should rise 
again and in whatever form, a conflict would begin between 
the clerical organization which had so strengthened itself dur- 
ing the Dark Ages and the new kings. 

Now Europe as we know did awake from the long sleep. 
The eleventh century was the moment of its awakening. 
Three great forces the personality of St. Gregory VII., the 
appearance (by a happy accident of cross breeding) of the 
Norman race, finally the Crusades drew out of the darkness 
the enormous vigor of the early Middle Ages. They were to 
produce an intense and active civilization of their own, a 
civilization which was undoubtedly the highest and the best 
our race has known, conformable to the instincts of the Euro- 
peans, fulfilling his nature, giving him that happiness which is 
the end of man. 

As we know, the great experiment after four hundred years 
of high vitality was rising to new heights when it suffered 
shipwreck. 

With that disaster, the disaster of the Reformation, I shall 
deal later in this series. 

In my next article I shall describe the inception of char- 
acter of the Middle Ages, and show what they were before 
our promise in them was ruined. 




THACKERAY. 

BORN JULY Jc?, 1811. 
BY F. M. B. 

Stranger ! I never writ a flattery, 
Nor signed the page that registered a lie. 

Faithful Gold Pen. 

'O happier, more succinct literary epitaph for 
William Makepeace Thackeray could be devised 
than the above lines written by himself. Those 
who knew him best proclaimed them to be a 
complete summing up of his character, his 
writings, his whole life. And at this moment, when we are 
celebrating the centenary of his birth, a few informal pages of 
appreciation put together with no pretension at shedding new 
light on him by one steeped in tradition of Thackeray, may 
not be deemed out of place. 

There is no doubt that the early years of the nineteenth 
century produced an extraordinary number of brilliant men; 
but for all we know our universities to-day may be shaping 
and developing minds just as ingenious, natures just as gener- 
ous why not ? And if among those born in our time, in the 
now rapidly changing order of things, there should prove to 
be a few as strong of purpose, as upright and fearless in 
daily life and as brilliant in achievement as were the giants of 
those earlier days then there is little to be feared for the 
future of the race. 

The illustrious men born in that eventful time; in which 
distinguished list came Thackeray, Dickens, Arthur Hallam, 
Newman, Maurice, Gladstone, Tennyson all possessed the power 
of inspiring others, all led their men. One may not always 
agree with them or with their aims, but it is impossible not 
to admire their straightforward methods; and it is sincerely 
to be hoped that the younger generations will follow their 
bee-line policy which was one that despised all tricks and 
artifices. 

In these days of " quick-lunch " education ; when people 



444 THA CKERA Y [July, 

instead of forming their own opinions, accept them ready- 
made in convenient, cheap, tabloid form, it is accepted by 
some as a recognized fact that Thackeray whose heart was 
as big as his body was a sour cynic who hated all mankind. 
Ignorance of the great classical writers and of the beauties of 
soul which made them great is no sin ; still, those having no 
knowledge should hesitate to teach ; they should at least be 
prevented by the consciousness of their ineptitude from dis- 
seminating the "meanly false." Fortunately, the obscure few 
who venture thus to criticize the illustrious author of whom 
they know nothing, are completely refuted by the illustrious 
many who had the privilege of his intimate friendship. 

As a general rule the every-day friends of a great man 
are the last to discover his greatness, and it is only after his 
death that the extent of his genius is realized. In Thackeray's 
case, however, we know by the testimony of survivors of the 
families with whom he was most intimate, that his associates 
appreciated to the full the vigor of his mind and the scope of 
his understanding; more, they acknowledged his genius and 
proudly proclaimed it in his life-time. If fame did linger 
somewhat in coming to him, it was all the brighter and the 
more lasting when it came. Did he not say once "Grief, 
love, fame, I have had no little of all. I don't mean to take 
the fame for more than it is worth or brag about it with any 
peculiar elation." Simple, humble phrases such as these came 
from his heart and show the man as he truly was; his sar- 
castic flashes came from his brain and show merely the accom- 
plished satirist as he sometimes chose to appear. 

Thackeray had a greater power than perhaps any other 
novelist, certainly than any other English novelist, of seeing 
into the human soul, of diagnosing, analyzing, specifying. 
And he showed his magnanimity by the way in which he 
always sought for the good not the bad, the redeeming not 
the damning. He unconsciously describes himself and his out- 
look and insight when he says : 

There is always a cachet about great men they may be as 
mean as you or I, but they carry their great airs, they speak 
of common life more largely and generously than common 
men do they regard the world with manlier countenance, 
and see its real features more fairly than the timid shufflers 
who only dare to look up at life through blinkers . . . 



19 1 1.] THACKERAY 445 

One of the delights which a great genius with the gift of 
penetrating, psychical insight as well as of graphic description 
is able to afford to the ordinary reader is to express accurately 
and beautifully the thoughts which pass formlessly and in- 
coherently through every mind. Which of us has not felt 
vaguely the following truth, yet which of us could have ex- 
pressed it in such facile vivid words as these? 

What character of what great man is known to you ? You 
can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. In 
common liie don't you often judge and misjudge a man's 
whole conduct, setting out from a wrong impression ? The 
tone of a voice, a word said in ioke, or a trifle in behavior 
the cut of his hair or the tie of his neck-cloth may disfigure 
him in your eyes, or poison him in your good opinion ; or at 
the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend says 
something, reveals something which had previously been a 
secret, which alters all your views about him, and shows that 
he has been acting on quite a different motive to that which 
you fancied you knew. 

It is this keen penetration, this power of revelation that 
appeals to us but what charms us most is his giving us as 
he goes bits of his own candor, generosity and nobility ; giving 
them in such profusion and in such fashion as to make us feel 
we too possess them for which inspiring confidence we love 
him and to love Thackeray at all is to love him with enthu- 
siasm. 

It is singular that anyone of such evident yearning affec- 
tion towards his fellows should ever have been dubbed a 
cynic and Thackeray himself was always pained that this was 
so and never ceased to be distressed by the allegation. To 
his friends towards whom he was the tenderest, most con- 
siderate of beings (and he had, as he himself said a "faculty 
for friendship as well as for enjoyment") he would in the 
midst of some clever humorous letter pause to give serious 
sound advice. And this not from pedagogic interference, but 
because he wished to inspire himself to a "go and do likewise." 
For instance when he said : 

I hope you will be immensely punctual at breakfast and 
dinner, and do all your business of life with cheerfulness and 
briskness, after the example of St. Philip Neri, whom you 



446 THA CKERA Y [July, 

wot of: that is your duty mine is to " pursue my high call- 
ing, " and so I go back to it with a full, grateful heart, and 
say ' ' God bless all :" 

Thackeray wrote this to encourage himself as well as his cor- 
respondent. 

His gaiety and his melancholy were always pretty evenly 
balanced. After writing something particularly pathetic he 
would change his mood and merrily exclaim : 

I don't wonder at poets being selfish, such as Wordsworth 
and Alfred. I have been for five days a poet and have 
thought and remembered nothing else but myself and my 
rhyme and my measure. . . . Would you like me to be- 
come a great ^? Fiddle-de-dee. No more egotisms, Mr. 
M. if you please. 

The softest corner in " Makepeace's " heart was always for 
children; he loved them with a love which drew forth theirs 
in return : 

Children's voices charm me so that they set all my sensi- 
bilities into a quiver. . . . These pretty brats with sweet, 
innocent voices and white robes, sing quite celestially no, 
not celestially, for I don't believe that it is devotion at all, 
but a high delight out of which one comes, not impurified I 
hope, but with a thankful, pleased gentle state of mind. 

In fact, his greatest love and devotion were centred in his 
own children, [his two little girls, left so early without a 
mother's care. It was when these were too young to be the 
delightful companions they afterwards became to him, that he 
wrote: "A lonely man I am in life; my business is to joke 
and jeer," and at that same period said to a friend : " My lit- 
tie girls stare when they see me laugh and talk. I never do 
so at home," words which reveal the suffering of one who 
went about the world forcing himself to be cheerful that he 
might relieve the sadness of others. 

He liked to tell of kindnesses received in fact, Thackeray 
was full of what would perhaps now be called old-fashioned 
courtesies. And when he says " Forster's (Dickens' Forster, 
who had just written a panegyric on him) Article in the Ex- 
aminer did not please me so much as his genuine good nature 



.] THACKERAY 447 

in insisting upon walking with Annie (his daughter) at night 
and holding an umbrella over her in the pouring rain/' it is 
in purest gratitude and because he had no underbred reti- 
cences. 

In fact Thackeray was so generous himself that if people 
were generous to him he hastened to tell of it : 

Big Higgins, who dined with me yesterday, offered me, 
what do you think? "If," says he, "you are tired and 
want to lie fallow for a year, come to me for the money. I 
have much more than I want." Wasn't it kind? I like to 
hear and tell of kind things. 

Was this snobbish or cynical ? 

This open-hearted frankness he applied to everything. His 
loftiness of soul enabling him to see, to admire, to proclaim 
the cleverness of others. Narrating a "good thing" he had 
heard, he said : 

The man was speaking of a stupid place at the seaside 
Sandwich, I think when somebody said : " Can't you have 
any fun there ? " " Oh, yes," replied Corry, " but you must 
take it with you." A nice speech, I think, and one indica- 
ting a gay, cheerful heart. I intend to try after that. 

A sentiment which again reveals his determination to promote 
brightness and joy. This Corry was the late Montagu Corry, 
Lord Beaconsfield's friend and confidant, who was afterwards 
created Baron Rowton. 

He did not particularly like Catholics. He had the fashion 
and the tradition of his time with him; he laughed and he 
mocked but he did not insult them. The penetrating eye 
and honest judgment of Thackeray could perceive the gracious 
affability of priests without setting it down to duplicity and 
deep design. The wild fantastic humor of that time and par- 
ticularly our brilliant author's kindly wit was essentially dif- 
erent from the bilious animosity of the Joseph Hockings of 
to-day. 

And, too, beneath Thackeray's lightness of expression 
which, by the way, he used on all, not on Catholics only, 
using it solely to amuse and interest was a deep, " respect- 
ful" feeling, It is sure that he helped many Catholics, and 



448 THA CKERA Y [ July, 

was fond of nuns; and if he gave a light account of a pro- 
cession, we know he took off his hat as it passed by. 

It is possible, too, that there was hope in its efficacy as 
well as a certain trustfulness in his request to the Rev. W. H. 

Brookfield, when he said: 

I have passed the day writing and trying to alter Penden- 
nis, who is, without any manner of doubt, awfully stupid; 
the very best passages, which pleased the author only last 
week, looking hideously dull by the dull fog of this city. I 
pray, I pray that it may be the weather. Will you say 
something for it at church next Sunday ? 

Another time advising that same gentleman to take the 
waters at some German Spa, he says : " Do go, my dear fel- 
low; and I will vow a candle to honest Home's chapel if you 
are cured. Did the Vienna beer, in which I drank your 
health, not do you any good ? " Home was a curate, one of 
the early high-churchmen (he afterwards became a Catholic), 
and Thackeray's ingenuous assumption that candles are offered 
to chapels is certainly quaint. 

All his letters are delightful in their unpretentiousness ; in 
them he wells forth his soul like a bird that must sing. He 
says: "You see I am writing to you as if I were talking." 
With sweet simplicity he asks, " is it ' relieved' or 'releived'?" 
as though he were some ordinary, ungifted person ; and like a 
careless, charming school-boy, heads many after the fashion 
of "Monday 1847." 

In them he loved to record any oddness he came across 
in the way of ecclesiastical expression or architecture. Church 
questions did not interest him much ; he was no controversial- 
ist at all; and his only long talk on the burning questions of 
the day was probably his all night sitting with Brookfield when 
the news came that Newman had joined the Church. 

On one occasion after a visit to Blenheim, he wrote to 
Mrs. Brookfield : " What you would have liked best at Blenheim 
was the chapel dedicated to God and the Duke of Marlbor- 
ough. The monument to the latter occupies the whole place 
almost, so that the former is quite secondary," and presently, 
again he wrote : 

After Blenheim I went to Magdalen Chapel to a High 
Mass there. O cherubim and seraphim, how you would have 



i9i i.] THACKERAY 449 

liked it ! The chapel is the most sumptuous edifice, carved 
and frittered all over like the lace of a lady's boudoir. The 
windows are fitted with saints, painted on a gray color, real 
Catholic saints, male and female, I mean, so that I wondered 
how they got there. 

And so he made the distinction; he did not imagine he 
belonged to the mysterious Catholic Church "of the Angli- 
cans/ 1 in spite of his vowing a candle to Home's chapel. 

Of Dickens, whose acquaintance with fame was earlier than 
his own he was ever appreciative. Privately or publicly he 
would proclaim his admiration for him. In speaking of those 
dead giants the English Humorists he did not forget gracefully 
to include that living one : did he not say ? "I think of those 
past authors and one who lives amongst us now, and am 
grateful for the innocent laughter and the sweet unsullied 
page which the author of David Copperfield gives to my chil- 
dren." 

He followed all Dickens' work with keenest interest read- 
ing his books with avidity as they came out. "Get David 
Copperfield. By George ! it's beautiful it beats the yellow 
chap of this month hollow." Or he would cry "Have you 
read Dickens? O! It is charming! Brave Dickens, it has 
some of his very prettiest touches those inimitable Dickens 
touches which make such a great man of him ; and the read- 
ing of the book has done another author a great deal of 
good." 

Here we get true self-abnegation and fine humility. Thack- 
eray thought, too, the death of Paul Dombey " the most beau- 
tiful thing ever written," but he did gently imply that Dick- 
ens style might be improved when he said to Mrs. Brookfield : 

In the first place it pleases the other author to see that 
Dickens, who has long left off alluding to the A's works, has 
been copying the O. A. and greatly simplifying his style, and 
overcoming the use of fine words. By this the public will be 
the gainer and David Copperfield will be improved by taking 
a lesson from Vanity Fair. Secondly it has put me on my 
metal . . . and made me feel I must do something : that 
I have fame and name and family to support. 

There is probably more of Thackeray's self in the English 
VOL. xcin. 29 



450 THA CKERA Y [July, 

Humorists than in any other piece of his work. But to get at 
him, to see the indignation flash from his eye, to hear the 
angry candor in his voice, read his Georges. 

What critical scathing revelation is the whole thing! Thack- 
eray may have hated the Pretender whom the Georges kept 
away, but his sublime exposure of those who came and ruled 
in his place shows, in spite of an occasional effort at praise, 
what he really thought of those new lords for England. 

Nothing but the most splendid honesty could have made 
him paint that awful scene of George I's arrival in England: 

I protest it is a wonderful satirical picture. I am a citizen 
waiting at Greenwich pier, say, and crying hurrah for King 
George ; and yet I can scarcely keep my countenance or help 
laughing at the enormous absurdity of this advent ! 

Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of 
Canterbury prostrating himself to the Head of his Church 
with Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, with their raddled 
cheeks grinning behind the Defender of the Faith. Here is 
my lyord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatest 
warrior of all times; he who betrayed King William be- 
trayed King James II betrayed Queen Anne betrayed Eng- 
land to the French, the Elector to the Pretender, the Preten- 
der to the Elector ; and here are my Lords Oxford and Boling- 
broke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the 
former ; and if a month's more time had been allowed him, 
would have had King James at Westminster. 

Rarely in speaking of the coming of the Hanoverian Kings 
whom he owns were very far-away heirs indeed does he 
lose his indignation, his anger at them his one solace being 
that they kept away the Pretender. And this he has, every 
now and then, to assure himself was good in them ; never 
otherwise could he have continued to paint his Wertz like 
pictures of the Georges' Courts and the Georges' retainers. 
" Wandering through that City of the Dead, that dreadfully 
selfish time, through those godless intrigues and feasts, push- 
ing and eager and struggling rouged and lying and fawning 
I have wanted someone to be friends with." 

Thackeray's absolute truthfulness compels him, in spite of 
his Church-of-England sympathies, thus to comment on the 
insistence by the Georges of the Protestant religion for Eng- 



i9i i.] THACKERAY 451 

land, and on other of their baleful impositions: "I believe it to 
be by people thinking themselves in the right that nine-tenths 
of the tyranny of this world has been perpetrated." 

Although he was unaffectedly gratified by the spontaneous 
and cordial appreciation of his friends, he never realized the 
full extent of his popularity even with strangers. In a letter 
to Mrs. Brookfield, he says: "I believe I never do think 
about my public character and certainly didn't see the gyp, 
waiters and under-graduates whispering in Hall as your Wil- 
liam did, or thought he did." 

Although his works were so varied and he himself so ver- 
satile, it was, of course, by his marvelous illuminating novels 
he did his teaching. But Thackeray himself would be more 
surprised than any one to find the classic form of the novel 
the hero and villain, the rescued maiden, the triumph of good 
which he affirmed would last for ever already regarded as 
it is to day, as rococo, and the shapeless so-called "Page of 
Real Life " with vicious or weak heroes, peccant heroines and 
high-minded villains acclaimed as a thing of beauty. 

The only concession from the recognized model that Thack- 
eray was prepared to make was, characteristically the elimi- 
nation of the villainous element: 

" I must tell you," he says, " that a story is biling up in 
my interior, in which there shall appear some very good, lofty 
and generous people; perhaps a story without any villains in 
it would be good, wouldn't it?" 

To Thackeray belongs the credit of proving that a man 
could live by his pen, could earn his bread by writing for 
papers and magazines and yet retain his social position and 
lead a regulated life. Before his day the literary calling was 
looked on as absolutely and essentially Bohemian involving 
fondness for the bottle, servility to * Patrons/ carelessness as 
to toilet and general lawlessness. Some of his intimate friends 
remonstrated with him when he proposed to adopt the profes- 
sion of authorship, pointing out the social drawbacks and 
moral temptations of such a career. But Thackeray had an 
exceptionally high standard of refinement which was never in 
the least degree affected by the laxer views of the litterati 
with whom he sometimes had occasion to rub shoulders. He 
shows plainly his opinion of the old-fashioned hard-drinking 
race of geniuses who had preceded him in the brief but 



45 2 THACKERAY [July, 

graphic sentence: "Fielding and Steele who hiccoughed 
Church and State with fervor." 

However, it was a rarer quality even than his largeness of 
heart to which earlier allusion has been made and his pure- 
ness of thought that piloted him through the straits of his 
early struggles, which made Thackeray shine forth so remark- 
ably even from the brilliant constellation in which he was 
placed. The fact is, Thackeray was filled to a remarkable de- 
gree with that moral courage, that independence of spirit, that 
determination to attack tyranny and injustice, coute que coutc, 
to extol right and trample on wrong, however much his own 
interests might suffer, which we associate with the chivalrous 
St. George, It was his hatred of meanness and cruelty and 
oppression, certainly no enjoyment that he took in the chastise- 
ment, which led Thackeray to lash those vices so mercilessly 
as he did. He had a keen eye for all that is vile because he 
had an appreciative eye for all that is noble; he felt that the 
one was a reproach, an insult to the other. It was his sense 
of beauty which gave him the complementary sense which he 
described to a friend as "a sense of the ugly, of the out of 
joint, of the meanly false, the despicably wicked." And when 
he got on the trail of such quarry as these he would lower 
his vizor, poise his lance, set spurs to his charger and, like 
the St. George of the camp-fire legend, gallop forward to slay 
the Dragon. " I lay them bare," he avowed, " under all dis- 
guises I hunt them to death." 

His aspirations, his acts, his ambitions were all pure. He 
had a " good-will " towards everybody and the most single- 
minded of aims for himself. Genially he went about the world 
studying mankind; he loved what he learnt of them, he 
looked on them and he cried "Admirable providence of God 
that creates such an infinitude of men, it makes me very grave 
and full of love and awe." 

A facet of Thackeray's character often turned to the public 
was his interest in the souls of others. If he found people in 
spiritual distress he would send, after trying to cheer them 
himself, a clergyman to comfort them. Of his friend, the 
Rev. W. H. Brookfield, whom once he sent to Hampstead to 
visit Mrs. Crowe when she was in distress, he said to Mrs. 
Brookfield : 



.] THACKERAY 453 

. . . That is a pious and kind soul. I mean his is cal- 
culated to soothe and comfort and appreciate and elevate so to 
speak, out of despair, many a soul that your more tremendous 
vigorous divines would leave on the wayside, where sin, that 
robber, had left them half-killed. I will have a Samaritan 
parson when I fall among thieves. 

You, dear lady, may send for an ascetic, if you like ; what 
is he to find wrong in you ? 

He firmly believed that the immortal soul of man was in 
the keeping of God; he realized that prayer was the logical 
corollary to love; he admired the possession of both gifts by 
Swift of whom he said when contrasting him with Fielding 
and Steele: "his was a reverent and pious spirit, for Swift 
could love and Swift could pray." In fact Thackeray seems 
to have been struggling with religion as so many good men 
of his days were. When he was dangerously ill in 1849 Mrs. 
Brookfield, who had been visiting him, writing to her husband, 
said: 

When I was there he talked of the end, as possibly near at 
hand and said he could look forward without dread to it that 
he felt a great love and charity to all mankind, and though 
there were many things he would wish undone in his life, he 
yet felt a great trust and hope in God's love and mercy, and 
if it was His will, he would go to-morrow and only feel about 
leaving the children unprotected. 

Thackeray beneath his mocking expression undoubtedly 
had a strong sense of religion. The impression left of him 
after studying him closely, after adding all one has always 
known of him to all one could glean from those who knew 
him personally is that this great kind creature who suffered 
when considered a cynic, who hoped there was no harm to be 
found in his clear, clean, satiric wit was a humble soul striving 
after "acceptance." 

One of the most eloquent of the many panegyrics called 
forth in his lifetime was Brimley's when he said of him: "He 
could not have painted Vanity Fait as he has unless Eden had 
been shining brightly in his inner eye. 1 ' 

The following lines prove, as his whole life went to show, 
that his great heart was filled to the brim with a vast treasure 
of true Christian spirit: 



454 THACKERAY [July. 

And in the world, as in the school 

I'd say, how fate may change and shift; 
The prize be sometimes with the fool, 

The race not always to the swift. 
The strong may yield, the good may fall. 

The great man be a vulgar clown, 
The knave be lifted over all, 

The kind cast pitilessly down. 

. 

We bow to Heaven that will'd it so, 

That darkly rules the fate of all, 
That sends the respite or the blow, 

That's free to give, or to recall. 

. 

Come wealth or want, come good or ill 
Let young and old accept their part 

And bow before the Awful Will, 
And bear it with an honest heart. 

. 

My song save this is little worth; 

I lay the weary pen aside, 
And wish you health, and love and mirth 

As bids the solemn Christmastide. 
As fits the holy Christmas birth 

Be this, good friends, our carol still 
Be peace on earth, be peace on earth 

To men of gentle will. 




THE MAESTRO'S STORY. 

BY THOMAS B. REILLY. 

|IGNORINO admires the outlook ? Well, it is not 
to be despised. Look yonder across the valley 
where San Marco piles up its pink and lilac 
roofs against the purpling hills. Such lights ! 
What charm ! 

But, a thousand pardons. Signorino had laid aside his 
work and I had meant only to So? Then I shall rest 
awhile till the great heat be over and gone. 

Signorino finds it difficult, I suppose, to command his 
mood always. The past ; it intrudes ? Well, we are none 
of us masters of the heart in that respect. Our wistful eyes 
are forever turned toward the rueful gateway. 

Cure! There is no cure. Only this morning I received a 
letter from a famous singer, an artist, whose voice thrills 
thousands; who has riches, health, a world at his feet yet, 
who, in his unhappiness, asks the same question. In spite o! 
the gifts that fortune has pressed upon him, my Matteo is 
pursued, tortured by memory. 

No; there is no cure. There are only, now and then, 
blessed gaps of forgetfulness. One of us finds an hour's re- 
spite in this task ; another in that. Signorino, for instance, 
is writing a romance. Then he is indeed favored. He can 
retreat at will to an ideal world. 

He thinks such work futile, thankless. I have a wise little 
book that I keep always near at hand. It was written by one 
of your own countrymen. Somewhere therein is the sentence 
" The worst miser is the learned man that will not write." 
And it is so. A thought is gained here; a light there, who 
knows but that from the written page a principle, a standard 
is plucked. What a responsibility this power to enter the 
lives of men and women so intimately, so secretly 1 

But, Signorino will forgive a garrulous old music master 
that chatters away such blessed hours. The mood, perhaps, 



456 THE MAESTRO *s STORY [July, 

has returned ? Eh, Matteo's story! But, I have no skill at 
that sort of thing Why, certainly, if the Signorino wish it. 

One Autumn day, eight or nine years ago, up in the public 
square, we were holding some festival: I forget just what. 
Signorino knows how comforting the broad shadow is that 
lies at afternoon on the west side where the inns and shops 
are? Yes, it is always cool and pleasant there, while across 
the piazza our little church fairly bakes in the sunlight. 

I walked among the merry-makers listening to the laughter, 
the music, the songs. And I said to myself: "They are 
children to-day; they are happy." Then I stood still. I saw 
a face. Oh, the beauty of it ! In the girl's dark eyes slept 
the dreams and lightnings of the South. They were glorious. 
Under the dusk of her oval cheeks were the ebb and flow of 
rich, warm blood the covert red of our race. Her lips, with 
their pout and scorn and pleading, were eloquent beyond 
words. She had the voice of a singer, smooth and soft and 
full of rich depths, incomparable tones. Her dark hair was 
massed gloriously above the clearest of brows. She was mag- 
nificent. 

I was flung back twenty-five years to one Spring day 
when a woman's eyes How blind we are when we so much 
need to see ! 

I inquired who the girl might be. " That ? Oh, that would 
be Concetta, the wood-carver's daughter; Stephano Brigand's 
child." 

At the same table sat Carlo Volpini, a handsome fellow; 
just returned from America; so bold, so aggressive. His dark 
eyes pierced one through and through. Opposite the girl sat 
Matteo, my favorite pupil timid, thoughtful. Carlo stared 
boldly at the girl. Matteo looked at her only at long inter- 
vals. Yet, once, when their glances met, I saw him blush. 
And I knew the truth. Yes, indeed, Signorino, she was worth 
his admiration. I could easily understand how she might stir 
even in his thoughtful soul a tremendous passion; how she 
might sweep by storm his simple heart. 

While I stood looking at the girl, I heard Matteo ask her 
to sing. But Carlo, quickly leaning across the table, whispered 
to her. She looked at him a moment then at Matteo and 
tossing her head declared: "No I will sing." 

Carlo laughed, shook his head and called to the musicians. 



i9i i.] THE MAESTRO' s STORY 457 

Some moments later in a circling crowd, with youth and love- 
liness shining about her, Concetta held us spell-bound with 
the grace and beauty of her dancing. 

I looked at Matteo. His eyes were troubled. Perhaps he 
had a presentment. I was very much puzzled. And I fell 
to wondering what the outcome would be Concetta with such 
beauty; Carlo bold, daring, masterful; Matteo naturally timid 
yet with a great passion tugging at his heart. I saw clearly 
how these three lives were on the brink of some entanglement. 

One morning a week later I was standing over there under 
the plum-trees, when Matteo came running down the path call- 
ing out : 

" Have you heard the news ? " 

I looked at him and shook my head. 

"Carlo has gone; he is off again to America!' 1 

" No ! " I exclaimed. 

''It is true," he replied; and after a pause "It is a 
great blessing." 

I, too, smiled, Signorino it was so frank, so simple. And 
I said: 

" So you have the field to yourself, now." 

He did not smile. He looked at me very steadily for a 
moment, and answered : 

"Her peace, her happiness, her whole life were at stake." 

I was amazed. He was so very serious, so solemn. And I 
said sternly: 

" What do you mean ? " 

" He has told her nothing but lies lies ! He has filled 
her mind with thoughts of riches, position, fine clothes. He 
has made her dissatisfied with her lot here among us. He has 
set her to dream impossible things. But now that he is away 
perhaps " And he stood gazing off over the valley. 

When Matteo had gone, I sat thinking over his words. 
And I said to myself: "Perhaps he is right. But even so, it 
is not too late." 

And then three or four months later it was a beautiful sight, 
the hidden bud straining toward air and sunlight. I was glad 
for both their sakes. I felt certain a dawn was coming when 
the mutual stress would burst forth into the old miracle of 
sweetness, color, and light. I thrilled at sight of them Con- 
cetta and Matteo sitting together at evening on this very 



458 THE MAESTRO' s STORY [July, 

bench looking off over the valley. I knew that there shone 
for them somewhere in these sunsets the fairy land we all of 
us glimpse but once, to lose forever. All the romance that had 
ever been written was beguiling them with hopes and promises. 

It was the following spring when we were much together 
that I noticed a change in Matteo. Sometimes in the height 
of his apparent happiness he would shiver as if a draught of 
cold air had suddenly swept over him. On those occasions 
he would turn to Concetta with inexpressibly sad eyes. She 
would call him by name. It would be a mere whisper; but 
oh, the depth, the strength, the intensity of it ! And she would 
smile up at him. And he would be himself again. 

Oh, yes, I thought of many reasons ; but never of the 
true one. Tell me, Signorino, these premonitions, these in- 
explicable sensings of disasters; these dark hints that flash 
upon the soul in the high tide of contentment what is the 
truth of them? For years they absent themselves, and then, 
suddenly they are upon us as fearsome realities. 

I have only to close my eyes and that fateful October 
morning is before me. We were at Mass. Matteo's voice ris- 
ing high and higher, filled the church with wonderful music. 
Heaven seemed very near. Just ahead of me knelt Concetta. 
Toward the end of the service she became restless, kept turn- 
ing and glancing behind her. I was puzzled, for I saw in her 
eyes the look of some hunted creature. Suddenly I saw her 
grip the chair that was in front of her and shiver. When Father 
Michael had given the blessing she rose and moved swiftly 
forward to where our Lady's statue gleamed in the candle 
light. There, on her knees, with head bowed, she remained 
till the lights had been snuffed and the people gone. A touch 
on my shoulder caused me to start violently. I turned around. 
It was Matteo. His face was pale. He beckoned me to follow 
him. Outside in the piazza he asked huskily: 

" Have you heard the news ? " 

"What news" I demanded. 

" Carlo Volpini has returned." 

" No 1 " 

" It is true. Gino Carlucci saw him raise the curtain at 
the door and look within." 

"Well," said I, "and what of that?" 

He looked at me queerly a moment, and then demanded: 



19 1 1.] THE MAESTRO' s STORY 459 

"But, Concetta? How did she know!" 

The force of his words flashed upon me in an instant. 

" Are you certain that it was Carlo ? " I asked. 

And Matteo said that Gino had sworn it. Just then Con- 
cetta came down the steps of the church. She paused a sec- 
ond, came forward, and said wearily: "I am very tired, Mat- 
teo, take me home." And together they went down the hill 
road. 

I have never heard what passed between them that morn- 
ing; but from that day onward Matteo seemed to rest under 
a strange spell of abstraction. Some burden was on his soul. 
Once or twice I was tempted to speak to him of the things 
that were in my mind, but I could not. 

The next afternoon I met Matteo in the square. We saun- 
tered along talking of this thing and that his studies, his 
music, his ambitions; but not one word of what I was sure 
was uppermost in both our minds. Just where the path turns 
aside from the main road I felt his fingers grip my arm with 
great force. I heard his suppressed cry. There coming up 
the hill road, hand in hand, were Concetta and Carlo Volpini. 

I could feel the gathering strain of Matteo's muscles. It 
seemed an eternity till the two had passed us. Carlo with 
his fine clothes and worldly air smiled and bowed; a mocking 
smile. Concetta like one in a dream did not look at us. Sud- 
denly Matteo let go his grip. A hard light flashed in his 
eyes. I laid hold of him forcibly. 

No, Signorino, neither did I blame him. My own cheeks 
were hot with anger and disgust. When the girl and Carlo 
had gone their way, Matteo turned to me with : 

Tell me, Maestro, what shall I do ; what can I do ? " 

But what could I say ! I could think of only one thing 
and I blurted out : 

" My son, think no more of her ; she loves him." 

He was at me like a tiger. 

" She hates him, I tell you, hates him ! " 

I looked at him sharply, thinking that perhaps the strain 
had abused his reason. He divined my thought and said: 
"Not that, not that! Don't you see; don't you understand; 
it is a spell ! He has haunted her thoughts for months. He 
is hunting her soul to to " 

Well, I never care to dwell on the days that followed. 



460 THE MAESTRO'S STORY [July, 

They were full of foreboding. Something dark and cruel 
seemed working its evil way through their peace and beauty. 
Early one morning while I was still at breakfast Matteo, his 
face very pale, stood in my doorway. My heart leaped with 
dread. I thought of the light that I had seen in his eyes the 
day he let go his hold on my arm. I guessed a dozen horri- 
ble things. And I cried out. 

"What have you done!" 

" Have you not heard ? " 

"Nothing," I answered. 

"They are gone!" 

Well, Signorino can imagine the great burden that was 
lifted from my heart. I made Matteo sit down and take some 
black coffee. And I said to him: 

"Son, think no more of them; they are not worthy this 
anguish." 

"If I could, Maestro, but I cannot." 

And the way he said it, Signorino ! The look in his eyes ! 

Well, four, five months afterward he seemed to be himself 
again outwardly, at least. But Yes, Signorino says true. 
The world had indeed suffered a change. Dawn and dusk 
seemed different. Everything was different. 

It was on the following Sunday when Matteo sang at high 
Mass that I realized what the affair had done for him. It 
was his voice, Signorino. It was unutterably sad. But it was 
very effective. And our church was still as midnight when 
his clear tones full of pleading, sorrow, tenderness rose heav- 
enward through the silence. We were rapt out of ourselves. 

Then, nine or ten months after Concetta's flight, some Ameri- 
cans from the western part of your country heard Matteo 
sing at Vespers. It was the beginning of the end. Toward 
the close of that summer he left us to complete his studies in 
the musical centres of the North. 

He came down here to my garden the day he was leaving. 
We spoke of many things that we had in common ; but it was 
only when he took my hand for the parting that he referred 
to the unfortunate affair that was so much a part of his 
thoughts and life. Just before he turned away he pointed to 
the bench where we are now sitting and said : 

" My heart is all there, Maestro, all there ; nothing else 
matters. I loved her." And he was gone. 



i9i i.] THE MAESTRO'S STORY 461 

A fortnight later startling news flashed through the village. 
Carlo Volpini was dead; killed in a gambling brawl in Naples! 
All the sordid details were laid bare in the journals that 
brought us the story. Concetta? But wait, you shall hear. 

That week we were scourged with deadly heats. Even on 
these heights we gasped for breath. I sat here in the garden 
one night thinking what such weather meant to the sweltering 
thousands on city streets. And I thanked God for His gift 
of the hills. 

Signorino knows how deep the silence is after nightfall. 
That evening it was ominous. The countryside was parched, 
dying. Where stars should be was a luminous mist. An ex- 
pectancy was abroad. As I sat thinking, a puff of air passed 
down through the wilted trees. Suddenly I leaped to my 
feet. A ragged stream of fire tore apart the sky in the west. 
I knew what that meant. Another angry flash and down 
through the darkness came the splitting of ash and the long 
drawn brawl of tumbling thunders. The rain spattered in my 
face before I had reached the house. A few minutes later, the 
winds and the floods of weeks burst upon us. 

I had sat for almost an hour listening to the trumpetings 
and onslaughts of the storm when I thought I heard a knock. 
It seemed incredible that one should be abroad in such stress* 
But at the sound of the second knock I jumped to my feet 
and, drawing the bar, let the door swing back a few inches. 
For a second the whole valley stood revealed to me and with 
it a woman's face. I thought it a trick of the imagination ; 
but at the touch of wet fingers on mine and at the sound of 
a human voice in the darkness, I flung open the door to drag 
her in out of the wild havoc of the night. Yes, Signorino ! 
it was Concetta. The light dazed her. She staggered toward a 
chair, clutched at its back and, looking at me out of her great 
dark eyes, demanded : 

" Matteo, where is Matteo ? " 

" Matteo ? " I repeated. 

She gave me one look ; such a look ! 

" What do you mean ? " she asked hoarsely. 

"Why," said I, "Matteo has left us; he is not here." 

It was thoughtless. I should have known better. 

" Not here" she muttered, " Matteo gone ! " 

She stared straight ahead of her, swayed and then dropped 



462 THE MAESTRO'S STORY [July* 

at my feet. She looked about her as she came to, shivered, 
and began to sob in a pitiful manner. And I said to myself, 
" when grief has spent itself, I will get the whole truth." But 
even as the thought shaped itself in my mind, she leaped to 
her feet, screamed, just once, a wild, hopeless cry that made 
my heart stand still. And, before I had recovered, she had 
flung open the door and rushed headlong into the dark. 

I ran down the pathway calling her name. But there was 
no response. There was nothing to see except the heavy 
masses of the hills, the gray blur of the valley, and overhead 
the misty gleam of a star or two among the storm shreds. 
The rain had ceased. The water dripped mournfully from the 
vines and trees; it gurgled along in the gullies and gutters of 
the garden. I stood in the cool, sweet air thinking of the 
strange thing that had happened. " To-morrow," I said to 
myself, " I will go down to Stephano Brigand's house." Yes, 
Signorino, I went. But the house was closed and shuttered. 
Up on the square I learned that he had been gone nearly a week. 
I searched the neighborhood. I went to San Marco. It was 
useless. No one had seen the girl. No one has seen her 
since. 

Matteo ? Well, he comes home to us each summer. He 
loiters here in my garden by the hour. He sits on the bench 
with me here in the evenings. Somehow he is not the Matteo 
I once knew. Trying to forget ? Perhaps so. Ah, this forget- 
ting ! It is the great penalty, is it not ? For one it is the 
remembrance of perfect music blurred, broken, hushed forever; 
for another a splendid day grown wild with storm, distress 
and darkness ; for all of us the hunger of tired eyes that search 
in vain for silver dawns and evening stars. 

Well, we must each of us keep his own sad tryst. Yes, 
Signorino says true it is the torture by hope that kills. 

Who knows ! Perhaps this very night, fresh from some new 
triumph, Matteo, with bowed head and hungering heart, may 
pass the woman all unknowing in the charitable dusk. 

Look, Signorino there, just above the hill behind San 
Marco. What splendor ! How it hangs in the satin dusk ! 




THE CITY OF THE ARNO 

A FEW MEMORIES. 
BY KATHERINE BR&GY. 

[HERE are no angles, it would seem, in all the 
earthwork of Tuscany. Past rolling curve upon 
curve one travels onward to the little valley of 
the Arno; until at length the Flower City lies 
revealed, rearing aloft that final and majestic 
arc, Brunelleschi's great dome of the cathedral. Sister this, 
and elder sister, be it remembered, to the regnant dome with 
which Michael Angelo crowned the Roman San Pietro that 
queen dome of all Christendom, " more vast but not more 
beautiful," as her maker declared, than the Florentine proto- 
type! 

Blessed and happy are the eyes which look upon Florence 
first by moonlight. Through the quiet streets we wander, 
already conscious, dimly and prophetically, of the curious 
serenity which has settled upon this once turbulent little re- 
public; the hush of age and of art the "perfection of cul- 
ture " as Walter Pater has the phrase, "not rebellion but peace." 
And now, by a sudden happy turn, we are in the Piazza del 
Duomo, facing the great cathedral trilogy. Fair and straight 
and strong before us rises Giotto's exquisite campanile, "the 
lily of Florence blossoming in stone": we shall fall asleep 
to-night, and waken again to-morrow morning, with its bells 
ringing in our ears. Next it stands the old cathedral itself, 
half-spectral with its green and white marbles, the gloom of 
the dome barely distinguishable above the pointed facade. 
And at our left hand, behold, the ancient, low, octagonal pile 
of the Baptistery; silent, full of the ages' secrets! A little 
further on, and we reach a second spacious piazza, that of the 
Most Holy Annunciation. The old, beautiful church of the 
Servites, founded in 1250, is before us; while across from it 
stretches the Hospital of the Innocents, with Lucca della 
Robbia's lovely bambini smiling down from the arches happy 
wraiths of the little foundlings once sheltered within. 



464 THE CITY OF THE ARNO [July, 

There is the music of men's voices, of guitars and mando- 
lins, up and down the streets; the witching lilt of "La Spag- 
nola," the inevitable Neapolitan echo of " Santa Lucia." For 
in Italy the streets are still full of song, as streets should be 
when the Lady Moon holds court! We have wandered on 
and on, to the city's very edge by now; the Arno, star-lit 
and watchful, caresses its ancient banks the Ponte Vecchio 
throws a black, restraining shadow across the flowing path- 
way. And while we lean in revery upon the low stone wall of 
the Lung 'Arno, midnight chimes from Giotto's beacon tower. 

But "a really great landscape needs sunlight and bears 
sunlight," Walter Bagehot insists; and rightly, after all. For 
the City of Flowers has nothing to fear noon but consum- 
mates what night had mysteriously begun. In all her warm 
and immemorial radiance, in all the tragic definiteness of her 
good and evil history, she lies before us, baffling and perfect 
in her own integrity of poise. 

Not otherwise than in the blaze of midday sun may the 
Piazza della Signoria be known. Hot and white it lies, with 
scarcely a shadow falling from the sentinel tower of the old 
Palazzo, scarred by the great bronze cicatrix which marks the 
spot of Savonarola's martyrdom. Here, long ago, throbbed 
the very pulse of Florence. In the upper chambers of that 
grim Palazzo was waged the war of Florentine liberties; this 
was the home of the mighty Signoria; here sat Cosimo and 
Lorenzo de' Medici ; and here, later on, met that Great Coun- 
cil, vowed to freedom and theocracy, which leaped into life at 
the magic words of Fra Girolamo. The square below was 
battle-ground for many a warring faction, and day by day 
both blows and blood fell thick in the cause. 

But Italy, which is still the home of unconscious drama, 
has always been the land of contrast and antithesis il Povcr- 
ello set over against il Magnifico, the austere and meditative 
saint against the gorgeous Renaissance adventurer, the flush 
of wild poppies and the flash of steel 1 Meetly then, at OHC 
side of this Piazza, is placed the stately Corinthian Loggia 
dei Lanzi. Here, back in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies, came the people of Florence at summons of the great 
Palazzo bell, to listen to the decrees of their legislators and 
to hold elections. And here to-day, surrounded by his peers, 



19 it-] THE CITY OF THE ARNO 465 

stands the triumphant Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, facing 
the world with his slain Medusa, while all about him the 
storm and stress are silenced into stone ! 

There is another loggia, the noble Loggia of the Uffizi, 
through which one passes between the Signoria and the Arno. 
It is there one listens to the roll call of the sons of Florence, 
with many a marble lip to speak its eloquent adsum. Cellini 
himself is here, the garrulous tongue silent at last; and next 
him the monk Aretino, inventor of the musical scale. Nearby, 
too, stand Galileo, that " starry amorist, starward gone/ 1 and 
the holy prior St. Antoninus, lover of Florence and of the 
poor Amerigo Vespucci, the statesman Machiavelli and the 
story-teller Boccaccio, Dante and Petrarca, Michael Angelo 
and Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto, Orcagna, and the blithe, ever- 
youthful Donatello. Take from the human comedy this tremen- 
dous dramatis persona, and all history grows poorer, paler for 
the loss ! There is only one world for variety, for signifi- 
cance, for vitality at all comparable to the crowded world of 
this little, mighty city of the Arno : and that is the world of 
Shakespeare's conjuring t 

It was the Lombard queen, Theodoline, who, in the sixth 
century, gave to Florence her own patron, St. John the Bap- 
tist. And ever since has he been saluted as protector of the 
Flower City. Yet it is about the shrine of San Marco that 
the most poignant and arresting memories cling like passion 
flowers. Is it not San Marco which haunts the memory months 
and years after the wistful pilgrim has re-entered his own 
gates? Is it not here that the " spirit of place 1 ' is so concen- 
trated that verily he who runs cannot fail to breathe it in ? 
San Marco belonged first to the Salvestrini monks of Vallom- 
brosa; but at the very beginning of the fifteenth century this 
order was suppressed, church and convent being given by Pope 
Martin V. to the Order of Preachers. Down from Fiesole came 
the little band, habited in the black cowl and white wool of 
St. Dominic; the sainted prior, Antonino, future archbishop 
of Florence, among them, and that Fra Giovanni, whom the 
world remembers as Angelico. It was Cosimo the Elder him- 
self who (by resistless irony !) restored the convent for these 
new possessors; and to day one may visit the little cell re- 
served for his own retreats tiny oasis of peace wherein this 
YOL. xcin. 30 



466 THE CITY OF THE ARNO [July, 

much loved and much hated ruler might turn for converse 
with the saint! His portrait hangs there now, and his own 
leather chair grows a trifle shabbier, a trifle dingier year by 
year; while gazing down from the silent walls, scarcely faded, 
are the Magian Kings whom Fra Giovanni frescoed there with 
sweet and reverent symbolism. 

A handful of Dominicans, one is glad to know, remain to 
serve in the church of San Marco, but the immortal convent 
has been secularized as a museum ! AH vainly now does An- 
gelico's lunette constrain "Silence" upon the pilgrim-guest; 
vainly, too, above the reception door, his travel-stained Christ 
bespeaks "Hospitality." The levelling hand of United Italy 
has done its little best and yet, the soul of San Marco 
has triumphed in a singular immortality. With the abiding, 
controlling strength of an unseen presence it prevails through 
cool corridor and quiet cloister. It claims for its own the 
sunny little court-yard where Savonarola, young and apostolic 
and not yet proud, preached to his novices in the shadow of 
that tree still green with every springtime. It blesses in the 
cell of the gentle Sant' Antonino; it burns in the cell of that 
swift and mighty sword of God, the Abbot Girolamo. Within 
each narrow, fraternal doorway it broods; and its spell has 
conquered the young Italian gendarme who points out, with 
such eager reverence, the tender Angelico frescoes upon these 
walls. 

Here, too, one meets the work of the second artist-monk, 
Fra Bartolommeo, speaking to us through many a lovely Vir- 
gin, and through the one credible and arresting portrait of 
Savonarola himself. This Bartolommeo was the youthful, ter- 
rified Bacchio who clung to Fra Girolamo through all that 
tragic night when San Marco was besieged: who fled away 
from stormy Florence afterward ; only to return later on, 
clothed himself in the habit of his beloved Padre, to bring a 
new and peaceful glory to the desolate convent. 

Less than a century indeed, scarcely more than the span 
of a single generous life separated these gracious Dominican 
painters; true men both of them, true servants of God and of 
their art. Yet in Angelico are bound up the fairest and finest 
dreams of the Middle Age; while upon Bartolommeo is stamped 
the glowing seal of the Renaissance. The separateness is 
there, distinct and indisputable; no rude breach, but the defi- 



i9i i.] THE CITY OF THE ARNO 467 

niteness of a day ended and another day begun. Not only 
Savonarola and Lorenzo lay between them, but the brave, brief 
reign of Masaccio; and that lusty man-child, Florentine art, 
was waxing hour by hour in wisdom and stature, and favor 
with God and man ! Between San Marco and the treasured 
glories of Pitti and Uffizi, how royal a roadway ! And very 
visible, even to-day, are its milestones. Some of them we find 
in the mighty and beautiful Bargello some in the quiet Bran- 
cacci chapel of the Carmine others in the sumptuous gloom 
of Santa Maria Novella. Here, buried among those wondrous 
cloisters, are the storied walls of the Spanish Chapel; and 
half-hidden behind the high altar, the crowded frescoes of 
Orcagna act out their mystery plays ; further back, in the very 
dawn time, one traces the brush-prints of Giotto ! And high 
up in the dim mysteriousness of the Rucellai chapel, watches 
that grave Byzantine Virgin of Cimabue mother of all Floren- 
tine painting, borne once in acclamation through the grateful 
city streets. 

The homes and the tombs of Florence homes of the noble 
dead, tombs of those who live immortally one thinks of them 
coupled and together, with never a breach of past or present ! 
For scarcely in the Eternal City itself does the divine promise 
meet such human and unimagined fulfillment, until in all truth 
the thousand years become as one day. 

How simply and intelligibly is divined the spirit of that 
exquisite, remote devotion, when one wanders first to the 
humble casa where the youthful Dante made his home, and 
then to the splendid palace of the Portinari ! Within those 
strong, gray walls, at a May Day feast, the future poet first 
beheld his child-love, clothed all in her "subdued but noble 
crimson"; within this courtyard was he wont to watch, with 
eager and trembling heart, as that most gracious lady passed 
serenely in and out upon her own concerns. 

" So perfect is the beauty of her face 
That it begets in no wise any sign 
Of envy, but draws round her a clear line 

Of love, and blessed faith, and gentleness. 

Merely the sight of her makes all things bow." * 

The New Life, Translated by D. G. Rossetti. 



468 THE CITY OF THE ARNO [July, 

Thus sang the mystic lover and poet, off in the solitude of 
his own modest chamber; but in the presence of the lady 
Beatrice he was silent enough. He was still weaving the gold 
of her praises into a sonnet form very wistful, very piteous 
when word came that the Lord God of Justice had called that 
elect soul unto Himself. The sun turned dark then for Dante 
Alighieri, the stars fell from Heaven, and all the city became 
solitary which had been full of people. And when the young, 
fair, stricken body of Beatrice Portinari was borne through 
the great portals for burial, not the poet himself could have 
known that from her tomb was to blossom the supreme flower 
of Italian song the epic of medieval Christendom! 

Over in the Casa Buonarotti one may look upon archan- 
gelic practice; now upon the wax model of Michael Angelo's 
mighty David, now upon a half-finished Madonna ; again, 
upon his plans for fortifying Florence during the siege of 
1529, or the first tentative studies for the Sistine Chapel fres- 
coes. And later, over in the cool dignity of Santa Croce, one 
stands in speechless and reverent musing before the giant's 
tomb. Ashes to ashes dust to dust ? Nay, but " divine to the 
Divinity " he passed upon his way ! 

A little while, a little way ; from the Riccardi Palace, grim; 
without, gorgeous within, where the Medici worked and warred, 
to San Lorenzo, where now they sleep, dreaming their marble 
dreams. Rest to them at last, after their day of eager strug- 
gle, and rest to the city they rent and glorified ! For life, in 
all truth, has been a costly thing to Florence, nor have the 
ages trodden gently through her streets. Is it, perchance, the 
memory of all this the poignant and immediate contrast 
which gives the city, to-day, so singular a serenity, so pre- 
vailing and enveloping a sense of peace ? 

Workdays there are, verily, in Florence; yet upon the 
Sunday is she more truly herself. We who come here with 
the eager and quickened sense of the stranger we who speed 
away the poor body at length, while the heart abides, a stub- 
born captive know this full well. And most truly of all is 
she her own gracious self when the feast day falls in that en- 
chanted primavera / 

Shall we not rejoice and be glad upon this day which the 
Lord has so manifestly made, and tread the old streets as 



i9i i.] THE CITY OF THE ARNO 469 

blithely as Botticelli's own pageant of springtime ? From every 
tower of the city the bells are singing, the morning air is fresh 
and still, the street corners sweet already with golden Italian 
roses, as we wander onward to the Duomo. Santa Maria del 
Fiore the Florentines have christened their cathedral (gen- 
tlest of invocations, Our Lady of The Flower!) and the ages 
have matured, not faded, its venerable beauty. The fafade a 
recent glory glistens in the sunlight, the dazzling whiteness 
of its marble (like the whiteness of the soaring campanile) 
tempered by the soft green of Prato and the red of Maremma. 
Everywhere, without, there is exquisite and intricate design- 
that passion for beauty which has been immemorially a part of 
the Florentine character. But when, pushing aside the great 
leather curtain, we enter, the majesty of silence and of space 
are upon us. That passion for strength, which has been equally 
dominant in the Florentine soul, is all about us. We may, 
perhaps, have come from the north, and the sumptuous gloom 
of the Venetian San Marco is in our mind or mayhap from 
the south, from the sunny and gigantic grandeur of St. Peter's 
upon the Vatican hill. But here is naked dignity; walls of 
stone scarcely ornamented, a few dim frescoes, and narrow, 
jewel-like windows (rare in southern Italy), which leave the 
sun "sifted to suit our sight." Beneath the noble dome we 
walk, past the high altar and carven choir-screen ; joining a 
cosmopolitan little group peasants and tourists, women of le 
beau monde beyond the Apennines, Italian girls in their black 
lace veils, and men of many climes gathered in one of the 
side chapels. And kneeling here to assist at the august Sacri- 
fice, offered up by a Tuscan priest very white of hair, very 
black of eye, with face like a cameo, we recall with sweet in- 
sistence the words of Pius IX. : " In St. Peter's man thinks 
in Santa Maria del Fiore man prays." 

But now we are leaving the Duomo; trying, as we pass 
Lucca della Robbia's gentle bas-relief above the Old Sacristy, 
not to remember that terrible Easter morning when Lorenzo 
de' Medici fled through its portal for shelter from his Roman 
assassins. The sunlight streams through the open doorway, 
not boldly but pleadingly just as it may have pleaded to the 
inveterate de Pazzi on that paschal Sunday of 1498 and we 
are in the piazza once more. All is tranquil; men come and 
go, a few dogs doze undisturbed in the square. And the black 



470 THE CITY OF THE ARNO [July, 

brethren of the Misericordia silent, mysterious, enduring as 
the Love they serve are seen returning from some errand of 
mercy to their ancient home nearby. 

The stupendous bronze doors of the Baptistery face us : 
Ghiberti's doors, of which (as Michael Angelo suggested) not 
Peter himself need scorn to bear the keys. We are certain to 
tarry long in study and dream before them ; but at length we 
shall find ourselves within this primitive and mysterious pile, 
from the sixth century until Dante's ewn day cathedral as 
well as Baptistery for all Florence. Here, in the May of 1265 
A, D., the godlike son of the Alighieri was baptized ; and here, 
at the old font huddled close upon an ancient Roman sar- 
cophagus, every Christian babe of Florence is still brought for 
the primal sacrament. Never a shrine more meet ! For in 
this monument of the Lombard Theodoline, beneath the curious 
and symbolic mosaics eloquent of Byzantium, the soul must 
needs travel back, pilgrimwise, to the shadowy beginnings of 
things. In principio erat verbum t et verbum erat apud Deum, et 
Deus erat Verbum / How should the word be other than oc- 
cult and enigmatic and full of strange heiroglyph, this word 
which came from God and yet spoke to the youth of man? 
And much of this strange, mystic breath is upon us here in 
the dim Baptistery (as it is upon us again in Charlemagne's 
cathedral-tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle) speaking through the silence 
of the very seedtime and springtime of Christian Europe! 

It is still the tranquil Sunday; only now the shadows are 
magnified over Florence, and afternoon is come. It were an 
easy, almost an obvious, thing to spend these hours in the 
luxuriant greenness, the enveloping fragrance, of the Boboli 
Gardens where grotto and amphitheatre, carven nymph and 
shaded pergola tell all of the splendid Medici. But more 
solitary, perhaps also more satisfying, is it to drive up slowly 
through the great Viale, past the Hill of Jasmine, toward the 
sumptuous basilica of San Miniato al Monte. 

And by sunset time we will have reached the level radiance 
of the Piazzale, where Michael Angelo's young and regnant 
David holds evermore his arrested sling. Below us in perfect 
panorama lies the Flower City. Not without emotion though 
it be the thousandth time shall we gaze down at that august 
and wondrous vista: the Arno shining beneath its arched 



i9i i.] THE CITY OF THE ARNO 471 

bridges (almost as human eyes are seen to shine in dreamful 
happiness) and every tower, dome and belfry striving to hold 
fast the gold of the sinking sun. There rises the defiant 
Guelph- crowned silhouette of the Palazzo Vecchio there the 
maternal duomo with the virginal campanile at her side the 
pointed white faades of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, 
houses of marble and stucco with the warm red tiling of their 
roofs nearer at hand, the watch-tower of Galileo! And fac- 
ing us, upon the opposite hillside, with many a sentinel Cyprus 
keeping guard over the daughter city, stretches the fairness of 
Fiesole, very ancient yet ever new ! 

Another and greater than we gazed down once over Flor- 
ence. Hungrily, passionately, with a love grown all pain, the 
wanderer leaned from his sheltering Apennine height. It was 
not our Florence he looked upon the potent fairness of to- 
day's flower was still tight in branch and bud ! but to the ex- 
iled Dante it held all of worth this nether world might boast. 
Was it not his home, and onetime home of the blessed Bea- 
trice, a crown for which all the power and the glory of earth 
were cheaply lost ? To fight, to plot, to conjure and to cajole 
for many a weary year seemed but a little price, if only the 
coveted return were won at last. It never was, as all the 
world knows. And in the end, this mightiest of her sons learned 
to ask with that sad wisdom which is born when hope and 
joy are dead whether the sweet stars might not be seen, nor 
the heavenly truth contemplated, otherwhere than in the City 
of the Arno ? 



FLOWERS OF PARADISE. 

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. 



MARY when to God's bowers 
She passed and her Son's rest,1 
She bore a fardel of sweet flowers 
Laid twixt her arms and breast. 

Betwixt her arms and breast's wave, 
Strewn on her sweetest eyes, 

The happy flowers in her still grave 
Lay steeped in Paradise. 

All hidden was her long hair 
With flowers that did befriend 

Her Son from when she did Him bear 
Unto the bitter end. 

The Groundsel and the Bedstraw, 

Likewise the Holy Hay 
Whereon with happy tears and awe 

That night she did Him lay. 

Likewise the Wild Thyme strewed she, 

The sweetest thing of all, 
Pressed to a sweet death blissfully 

Beneath the Body small. 

His clothes she dried on Lavender, 
Meet bloom for bowers divine; 

The Rosemary made sweet to wear 
His linen, clean and fine. 

'Tis long from birth to death-day 
Yea, three and thirty years 

Till in His olive-garden grey 
The Lily wept salt tears. 

The bold Crown Imperial 
Who held her head so high 

Down in the dust her pride let fall 
That saw Him go to die. 



i9i i.] FLOWERS OF PARADISE 473 

(Oh, woe's the Broom that's cast out, 

This with its crackling led 
Base Judas and his rabble rout 

The night He was betrayed !) 

The Speedwell wears His blood yet; 

It stood beside that dame 
Whose towel wiped His blood and sweat; 

Yea, likewise bears her name. 

Anemone and Arum, 
, Vervain, the Holy Root, 
That crept as close as they might come 
Unto the Cross's foot. 

The fuchsia stained with His Blood: 

And many a flower likewise 
Was with that dew of Heaven bedewed 

And marked for Paradise. 

Of Sweet-Briar and White-Thorn 

His royal crown was wove: 
The Holly made His bed forlorn 

Whereon He died for love. 

All these she carries, and as well 

Unto her heavenly bowers, 
The Rose, the Canterbury-Bell 

And all sweet gilliflowers. 

Between her bosom and her arm 

Where lay her sweet Son once, 
The happy flowers lie housed and warm, 

Her own flowers and her Son's. 

Paradise woods are fresh and fair 

And there in millions 
They spring and scent with honey the air, 

Her own flowers and her Son's. 

To Mary Queen be grace so 
That past death's dale and dearth 

Be Paradise woods a-shine, a-blow 
With flowers we loved on earth ! 




THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE. 

BY WALTER ELLIOTT, C.S.P. 

DEICOLUS was an Irish monk, a disciple of 
St. Columbanus. Amidst all his austerities, the 
joy and peace of his soul shone out in his coun- 
tenance. St. Columbanus once said to him : 
"Brother, why art thou always smiling?" He 
answered in simplicity : " Because no one can take my God 
from me." The reader will mark the note of perseverance in 
this holy answer. When we possess God there is one thing 
more to be desired, though only one, to possess Him forever. 
And here begins the mystery, for it is a dogma of Catholic 
faith that our perseverance cannot he known to us with entire 
certainty. 

I. 

Among the Canons of the Council of Trent there is one 
(No. xvi. on Justification) visiting anathema on the claim of 
absolutely certain knowledge of final perseverance, unless it 
be imparted by special divine revelation. Meantime, in a pre- 
vious explanation of this dogma, the Council combines with it 
the obligation of the hope of salvation, which is to be firm and 
courageous, resting upon the divine promises and the actual 
movements of grace shown in good works of both the interior 
and exterior life of a Christian. From this simultaneous con- 
demnation of false assurance and praise of firm and courageous 
confidence, we perceive that it is not so much the feeling as 
the conviction of perseverance that Holy Church would censure. 

Certainty, therefore, of a happy death is not granted ; cer- 
tainty, that is to say, in the Calvinistic sense, absolute and 
forming an essential part of the grace of justification. That 
is an error of the deadliest sort, breeding fanaticism* and par- 
alyzing holy fear of God. But if I cannot know my persever- 
ance certainly enough to presume upon it, yet I can trust it 
surely enough to work out my salvation with courage, yea, 
even if it be to work it out with fear and trembling (Phil. ii. 
12). My salvation is God's joy, His triumph, and His glory. 
That I know with absolute certainty. Furthermore, God's pres- 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 475 

ent graces are one and all introductory to His final ones : 
" He who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto 
the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. i. 6). One of the graces He 
has already granted me is a steady purpose to persevere, and 
that from the highest motive loving trust in His goodness. 
I am now and I continue currently to be conscious of His 
drawing me towards perseverance; and "the gifts and calling 
of God are without repentance " (Rom. xi. 29). If I am for- 
bidden to overtrust my final success, I am none the less for- 
bidden to undertrust the divine purpose finally to save me. 
Midway between the great virtues of faith and love stands 
glorious hope. 

Perseverance is not, therefore, a tormenting mystery: yet 
it is truly the great mystery of life. It causes us to distrust 
ourselves, and, all mystified about ourselves, to become all trust- 
ful of God. The least grain of uncertainty about our eternal 
destiny makes us watchful. We then hold fast by saving re- 
ligious conditions, such as the love of Jesus Christ, fondness 
for prayer, a high routine of the sacraments, a sense of duty 
about good reading and good company: divinely good in 
themselves, these holy things become guarantees of permanent 
divine friendship. All life is strenuous and vigilant in propor- 
tion to our appreciation of the mystery that there must ever 
be a shade of doubt about a happy death; that it is a grace 
separate and apart from all others ; that it is granted for no 
reason that we have anything to do with; anything, at least, 
of a causative or meritorious nature. 

One solution of the difficulty that is offered is that we may 
pray for perseverance, may and must do so; and that the very 
inclination to pray is a dim and distant promise of the mysteri- 
ous grace itself. And it is added that prayer for perseverance 
will be answered as inevitably as prayer for any other spiritual 
need. But the answer is patent : the prayer will be efficacious 
only if itself be persevering. Turn the problem which way you 
please, this mystic glass reveals God's mastery over our end 
as absolute as His mastery over our beginning. 

II. 

The beginning of a good work has this enduring excel- 
lence, that it holds within it, as it were in solution, a quality 
of self- reproduction. This by means of the constant warmth of 



476 IHE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE [July, 

love is distilled into tokens of perseverance. But, after all, it 
is only the end that crowns the work ; it alone crowns the 
worker. Perseverance is a grander work than even tke noble 
act of original consecration to a devout life, for whereas the 
origin contains the end only in purpose and potency, the end 
contains the origin in its fullest development. 

No fruit of a tree is ripe unless it has ripe seeds for pro- 
ducing other fruit trees. No virtue is mature unless it has 
within it seeds "after its own kind which may have seed in 
itself upon the earth" (Gen. i. n). The seed of virtue is a 
living purpose to practise more virtue it is both a deed and 
a promise. The new seed may be slow in germinating, but 
St. Francis de Sales in warning us against faint-heartedness, 
says that it may happen that only a quarter of an hour before 
death we shall find ourselves freed from an imperfection 
against which we have vainly struggled for a life time. 

In this state of mystery death gains and life loses in the 
division of our endeavors, or better said, eternity gains and 
time loses. Listen to a saint's estimate of life and death: 

St. Francis de Sales defines perseverance to be "the se- 
quence and combination of virtues." True life is a golden 
chain of graces, every grace a link of love. When first placed, 
it is grasped by the link going before, and it lies open to be 
grasped in turn by the link following after. What though the 
open link may fall off, it is left open that it may receive an- 
other, not to be lost itself by the cessation of courageous re* 
solve. Virtue is fruitful of virtue. One season of innocence 
generates longings for another, and this is invariable in God's 
changes of the spiritual seasons. Only it must be noticed, 
that whereas the farmer is glad if a good crop is followed by 
an equally good one, we are certain of a better and ever 
better harvest of virtue and of joy and of peace as the years 
go on. Perseverance is not a long race ; it is many short 
races, one after another. The question of enduring to the end 
is just this: Can I renew my daily purpose of loving Christ 
each succeeding day ? Perseverance is rather a matter of re- 
newal of brief efforts than of endurance of extended strain. 

III. 

Thus does persistent renewal receive the crown of final 
success. I have said: "Now I have begun" (Ps. Ixxvi. n), 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 477 

until at last by ever freshening purpose and action I win out 
and say : " Now I have done." Remember, too, that God is 
ever saying the self-same words about us and repeating His 
favors to us, incessantly renewing our graces, constantly par- 
doning our relapses, even as ii He had never favored us or 
pardoned us before. I am often warned never to forget my 
weakness. Yet the Psalmist heartens me bidding me say: 
"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all that He 
hath done for thee " (Ps. cii. 2). 

That God should now love me, and that He now loves me 
as God alone can love, with a divine sincerity, an infinite ten- 
derness; and that meanwhile He has it in purpose to weaken 
that love by degrees or snatch it away by a sudden wrench; 
and that even now as He cherishes me "as the apple of His 
Eye " (Zach. ii. 8), He none the less is preparing to make an 
example of me in hell this is a thought I will not tolerate; 
it is a satanic thought. If my end shall be ruin it cannot be 
from God. Who then shall be responsible for my eternal 
downfall? who but my own self? 

IV. 

Among the marks of final perseverance, none equals a life 
of perfection. The ordinary Christian in the state of grace is 
too often like a man to whom has been deeded a fine new 
house. He walks around it and admires it, and proudly points 
it out to his friends. But dare he ask them to go into it ; for 
it is an empty house, with not a chair or table or bed, not a 
morsel of food, all cold, silent and vacant, indeed a house that 
is not a home. Such is the grace of God when it rests idle in 
the soul, the mere gift of His favor, unimproved, little appre- 
ciated ; religion boasted of and not cultivated, a friendship that 
receives everything and returns nothing. Not so the generous 
heart who, having received all from God, would give God all 
in return by a life of perfection. 

As a proposition in dialectics, perseverance is a deep 
mystery, but not so much so as a problem of life. For mortal 
sin alone can damn one, and the whole of the life of a true 
Christian is a battle against even venial sin. What keeps me 
out of venial sin removes me far away from the danger of 
mortal sin : a steady purpose, a high resolve of perfect virtue, 
daily renewed, cherished as a point of holy honor. 



478 THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE LJuly, 

St. Cyprian, discoursing of true Christian learning, points 
to the martyrs as holding its highest diploma, saying that 
" They knew not how to dispute, but they knew how to die." 
So of the wisdom of the spiritual life. A true Christian may 
be puzzled reconciling God's imperative graces with man's 
inalienable freedom but as Newman says, "a thousand diffi- 
culties do not make one doubt." Every Christian may win 
the doctorate of a happy death by leading a life that shrinks 
in horror from the most trifling imperfection, and eagerly 
seeks the least opportunities of doing good. Whether he 
knows it or not, he is under the spell of final perseverance. 

V. 

What are the more particular marks of perseverance ? If 
none can be infallible, many possess a consoling reassurance 
in moments of despondency. The marks are at the same time 
the means of perpetual constancy, and let the reader note by 
preference the more interior ones and " be zealous for the 
better gifts" (I. Cor. xii. 31). 

These all are forms of love, that sovereign virtue which 
the Bridegroom associates with death : " For strong as death 
is iove " (Cant. viii. 6). Let this life and death sentiment 
flow directly from my human heart into the human heart of 
Cbrist, and through that one exclusive channel into the divin- 
ity that is His single divine personality. Constant love of His 
passion and death forecasts a death in His divine embrace. 
With this supreme virtue of love is associated a simple-minded 
faith in His Gospel and His Church. To faith is joined as a 
twin virtue that one among the divine virtues which is the 
peculium of perseverance, hope " which confoundeth not " 
(Rom. v. 5), no, not even at the last dread venture of changing 
life here for life hereafter. The mainstay of a Christian when 
his spirits are dulled by looking into the mystery of perse- 
verance is, first, his love for the Son of God Incarnate; and, 
second, the sense of his own utter unworthiness. These joined 
together are the secret and intimate comfort of the soul. No 
man ever loved Jesus Christ in vain, except one who allowed 
self-righteousness gradually to substitute itself for humble 

confidence in God. 

VI. 

This leads us to consider humility, which with its twin 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 479 

sister obedience, ranks high among the signs forecasting per- 
severance. It generates that self-distrust that never slumbers 
lest the enemy surprise it. " He that thinketh himself to 
stamd, let him take heed lest he fall " (I. Cor. x. 12). This caution 
develops with the growth of every other virtue, as indeed is 
needful. For, says Newman in his terrible sermon on Perse- 
verance in Grace: 

The holier a man is, and the higher in the kingdom of 
heaven, so much the greater need has he to look carefully to 
his footing, lest he stumble and be lost. ... A deep 
conviction of this necessity has been the sole preservation 
of the saints. 

Whatever other virtue wins grace, humility alone preserves 
it, and enjoys at last the honor of crowning the Christian's 
life with perseverance. Of the moral virtues humility and 
obedience are the blended force of the Christian's constancy 
and take high place in his scheme of life and death. Pride 
leads sinners to obduracy, and tepid souls to spiritual sloven- 
liness. Humility is open-eyed to one's own faults and is not 
ashamed to obey lawful authority even in trifles a moment- 
ous advantage in the struggle. Once St. Antony of the 
Desert saw in a vision the whole world so thickly covered 
with snares, that it seemed hardly possible to set down a 
foot without being caught. At this sight he cried out trem- 
bling: "Who, O Lord, can escape them all?" A voice 
answered him: "A man shod with humility, O Antony." 

VII. 

The comfort of prayer is both a means and a mark of 
perseverance. For if even on the verge of desperation I cry 
towards heaven: "Abba! Father!" (Rom. viii. 15) the feeble- 
ness of my voice is strengthened by that of God's own Spirit 
within me. But it may be objected: "Art thou not haunted 
by thy past sins, nor aware of thy present cowardice ? To- 
morrow belongs not to thee ; God will perhaps refuse thee His 
Spirit to-morrow. To-morrow thou shalt cry out not to God 
but to thy own flesh and to the world, and with a voice in- 
spired by the evil one. But to these gloomy murmurings I 
answer: If to-morrow belongs not to me, it yet does belong 
to my God, to the same heavenly Father to whom I cry to- 



480 THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE [July, 

day with words inspired by His Spirit. To-day I cry out in 
all confidence to my Redeemer for the renewal of His love 
to-morrow. The answer is sure: "Because he hoped in Me, 
I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he hath known 
My name. He shall cry to Me, and I will hear him. I am 
with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify 
him" (Ps. xc. 14-15). When I pray for perseverance, I simply 
pray that I may always love. Is not this a hard prayer for 
the God of love to refuse ? Wilt Thou not permit me, O Lord, 
to appreciate Thy love-worthiness? May I not desire to pay 
adoration to Thy infinite goodness now and forever more? 
May I not confidently trust that " Thy mercy shall follow me 
all the days of my life. That I may dwell in the house of 
the Lord, unto length of days" (Ps. xxii. 6). 

VIII. 

Another mark of perseverance is the spirit and practise of 
penance. We speak of superficial piety, and this frothy religion 
is most often shown in early relapses from the friendship of God 
after receiving the sacraments an alarming token of a bad 
end. Surface holiness is nothing else but shallow contrition 
for sin. It is like the " strippings " or surface layers of a 
slate quarry. These shine bright, but they are brittle and 
offer poor resistence to the weather. Go down deep and you 
get the slates colored by ages of nature's action, of enduring 
fibre and ever faithful color. Go down deep into your heart 
for God's best work of the graces of contrition. O Christ, 
Thou fountain of all-atoning pain, give me to drink of those 
holy waters of grief, dark and sad. Grant that my sins may 
roll into my memory as the waves of the sea upon a drowning 
man, till I am engulfed and cry out in agony: "Save me, O 
Lord, for the waters have come in even unto my soul" (Ps. 
Ixviii. 2). Rescue Thou me from my grief by Thy right hand 
of pardon. In truth nothing is more common among fairly 
good Christians than defective penance. Penance of the pene- 
trating quality is a plain mark of perseverance. 

Nor should one forget in connection with penance the avoid- 
ance of evil associations, as a good omen. When our Savior 
cast out a devil from an unfortunate young man, He threatened 
the unclean spirit, saying to him : " Thou deaf and dumb spirit, 
I command thee, go out of him ; and enter no more into him " 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 481 

(Mark, ix. 24). Go out and stay out. O how necessary the 
last part of this loving assistance is to the first. 

The veneration of the saints is another mark. What of 
filial trust in Mary's intercession ? The whole world of devout 
Catholics know its validity and have enjoyed its sweetness. 
Nor should deep flowing love for any saint or angel be rated 
less than a mark of predestination, giving preference to our 
guardian angel and patron saint. We will even affirm the 
same of religious loyalty to a spiritual director, a kindred 
spirit who is calm, wise and devout. 

Two tests, however, are essential everywhere. One is that 
laid down by the Council of Trent, voicing the apostle's teach- 
ing. To begin with, you must establish such a manner of life 
as " that by good works you may make sure your calling and 
election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any 
time" (II. Peter, i-io). The second brings us back to the 
love of God, cherished in this same environment of good works : 
" If you love Me, you will keep my commandments " (John, 
xiv. 15). Love for Christ our Lord and our God is the quality 
to be added to everything which makes for good living and 
happy dying. Take an illustration. Good, hard brick make a 
firm wall; yet each brick was once nothing but soft clay, full 
of water and moulded any way you like. Why is it now so 
hard, lasting against storm and stress forever ? Fire has gone 
through it, fire has burnt it solid as a stone. So the fire of 
the love of God must go through your every virtue ; faith and 
hope, obedience and humility and prayer, devotion to angels 
and saints, loyalty to Church and clergy, nay, even the use of 
the sacraments must be permeated with love: "If a man 
should give the whole substance of his house for love, he shall 
despise it as nothing " (Cant. viii. 7). 

IX. 

When an artist has finished a picture he next gives atten- 
tion to where it shall be hung in the picture gallery. For, he 
says, it must be placed in the right light for the best effects, 
front or side light, bright or dim light. Well, and what is the 
right light in which to exhibit our daily works of virtue ? Is 
it the noon-day glare of health, the golden beams of prosperity ? 
Is it not rather the twilight of our last hours ? How many of 
the world's masters, after a long career of power and glory, 
VOL. xcm. 31 



482 THE TIDAL CALL [July. 

have died miserably, as weary of spirit as they were broken in 
body. How seldom is the death of a great man a great death. 
On the other hand, the noblest hour of every good Christian 
is his farewell hour on earth. An ordinary hero says of a 
desperate venture: I will succeed or perish in the attempt; 
but the hero of Christ says: "I will succeed and perish in 
the attempt. 

Amen! How many times does holy Church bid us add 
this word when we have done our prayers; the last word 
of all, the word of perseverance. Amen ! So be it ! Every 
desire of my heart, so be it constant towards God to the end : 
every pang of sorrow for sin, so be it palpitating in my soul 
to the end: every feeling of love for friend and foe, so be it 
warm in my heart with God's love to the end. I say Amen! 
to each and all of my acts of religion Amen ! unto final per- 
severance. 



THE TIDAL CALL 

BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY. 

The fountains of a thousand hills 

Come singing to the Sea: 
And so, O Lord, our voices pour 

In tribute unto Thee. 

From out the tangled wilderness 

Of folly and of sin, 
The waters of our spirits rush, 

Thy ocean vast to win. 

O, when we reach the boundless deep, 

The ocean of the all, 
Be Thine the onward-bearing wind, 

Be Thine the tidal call.! 




THE ETHICAL ARGUMENTS OF HENRY GEORGE AGAINST 
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND. 

BY JOHN A. RYAN. S.T.D. 

1 E wish first to review some of the points dis- 
cussed in our preceding article. 

The follower of Henry George might accept 
all the conclusions at which we have arrived, and 
still reject private land ownership. He could 
still contend that land, the raw material of nature, belongs to 
the whole people, and that to the whole people should go the 
specific product of land, namely, rent. He could insist that 
under private ownership and the private appropriation of rent, 
inequality in the enjoyment of land benefits becomes inevita- 
ble, and that this inequality is a violation of the equal natural 
rights of all persons. 

The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as 
their equal right to breathe the air it is a right proclaimed 
by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that 
some men have a right to be in the world, and others no right. 

If we are here by the equal permission of the Creator, we 
are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of His 
bounty with an equal right to the use of all that nature 
so impartially offers. . . . There is in nature no such 
thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power 
which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in 
land. If all existing men were to grant away their equal 
rights, they could not grant away the rights of those who 
follow them. For what are we but tenants for a day ? Have 
we made the earth that we should determine the rights of 
those who after us shall tenant it in their turn? (Progress 
and Poverty, Book vii., ch. i.). 

The right to use the goods of nature for the support of 
life is, indeed, a fundamental natural right, and it is sub- 
stantially equal in all persons. It springs, on the one hand, 
from man's intrinsic worth, his essential needs, and his final 
destiny; and, on the other hand, from the fact that nature's 
bounty has been placed by God at the disposal of all His 



484 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [July, 

children indiscriminately. But this is a general and abstract 
right. What does it imply specifically and in the concrete ? 
In the first place, it includes the actual and continuous use 
of some land; for a man cannot support life unless he is 
permitted to occupy some portion of the earth for the pur- 
poses of working, and eating, and sleeping. Secondly, it means 
that in time of extreme need, and when more orderly methods 
are not available, a man has the right to seize sufficient goods, 
natural or produced, public or private, to support life. So 
much is admitted and taught by all Catholic authorities, and 
probably by all other authorities. Furthermore, the abstract 
right in question seems very clearly to include the concrete 
right to obtain on reasonable conditions at least the requisites 
of a decent livelihood ; for example, by direct access to a piece 
of land, or in return for a reasonable amount of useful labor. 
All of these particular rights are equally valid in all persons. 

Does the equal right to use the bounty of nature include 
the right to equal shares of land, or land values, or land ad- 
vantages? Since the resources of nature have been given to 
all men in general, and since human nature is specifically and 
juridically equal in all, have not all persons the right to share 
equally in these resources ? Suppose that some philanthropist 
hands over to one hundred persons an uninhabited island, on 
condition that they shall divide it among themselves with ab- 
solute justice. Are they not obliged to divide it equally ? 
On what ground can any person claim or be awarded a larger 
share than his fellows? None is o! greater intrinsic worth 
than another, nor has anyone made efforts, or sacrifices, or 
products which will entitle him to exceptional treatment. 
The correct principle of distribution seems to be absolute 
equality, except in so far as it may be modified on account 
of varying needs and varying capacities for social service among 
the members of the group. Justice demands that both of these 
factors be taken into account; for men ought not to be treated 
equally in those respects in which they are unequal, and the 
group ought not to deprive itself of those social and individual 
benefits which can be obtained only by giving to exceptional 
individuals exceptional amounts of property. The same amount 
of food given to two persons of varying needs might leave 
the one hungry, and the other sated ; the same amount of land 
given to two persons of varying capacity for social service 



i i9i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 485 

might result in waste in the case of one, and a checking of 
socially useful activity in the case of the other. To be sure, 
neither of these factors, or principles, ought to be urged so 
far as to deprive any person of that amount of natural goods 
which is essential to a decent livelihood. The reason why a 
distribution is required at all is to be found in human needs, 
and the most urgent of these are the needs that are involved 
in a decent livelihood. Above this limit, however, the prin- 
ciple of distribution ought to be, not arithmetical, but pro- 
portional, equality. 

Private ownership of land has nowhere brought about, and 
in the nature of things cannot bring about, this proportional 
equality. In order to do so, a redistribution would be neces- 
sary at every birth and death. Manifestly this is impracticable. 
But it does not thence follow that private ownership is wrong, 
or immoral, or unjust. When private ownership was first estab- 
lished the people were ignorant of any better system. At 
least, they had never heard of the proposals of Henry George. 
Hence they were compelled either to adopt private ownership, 
or to continue some crude form of communism which would 
have been worse, or to refrain from using the land at all, and 
starve to death in the interests of ideal justice. In these cir- 
cumstances private ownership is the only reasonable and prac- 
ticable arrangement and, therefore, the only just arrangement. 
The fact that it is not ideal, that it is imperfect, is not an 
abnormal circumstance in a world where the ideal is never 
attained and all things are imperfect. In such conditions all 
that can reasonably be required of any people is that they 
shall conduct the institution of private ownership so as to 
safeguard as fully as possible the right of every person to 
live decently from the bounty of the earth. When a people 
fails, as all peoples have failed, to fulfill this duty, that people 
is to be condemned, and the abuses of the system are to be 
condemned; but the system itself is still justified as the one 
that nearest approaches the goal of practical justice. 

Therefore, when George declares: "There is on earth no 
power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership 
in land," he is asserting something that does not follow from any 
reasonable interpretation of the principle that men have equal 
rights to the bounty of nature. He is exaggerating the nature 
and content of natural rights. A natural right means a moral 



486 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [July, 

claim or power, arising from the dignity and sacredness of 
personality, over some good. Its actual value and cogency in 
any concrete situation will be determined by the current pos- 
sibilities of putting it into effect. If, on account of ignorance, 
a community is unable to establish a system of land tenure 
which will enable men to realize their natural rights to pro- 
portionally equal shares of the bounty of nature, those rights 
are not for the time being actual. They are only conditional, 
or hypothetical, or suspended rights. For a right in one man 
implies a claim against another man, or against a social group. 
If the latter is physically or morally unable to satisfy this 
claim, neither the claim nor the right has for the time being 
any actual existence. This is as true of land rights as of any 
other right. So long, therefore, as no other course is reason- 
ably possible, a community may rightfully establish a system 
of private ownership of land, which means "a grant of ex- 
clusive ownership of land," and which inevitably prevents 
many men from fully realizing their latent natural rights to 
the bounty of nature. To deny this is implicitly to assert that 
the natural right to land is independent of reason, common 
sense, and human welfare. We conclude, then, that whenever 
a community, on account of ignorance or for any other reason, 
is unable to establish a better system of land tenure than 
private ownership, the latter will be morally right, and will 
not in itself be a violation of the natural rights of individuals. 
In the foregoing paragraphs we have had in mind private 
ownership only as applied to the original gifts and forces of 
nature. We have not considered it as a method of distribut- 
ing those land values which arise on account of the presence 
of population and the action of society. According to Henry 
George, these values, as well as the original powers of land, 
may not rightfully become private property. For, he says: 

Consider what rent is. It does not arise spontaneously 
from the soil ; it is due to nothing that the landowners have 
done. It represents a value created by the whole community. 
. . . But rent, the creation of the whole community, ne- 
cessarily belongs to the whole community (Progress and Pov- 
erty, Book vii., ch. iii.) 

Rent, what land is worth for use, goes under private owner- 
ship to the individual proprietor. This is wrong, inasmuch as 
rent has not been created by the private owner, but by the 






i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 487 

community. Before dealing with this assertion, let us observe 
that society does not create all land values nor all rent. Some 
of these things are due to superior fertility in the land itself. 
Of three pieces of land equally distant from a city, and equal- 
ly affected by society and its activities, one may be fit only 
for grazing, another may be rich wheat land, and the third 
may contain a coal mine. Yet they will have different values 
and yield different rents, and the difference is obviously not 
due to the action of society. If Henry George merely means 
to say that without the presence of the community, none of 
these lands would yield rent, because no one would care to 
use them, he is probably correct, but he employs misleading 
language to state what is perfectly obvious. Outside of so- 
ciety, social value would be wanting not only to land, but to 
manufactured products; yet Mr. George would not assert that 
the value of the latter was all created by society. Social ac- 
tion is always a condition of social value, but it can not be 
regarded as the specific cause of value that clearly requires 
another factor for its existence. Nevertheless, it is probably 
true that almost all the value of land in cities, and the greater 
part of the value of agricultural land in thickly settled dis- 
tricts, is specifically due to social action rather than to dif- 
ferences in productiveness. The truth of this statement is 
readily seen when the value of building sites in cities is com- 
pared with that of equally good natural sites in country dis- 
tricts, and when the value of agricultural lands in the neigh- 
borhood of a city is compared with the value of equally fertile 
lands remote from a populous community. 

The assertion of Henry George and his followers that these 
socially created values ought not to be taken by individual 
proprietors, is one of their most effective contentions; for it 
appears to rest upon the fundamental moral principle that an 
economically valuable product belongs to its producer. Let 
us see in what sense the community produces the social value 
of land. 

We note, in the first place, that the values under discus- 
sion are produced by the community in two different senses of 
the word community, namely, as a civil entity, and as a group 
which is not a moral unit. Under the first head must be 
placed a great deal of the value of land in cities; for example, 
that which arises from municipal institutions and improvements, 



488 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [July, 

such as, fire and police protection, water works, sewers, paved 
streets, and parks. On the other hand, a considerable part of 
land values both within and without cities, is due, not to the 
community as a body, but to the community as a collection of 
individuals and groups of individuals. Thus, the erection and 
maintenance of buildings, the various economic exchanges of 
goods and labor, the superior opportunities for social inter- 
course and amusement, which characterize a city, make the 
land of the city and its environs more valuable than land at a 
distance. While the activities involved in these economic and 
" social " facts and relations are, indeed, a social not an in- 
dividual product, they are the product of small, temporary, and 
shifting groups within the community. They are not the ac- 
tivities of the community as a moral whole. For example, the 
maintenance of a grocery business implies a series of social 
relations and agreements between the grocer and his customers ; 
but none of these transactions is participated in by the com- 
munity acting as a community. Consequently such actions and 
relations, and the land values to which they give rise are not 
due to, are not the products of, the community as a unit, as 
a moral body, as an organic entity. What is true of the land 
values created by the grocery business applies to the values 
which are due to other economic institutions and relations, as 
well as to those values which arise out of the purely " social " 
activities and advantages. If these values are to go to their 
producers they must be taken in various proportions, by the 
different small groups and the various individuals whose actions 
and transactions have been directly responsible. 

To distribute these values among the producers thereof in 
proportion to the productive contribution of each person is 
obviously impossible. How can it be known, for example, 
what portion of the increase in the value of a city's real estate 
during a given year is due to the merchants, the manufacturers, 
the railroads, the laborers, the professional classes, or the city 
as a corporation ? The only practical method is for the city 
or other political unit to act as the representative of all its 
members, appropriate the increase in value, and distribute it 
among the citizens in the form of public institutions and im- 
provements. Assuming that the socially produced value of land 
ought to go to its social producer rather than to the individual 
proprietor of the land, this method of public appropriation and 



i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 489 

disbursement would seem to be quite reasonable and fair, and 
the nearest approximation to practical justice that is available. 

But we deny that socially produced land values necessarily 
belong to society either as a civil body or as a collection of 
individuals and groups. We deny the validity of this species 
of social production as a canon of distribution, or a title of 
ownership. Its apparent sanctity rests npon the confusion, 
misconceptions, and fallacies which attach to the idea of pro- 
duction or productivity. This brings us to the second and 
more important part of the question concerning the precise 
sense in which society produces land values. 

The value of land, like the value of anything else, may be 
affected from the side of scarcity or from the side of utility. 
Increase the scarcity or the utility of an article, and you in- 
crease its value ; you create value. When a man gets a monop- 
oly of the existing supply of wheat or cotton he can increase 
its scarcity, either by destroying a part f the supply, or by 
withholding a part of it from the market. In both cases he 
increases the value of cotton, and produces value. Yet no one 
will say that the monopolist has a moral right to this artifi- 
cially created value ; on the contrary, he will be universally 
condemned as a practicer of extortion. Similarly, if a man, or 
a body of men, get control of all the land of a certain quality 
in a community, and thereby increase its scarcity and its 
value, very few persons will admit that this action constitutes 
a just title to the land value that is thus produced. 

Consider now the problem from the side of utility. The 
man who converts leather and other appropriate raw materials 
into a pair of shoes, increases the utility of the former, and, 
if the market is normal, increases their value. He has created 
value, and all men admit that he has a strict right thereto. 
The precise basis of this right we shall examine presently. 
Likewise, when men improve the quality of land by changing 
its form, thus increasing its utility and value, they are univer- 
sally acknowledged to have a right to the newly created value. 

Finally, there is that increase in land value with which we 
are directly concerned, and which is due to social action. 
Sometimes this social action is spoken of as if it meant merely 
an increase in the social demand for land; but mere increase 
in demand is not usually the true cause of the increase in 
value, nor do men usually regard it as creating a right to the new 



. 
490 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [July, 

value. If increased demand were to be interpreted in this way, 
and if to it were given this moral significance, the increases in 
the value of hats, flour, or labor which follow a change of fashion 
or an addition to the number of purchasers, ought to go, not 
to the owners of these commodities, but to the buyers. In- 
creased demand is not, as a rule, the true cause of the increased 
value of land. In most cases it is a purely subjective factor 
which is itself occasioned by a change in the external relations 
between land and existing social institutions. This change is 
the objective factor in the situation, the proper cause of the 
increase in value, and the element by which we must ascertain 
the moral claims of social action as a producer of land values. 
As a result of the growth of a city, a piece of land that was 
formerly useful only for agriculture becomes desirable for a 
factory or a store. Men want it for such purposes now, where- 
as they wanted it heretofore only for crop raising. Its utility 
and its value have increased, but the increase is not due to 
any change in the form or quality of the land like to that 
which takes place in leather which is converted into shoes. 
The new utility consists in the fact that previously latent uses 
of the land have become actual; and the cause of this con- 
version of potential into actual utility is the nearer approach 
of the city, and the consequent establishment of new relations 
between that piece of land and urban life and institutions. 
But these new relations have been established and created by 
society, in its corporate capacity through civil institutions and 
activities, and in its non-corporate capacity through the eco- 
nomic and " social " activities of groups and individuals. In 
this sense, then, society has created the increased land values. 
Has it, therefore, a strict right to the increase ? a right so 
rigorous and exact that private appropriation of the socially 
created value is unjust. 

As we have just seen, men do not admit that mere pro- 
duction of value constitutes a title of ownership. Neither the 
monopolist who increases the value of cotton by restricting 
the supply, nor the pacemakers of fashion who increase the 
value of, say, a certain style of millinery, are regarded as 
possessing a moral right to the increased value. But the 
shoemaker is thought to have a just claim to the value which 
he adds to raw material when he makes a pair of shoes. 
Whence the difference ? What is the precise basis of the 



i9i i.] HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY 491 

shoemaker's right? It cannot be labor, for the cotton mo- 
nopolist has labored in getting his corner on cotton. It is 
not even the fact that the labor of the former is socially use- 
ful, for this is merely a reason why men are wise in paying for 
something useful which they could not get otherwise. For the 
same reason they are equally wise when they pay the cotton 
monopolist for the artificial value which he has added to cot- 
ton. The fundamental question is: why is it reasonable for 
the shoemaker to require, why has he a right to require, pay- 
ment for the utilities that he produces ? To which the funda- 
mental answer is : because he is morally and juridically equal 
with the men who want to use his products; because he has 
the same right as they of access on reasonable terms to the 
earth and the earth's possibilities; and because, being thus 
equal, he is not obliged to subordinate himself to his fellows 
by becoming a mere instrument for their pleasure and welfare. 
To assume that he is obliged to produce socially useful things 
without remuneration, is to assume that all these propositions 
are false, that his life and personality aad personal develop- 
ment are of no intrinsic importance, and that the material 
means to these ends may be denied him, except in so far as 
they are necessary to maintain him as an instrument of pro- 
duction. More briefly and summarily, the ultimate basis of 
the producer's right to his product or its value, is the fact 
that this is the only reasonable method of effecting a proper 
distribution of the earth's goods, of safeguarding the rights of 
the individual thereto, and of providing him with the means 
of life and personal development. The right does not rest 
upon the mere fact of value production or utility production. 
When the community, whether as a civil unit or as an ag- 
gregate of groups and individuals, produces land values, it is 
not on the same moral ground as the shoemaker. Its produc- 
tion of land values is indirect and incidental to its main ac- 
tivities and purposes. Land values are a by-product which 
does not require the community to devote a single moment of 
time or a single ounce of effort exclusively to their production. 
The activities whereof the land values are a by-product are 
already remunerated in the price paid to the wage- earner for 
his labor, the physician for his services, the manufacturer and 
the merchant for their wares, and the municipal corporation in 
the form of taxes. On what ground can the community set 



492 HENRY GEORGE AND PRIVATE PROPERTY [July. 

up a claim in strict justice to the increased land values? Its 
members are not denied the means of living and self-develop- 
ment on reasonable terms; nor are they treated as mere in- 
struments to the welfare of the private owners who actually 
get the socially created land values, for they expend neither 
time nor labor in the interest of the latter directly. Their 
labor is precisely what it would be if land value did not in- 
crease at all. Finally, community appropriation of the social 
value of land is not always the only reasonable method of 
distributing this value. If it is not known to the community, 
or cannot be established without wholesale violation or exist- 
ing rights, it is certainly not a reasonable method. The ut- 
most that can be maintained for the proposal is that if it were 
put into practice when a tract of land was occupied for the 
first time, it would be more generally fair and beneficial to all 
the members of the community than the system by which the 
private owner is permitted to take the social values. In that 
case, however, the moral claim of the community to these 
values would be based solely upon the ground that they do 
not belong to anybody by a title of strict justice, and that the 
community, as the first occupant of this res nullius (" nobody's 
property ") may rightly appropriate it for the benefit of all the 
people. Its claim is decidedly not founded upon the title of 
production. To the confident, persistent, and superficial asser- 
tion of the Georgeite that the community has a right to social 
land values because it has created them, we reply, first, that pro- 
duction does not always constitute a moral title to the product, 
and, second, that this particular and peculiar kind of production 
has no moral significance, and gives rise to no moral right. 

To sum up all the objections of Henry George against pri- 
vate landownership considered in this and the preceding arti- 
cles: The argument relating to first occupancy is valid only 
against the abuses of the institution, not against the institu- 
tion itself; the argument from labor as the only original title 
of property rests upon a faulty analysis, and is contradicted 
by other statements of its author; the argument based upon 
men's equal rights to the use of land merely proves that pri- 
vate landownership does not bring about perfect justice, not 
that it is essentially unjust; and the argument concerning the 
social creation of and right to social land values, overlooks the 
fundamental justification of production as a title of ownership. 



AN ORDINATION IN ROME. 



BY EILEEN BUTLER. 




i are standing in the sunshine on the steps of 
Rome's cathedral, the great basilica of St. John 
Lateran. The sky is of the every- day bright 
blue, crystal clear to the horizon, and against it 
stand out in valiant line upon the roof the giant 
statues that look out across the green Campagna to the Alban 
and Sabine hills. The air is full of the joyful sound of bells, 
first loudly clanging from out the midst of these triumphant 
statues; then mellow, golden, humming from the distant 
churches a running, unbroken accompaniment to the bird's 
spring songs. We linger a little in the piazza to drink in this 
sparkling elixir, and then enter the cathedral, where, from a 
gallery high above the choir, we are to watch the ordination 
of priests. 

A ceiling that looks as though it must be borne to earth 
by the very weight of its own gold ; an apse adorned with 
twinkling, jewel-like mosaics on a golden ground ; walls that 
alternate mellow fresco with faintly-tinted marble; a floor the 
inlay of which looks like precious stones, make the setting of 
this drama whose Author is divine, whose subject is the high- 
est dignity of man, whose lighting is the gold search-light of 
heaven, whose music is the prayer-song of the choir. It 
opens on a venerable figure, almost spectral in its spirituality, 
vested in gold and white, mitre on head, seated before the 
altar (the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, he is called a 
title dating from Crusader times); and on the thirty Ordi- 
nandi who are being summoned by name to range themselves 
upon their knees before him. The Patriarch demands of him 
who is presenting them if they are worthy of the dignity of 
priesthood: "As worthy as the frailty of human nature will 
permit," is the reply for which the prelate renders thanks to 
God. But lest the judgment of a small minority might be 
mistaken, lest " affection or too favorable a prevention " might 



494 AN ORDINATION IN ROME [July, 

mislead, a larger company must be consulted now. We of the 
congregation, we the mere lookers-on, we of the world which 
these young men have abandoned and renounced are asked to 
give our verdict of their worth. We are conjured to speak if 
we know anything against these lives that have ascended from 
our zone into an air too rare for us to breathe ; but at the 
same time we are begged to bear in mind (and here the irony 
becomes complete) that human nature has its weaknesses. 

Ranged in rows of threes this white-robed company next 
has an admonition addressed it by the administrating prelate. 
Its members are to render themselves worthy of their high 
degree by a wisdom quite celestial, by deeds entirely pure, 
and by a justice that shall never fail. Their science and their 
works are to be such as to allow of their being numbered 
with the seventy, the ancients of the people these young 
men so that the Lord may not one day chastise him, the 
speaker, for admitting them into the sacred ministry nor them 
for being admitted; but, contrariwise, may recompense them. 

Then follows the most important though momentary, most 
eloquent though silent, most mystical though external action 
of the whole ceremony, that which is the matter of the Sacra- 
ment of Holy Orders the Imposition of Hands. The candi- 
dates, ranged down the choir in a long single line, approach 
and kneel before the mitred prelate one by one. He stands 
and lays his hands in solemn silence for a moment on the 
head of each; and as they form again into their ranks the 
numerous assisting clergy pass bekind the lines and in like 
manner impose their hands upon each head in turn. This 
done, the venerable figure at the altar, transfigured at this 
moment by a traveling ray of gold piercing the lofty windows, 
and all the clergy, ranged again in stalls, continue throughout 
the recitation of a prayer to hold their hands outstretched 
towards the new priests as though to cast a spell of [sanctity 
upon them. 

Again the long white line is formed down the whole length 
of the choir, and the slow approach made to the feet of the 
Patriarch enthroned before the altar. " Receive the yoke of 
the Lord, for His yoke is sweet and His burden is light," he 
says while crossing on the breast of each the stole that has 
till now been worn in the manner of deacons. Instinctively 
one's thoughts turn to the patient oxen yoked in well-matched 



19 1 1.] A N ORDINA TION IN ROME 495 

pairs in the fields of the Campagna the two heads bowed 
by the same weight, the work of both producing the same 
furrow, the close companionship allying them as brothers. 
Even so each of these souls is to be coupled and identified 
with Christ. Vesting each with a chasuble of gold and white, 
the prelate says : " Receive the sacerdotal vestment that 
represents the warmth of charity " ; and the Ordinandi form 
again in lines of threes before the altar. 

A prayer to the God " from whom proceeds all sanctifica- 
tion and who alone can give a veritable consecration and a 
perfect blessing " said, the Veni Creator is triumphantly en- 
toned ; and for the third time, like a slow well-known refrain, 
the single line of figures treads the choir. This time the 
gift bestowed upon them at the altar is one which more than 
yokes them to the Godhead ; it secures for them the very 
name that is the synonym for Christ the name Anointed. 
With the blessed oil of catechumens the prelate traces on the 
up-turned hands of each the figure of a cross praying the 
while that all that these hands bless may verily be blessed, all 
that they consecrate be sanctified. The rite performed, the 
hands of each are closed and tied together, too sacred to touch 
or to be touched by anything until they have first handled 
for an instant the host and chalice, which are next offered to 
each. 

From this moment the Mass proceeds without an interrup- 
tion, and with the voices of the thirty new-made priests united 
to the celebrants'. It is as though thirty gigantic fires, each 
forcible enough to shoot its flames into the zenith, were 
thrown together. The whole earth is alight, its powerful bounds 
are overleapt, and heaven is a-blaze. Now is high heaven 
met upon an equal footing, and must perforce comply. The 
Immaculate Host and the Chalice of Salvation will be accepted 
as a sinful world's peace-offering; humanity will become a 
partaker of the divinity of Him who vouchsafed to become a 
partaker of humanity; the blessing of the Sanctifier will rest 
upon the Sacrifice. A Sanctus is sent from earth worthy of 
being admitted to the heavenly choir; and the Miracle of 
miracles is wrought: by an adequate power. 

In the next scene we look down upon a sanctuary thronged 
by a white-robed crowd, sought out and played on by the 
gold search-light from the skies as they come trooping, troop- 



496 AN ORDINATION IN ROME [July, 

ing, trooping to the altar steps row after row interminable. 
It is the moment of the Communion of the deacons, the sub- 
deacons, all those that have received the minor orders some 
two hundred all told. 

And now for the last time the gradual refrain is taken up 
the slow advance in single file is made upon the altar. The final 
gift, the gift that will make of these young men " the ancients 
of the people' 1 is preferred now. "Receive the Holy Ghost," 
the Patriarch says, imposing hands upon them: "whose sins 
you shall forgive they are forgiven them, and whose sins you 
shall retain they are retained." 

With the promise of obedience given to the prelate who holds 
the hands of each new priest paternally in his own, and the 
farewell kiss of peace received from him, the ceremony ends. 

The stirring drama over, crowds are waiting at the entrance 
of the chapel, to which the long procession has retired, to greet 
the dramatis persona as they emerge their former selves again, 
yet also and for evermore the characters they have been per- 
sonating sacerdotes in aternum. One by one the young priests 
hurry out, their white and golden vestments fluttering in their 
haste, their faces radiant as they sight a well-known counte- 
nance, among the expectant groups. Parents, relatives, friends, 
priests whose distant ordination-day this festival recalls, peas- 
ants, old and young, crowd to kiss the consecrated hands and 
to receive the blessing that is given by a smile that will assert 
itself a smile of sheerest gaiety albeit it is accompanied by 
the solemn sign. " Datemi la benedizione, padre mio" quavers 
a white-haired peasant of one young enough to be his grand- 
son ; an abbot, aged and infirm, kneels for the benediction of 
his spiritual son; a little sister embraces with emotion she 
would fain conceal, her now transformed brother; a widowed 
mother kneels before her consecrated son, and over the bowed 
head that wears mourning for his father, the young priest 
makes the sign of his first blessing. 

Monte Cassino, the most ancient of Benedictine monasteries, 
wrecked by earthquake, sacked by barbarian, but now set 
firmly on its mountain-top high up above the plain, above 
many a lesser peak, above the noise and bustle of the world 
gives us, as the drop-scene of this day's spectacle, its incom- 
parable view. Waking, one finds the sparsely-furnished bed- 



i9i i.] AN ORDINATION IN ROME 497 

room of the little Guest House flooded with pale light and 
sweet with song-birds' notes the dawn, of course, receiving 
its accustomed salutation ? But no, the light is from the moon, 
and the singing is from nightingales. The far-down plain 
(where we of the world should be by rights) is hidden by a 
mist, and shut out from the scene to which we have, by some 
misunderstanding, been caught up. " Trill, trill, trill ! Chirp, 
chirp, chirp ! " goes the nightingale from his silvered olive-tree, 
at the top of his voice and to his heart's content, because no 
human being is listening (the wonder is his thrilling note does 
not compel his day-brothers to awake and come to see what 
has so set him off, for surely it is something very good ?). 
'' Chirp, chirp ! " replies his understanding comrade from some 
distance off (is it that inky-black stone pine or that slow- 
swaying cypress-tree that is his perch?). Assuredly we have 
no business here on equal footing with this very riot of 
amassed gray peaks: we have intruded on the conclave of 
these grand old mountain- deities, we look upon their faces, 
we hear their whispered consultations in the breeze we, who 
should be with all the rest of earth excluded by the veil which 
canopies the plain. But the drop-scene is in keeping with 
the drama that has gone before. 



YOL. xcm. 32 




STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS. 

BY MICHAEL HENRY LUCEY, PH.D. 

|HE period to be treated in this article is in many 
respects one of the most important in the entire 
history of the parish schools of New York City. 
It is a period during which the state extended 
its support in a definite, systematic way, not 
only to the Catholic schools, but likewise to all the other 
church schools which then existed in the city. In view of the 
oft-repeated discussion of the advisability of state support of 
parish schools this period is worthy of study by all who are 
interested in this most vital problem. 

It is well to recall that the experiment of state support of 
church schools has been tried for a number of years in New 
York City; that during this period the schools of various 
charitable and religious organizations existed side by side with 
those of the Public School Society; that the schools were 
recognized by the state, and that they were supported in large 
part by contributions from the state school funds. 

In this article we shall consider how this condition of af- 
fairs was brought about; how the plan worked; and, finally, 
why it was abolished. 

New York City was then small; the schools were few in 
number, but the principles involved in the question of state 
support were all present. On this small stage we shall watch 
the drama being enacted. And perhaps we shall come to an 
understanding of the problem better than if the stage were 
larger, and the actors more numerous. 

In this discussion particular attention will be paid to the 
relation of the parish schools to the schools of the Free School 
Society, later known as the Public School Society, as the lat- 
ter were the nearest representatives which then existed of the 
public schools of to-day. This, in turn, will necessitate a brief 
sketch of the origin, the aims, and the early history of the 
Society. 

Early in 1805 a number of public-spirited men, moved by 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS 499 

the desire to provide suitable accommodations for the large 
number of children not connected with any religious denomi- 
nation, and attending no school, met in the house of Mr. John 
Murray, in Pearl Street. Twelve attended the meeting, at 
which it was decided to establish a school modeled on the Free 
School, which an association of ladies, members of the Society 
of Friends, had been conducting for girls since 1802. A com- 
mittee appointed to devise ways and means recommended that 
an application be made to the Legislature for an act of in- 
corporation. 

In the memorial it is stated that the petitioners have viewed 
with painful anxiety the multiplied evils which have accrued 
to the city from the neglected education of the children of the 
poor. They alluded more particularly to the class of children 
who did not belong to, and were not provided for by, any reli- 
gious society; and who, therefore, did not partake of the ad- 
vantages arising from the different church schools. 

The Legislature, in acting favorably on this appeal, clearly 
recognized the place of the parish schools and placed limits to 
the scope of the future work oi the petitioners. This recog- 
nition is shown in the act of incorporation, which is entitled 
" An Act to incorporate the Society instituted in the City of 
New York for the Establishment of a Free School for the 
Education of Poor Children who are not provided for by any 
religious society." That the founders of the Society likewise 
recognized the work of the church schools is clearly evidenced 
in an address which was issued by them to the public on May 
18, In this address the trustees pay tribute to the spirit of 
eharity and zeal shown by the various religious associations 
in providing means for the education of such poor children as 
belonged to their respective societies. 

This Society [the Trustees say], as will appear from its 
name, interferes with no existing institution, since children 
already provided with the means of education, or attracted to 
any other Society, will not come under its care. Humble 
gleaners in the wide field of benevolence, the members of this 
Association seek such objects only as are left by those who 
have gone before, or are fellow laborers with them in the 
great work of Charity. They, therefore, look with confidence 
for the encouragement and support of the affluent and char- 
itable of every denomination of Christians. 



500 STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS [July, 

Funds were slow in coming in, and a full year elapsed 
before the first school was opened* This school, which was 
situated in a small house on Banker Street, was opened May 
12, 1806, under the direction of Mr. William Smith, who at 
once introduced the Lancasterian method of instruction. The 
number of pupils rapidly increased, and the trustees petitioned 
the Common Council for aid in extending its work. The Coun- 
cil granted them a building for school purposes, and a little 
later donated four thousand dollars toward erecting a new 
building, and an additional thousand dollars a year until such 
time as aid could be secured from the school fund of the 
state. 

This school fund was the result of an act passed April 2, 
1805, entitled, "An Act to raise a fund for the encouragement 
of the Common Schools." It provided that the net proceeds of 
five hundred thousand acres of vacant and unappropriated land, 
which were to be sold, should be set aside as a permanent 
fund for the support of the common schools. The third sec- 
tion of the act directed the Comptroller to loan the money at 
six per cent until the annual interest arising from the fund 
amounted to $50,000, after which the interest annually arising 
should be distributed and applied for the support of the com- 
mon schools in such a manner as the Legislature might direct. 

In 1812 the interest arising from the fund had reached the 
required amount, and on June 19 the Legislature passed an act 
for the establishment of common schools for the state, and in- 
dicated how the public school money was to be distributed. 

Again the question arose as to the proper disposition of 
the public money in New York City. But this time the ques- 
tion was of more importance than it had been on the former 
occasion. The state had now at its disposal a fund from which 
it could annually aid the common schools within its borders. 
Were the church schools to share in the increasing prosperity, 
or were they to be left to their own resources ? There was 
some hesitation on the part of the public officials. On Febru- 
ary 8, 1813, Garret Gilbert, the Clerk of the City, received 
notice from Gideon Hawley, State Superintendent of Common 
Schools, that the interest of the School Fund was ready for 
distribution, but that New York City's share would be with- 
held until the Legislature specifically indicated how the dis- 
tribution was to be made. 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS 501 

The Legislature settled the matter by definitely recogniz- 
ing the church schools as entitled to their fro rata share. The 
act provided that a commission of five members, appointed by 
the Mayor and the Common Council, should pay the city's 
share of the fund to the Trustees of the Free School Society, 
to the trustees of the Orphan Asylum Society, the Society for 
the Economical School, the African Free School, and to the 
trustees of such incorporated and religious societies as sup- 
ported charity schools. The distribution was to be made to 
each school in proportion to the average number of children 
between the ages of four and fifteen years who had been 
taught there in the year preceding such distribution, free of 
expense. 

By this act, therefore, the schools of the Free School So- 
ciety and the parish schools were placed on an equality be- 
fore the law. 

The church schools now having become an integral part 
of the state system of education, laws for their administration 
became necessary. The act mentioned above provided that 
the trustees or treasurers of the various religious societies, 
whose schools came under the law, were to be inspectors of 
the schools of their respective societies, and further provided 
that the aforesaid trustees were to possess the like powers and 
perform the like duties relative to their respective schools as 
the inspectors of the common schools of the state. 

By referring to the school law, as enacted at this time, we 
may note the powers and duties which the state now con- 
ferred on the trustees of the church schools. They were re- 
quired to examine teachers, and to approve or disapprove of 
the same; to visit their schools quarterly or oftener; and to 
note the proficiency of the scholars, and the good order and 
regularity of the same. They were likewise required to report 
to the Commissioners of Education, on the attendance of pu- 
pils, the amount of the state fund received, and the manner of 
expending it. The Commissioners in turn were required to 
transmit the report to the City Clerk, who forwarded it to the 
State Superintendent of Schools. 

Under these enactments, which continued in operation for 
twelve years, St. Peter's School, and later St. Patrick's, were 
annually paid their pro rata share of the school fund. Their 
trustees acted as public school officials in examining teachers, 



502 STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS [July, 

in visiting and inspecting schools, and in reporting to the cen- 
tral board of education. In 1814, the first year in which aid 
was received under the new arrangement, the trustees of St. 
Peter's School reported the attendance to be 486 students, and 
they received $1,861.73. A fuller account of the receipt of 
state money will be given later. 

At this time the church schools and those of the Free 
School Society were on a par, but we may note that the lat- 
ter Society was gradually seeking to widen the scope of its 
influence. Entering the educational field as "humble glean- 
ers," they soon began to cast covetous eyes on the ripening 
harvest. 

The first step was taken by the Society as early as 1808, 
when authority was obtained from the Legislature to extend 
its powers to all children who should be the proper objects of 
a gratuitous education. Thus far, however, no direct attempt 
had been made to encroach on the work of the church schools. 
But in 1813 a policy was adopted which looked apparently to 
the disbandment of the church schools and the monopoly of 
the field by the Free School Society. 

Early in 1813 the trustees resolved to set aside the after- 
noon of Tuesday in each week for the purpose of instructing 
the children in the principles of the Christian religion, and 
they further resolved to invite the several churches to which 
the children belonged to send suitable persons to instruct 
them. In this way it was sought to render the church schools 
unnecessary, first by giving the children the usual school train- 
ing, and secondly by giving members of each denomination 
opportunity to instruct their children in the doctrines of the 
religion which they professed. 

As a matter of fact the trustees of the Presbyterian schools, 
on receiving an assurance from the Free School Society that 
their children would enjoy the same privileges, literary and re- 
ligious, which they had enjoyed among themselves, relinquished 
their portion of the state fund, to which they were entitled, 
and disbanded their school. While the Catholics appear to 
have taken no official action in the matter, the movement evi- 
dently did not appeal to them, only 9 children of the Roman 
Catholic Faith being mentioned in the report of the Free School 
Society for 1814, as against 277 Presbyterians, 186 Episcopal- 
ians, 172 Methodists, 119 Baptists, and 41 Dutch Reformed. 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS 503 

The next move of the Free School Society to increase its 
power was made four years later. In 1817 the trustees found 
that they had an unexpended balance in the treasury. They 
wished to use this surplus in erecting a new building, but 
were forbidden by the school law of 1813, which specifically 
provided that the funds received from the state should be used 
for teachers' salaries, and for no other purpose whatsoever. 
Nothing daunted, however, the trustees applied for, and ob- 
tained the passage of a special law permitting them to expend 
any surplus in the erection of new buildings, or in the educa- 
tion of masters according to the Lancasterian plan. 

The way to special favors thus being pointed out, it was 
not long before another society sought the same relief. Un- 
fortunately for the church schools, it was one of their number 
which thus sought to follow in the steps of the Free School 
Society. Unfortunate, because it was this action which marked 
the beginning of the end of the support of church schools by 
the state. 

Early in 1820 the Bethel Baptist Church, on Delancey 
Street, opened a school in the basement of the church build- 
ing, and in accordance with the act of 1813, it was admitted 
to participation in the State School Fund. Two years later 
the church, through its able and energetic pastor, appealed to 
the Legislature and secured the same privileges in the matter 
of expending the surplus of the state fund as had already 
been granted to the Free School Society. 

The trustees of the Free School Society viewed with alarm 
this action of the Legislature, and it was not long before the 
plans of the Society and those of the Bethel Baptist Church 
clashed. The Rev. Mr. Chase, the pastor of the Bethel 
Church, determined to erect a second school with the aid of 
the state funds, as he was authorized to do, and accordingly 
purchased lots in the vicinity of St. Patrick's Cathedral. News 
of this intention having reached the trustees of the Free School 
Society, they adopted a resolution directing the purchase of 
lots likewise in the vicinity of the cathedral, and appointing a 
committee to prepare plans for a school building. Against 
this act the trustees of the Bethel Free School protested, say- 
ing that it was an improper interference with their plans. To 
this the trustees of the Free School Society replied that they 
had for some time contemplated the erection of a school build- 



504 STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS [July, 

ing in the proposed territory. In addition to this the Society 
adopted a resolution deploring the act of the Legislature giv- 
ing special privileges to the Bethel Baptist Church, as calcu- 
lated to divert a large portion of the common school fund 
from the objects for which it was established, and to apply 
the same to the purpose of private and sectarian interests. 

The trustees, however, did not rest content with this reso- 
lution, but determined to do all in their power to secure the 
repeal of the obnoxious measure, A memorial was accordingly 
prepared in which the trustees stated their case. They asked 
why a right had been given to one religious society which 
had not been given to another. They called attention to the 
fact that all other religious denominations were compelled by 
law to exhaust all the funds which came into their hands for 
the purpose of instruction, while to this particular society was 
given an opportunity to dispose of the state funds for other 
purposes than the early education of the children of the 
poor. 

The Legislature of the year 1823 took no action on the 
matter other than the passage of a resolution calling on the 
superintendent of common schools for a detailed report of the 
expenditure of the school money and the manner of its appro- 
priation by the different societies receiving it. 

In accordance with the provisions of the above act the 
Board of Trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Peter's 
Church submitted a report to the superintendent of common 
schools on June 4, 1824. In this report the history of the 
schools is traced, and an accounting is given of all the public 
money received and the manner of its expenditure. The total 
amount received by the two Catholic free schools from the 
first year, 1806, up to 1823, the year of the investigation, 
was $18,957.98, while the actual amount paid out in teachers' 
salaries during that time was $28,800. During this period one 
building had been erected to house the school attached to St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, at a cost of $3,200, but it had been paid 
for from the proceeds of a sermon preached for the benefit of 
the school, from a legacy left to the school, and from the 
funds of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

There were ugly rumors in circulation with reference to 
the disposal of the state fund by one of the Protestant 
churches, but the breath of scandal did not touch the Catho- 






i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS 505 

He schools. In fact the Catholic school authorities and the 
trustees of the Free School Society had always been, and 
were still on the best of terms. One or two incidents will 
serve to illustrate this spirit of harmony. 

Early in 1818 the trustees of the Free School Society ap- 
pointed a committee to correspond with the British and For- 
eign School Society with reference to the selection of an ex- 
perienced Lancasterian teacher, one who understood the system 
thoroughly, and was competent to teach it in its most perfect 
form. A salary of $800 was offered and, in addition, the So- 
ciety agreed to pay the expenses of the passage. 

Mr. Charles Ficton, the gentleman agreed upon, arrived 
during the summer, and was appointed to take charge of a 
school then being erected in Rivington Street. As the build* 
ing would not be ready until the next May the trustees of 
St. Peter's School took advantage of this circumstance to re- 
quest that in the meantime Mr. Picton be allowed to organize 
their school on the new plan. The request was granted, Mr. 
Picton's salary, of course, being paid by the Catholic school 
authorities. 

The teachers of the two Catholic free schools are likewise 
on record as visiting the schools of the Free School Society; 
and when Mr. Lancaster himself arrived in New York, in 
December, 1818, for the purpose of advocating his system, he 
found it already established not only in the schools of the 
Free School Society, but also in the Catholic Free Schools. 

These incidents not only throw light on the relations be- 
tween the Catholic school authorities and the Free School 
Society, but likewise indicate that the curriculum of the 
parish schools was very much of the same character as that 
of the schools of the Free School Society. In fact, this has 
been characteristic of the parish schools from the beginning. 
The Church has made no effort to differentiate the work of 
teaching purely secular studies from that of the other schools. 
The drift has been rather the other way. 

In 1824 the trustees of the Free School Society again ap- 
pealed to the Legislature for the repeal of the objectionable 
act granting special privileges to the Bethel Free School. They 
petitioned that the law be so amended as to prohibit the 
religious societies in the City from drawing from the common 
school fund for any other than the poor children of the mem- 



5o6 STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS [July, 

bers of their own societies, or of those who regularly wor- 
shipped with them. 

Up to this time the trustees of the Catholic schools had 
taken no part in the controversy. Even the measure now 
proposed by the trustees of the Free School Society did not 
move them. After all, the proposed measure did not vitally 
affect their interests, and if it would put a stop to the abuses 
brought out in the investigation of one or two of the other 
church schools, it ought not to be opposed. 

However, they were soon moved to action on the receipt 
of the news that the committee of the assembly to which the 
whole matter had been referred had submitted a report which 
was decidedly hostile to the interests of the church schools. 
The committee stated that while they were opposed to the 
payment of funds of church schools, they were not certain 
that it would be wise or expedient to exclude such schools 
from participation in the fund at that time. 

This hostile note roused the Catholic school authorities to 
action. A letter was written to Mr. John Moore, one of the 
representatives of the city in the State Legislature, in which 
they stated their opposition to the proposed measure. They 
considered it neither wise nor liberal, as children who were 
made to commence their daily exercises by prayer were not, 
in their opinion, likely, from that circumstance, to be worse 
citizens than those who did not follow that practice. They 
feared that the repeal of the existing law would impair the 
efficiency of their schools by compelling them to employ less 
capable teachers. The Rev. Mr. Power likewise went to Al- 
bany in order to attend to the matter personally. 

The Legislature adjourned without enacting any law on 
the subject, but an extra session was convened on November 
2, 1824, at which the matter was taken up. The members of 
the Legislature, after a full hearing to all concerned, decided 
to refer the whole matter to the Common Council of the 
City of New York, and on November 19 passed an act relating 
to the common schools in the City of New York. By the 
provisions of this act the corporation of the City of New York, 
in Common Council assembled, were empowered to designate, 
at least once in three years, the institutions or schools which 
were to receive the school money. 

The Common Council referred the section of the law men- 



i9".] STATE SUPPORT OP PARISH SCHOOLS 507 

tioned above to its law committee. The trustees of St. Pat- 
rick's and St. Peter's Schools, together with the trustees of 
the Methodist, the Reformed Dutch and the other church 
schools, submitted petitions to the Common Council, asking 
for a continuance of the apportionment to their respective 
schools. These petitions were likewise referred to the Law 
Committee. This Committee now gave a public hearing to 
the representatives of the various schools. 

Unfortunately, at this period, so mementous for the present 
and future of Catholic schools, Catholicity was without a leader 
to plead its cause. At the time the proposed measure was 
before the Legislature the hand of death was already laid on 
the faithful bishop, the Right Rev. John Connolly. Coming 
to New York at the age of seventy years he found the work 
much different from the quiet life at Rome. Having only four 
priests for his entire diocese, which comprised not only the 
city, but likewise the entire State of New York, together with 
the eastern part of New Jersey, he was compelled to fulfill the 
ordinary duties of a parish priest, in addition to his episcopal 
functions. But the good bishop was indefatigable in his labors, 
at times undertaking journeys to the distant missions of his 
diocese, and at others visiting the sick in his own city, and 
paying occasional visits to the schools. 

But this active, laborious life, so different from the cloistered 
days of Rome, gradually wore him out. In the autumn of 
1824 his strength gave way, but he labored on. In November of 
the same year his burdens were increased by the death of two of 
his fellow -laborers and friends, the Rev. Messrs. O'Gorman and 
Bulger. He, himself, soon followed, and while the strife over 
the school question was going on, he was laid to rest in the 
quiet of his cathedral in Mott Street. 

Notwithstanding the absence of an active, aggressive Catho- 
lic leader, the rights of the church schools were ably defended 
by the pastors of the various Protestant churches. The most 
active and zealous advocate of the continuation of state sup- 
port were the Messrs. Chase, Wainwright, Milnor, and Ander- 
son, representing the Dutch, Baptist and Episcopal Churches. 
It was these gentlemen, Protestants all, who were in the fore- 
front of the fight for the church schools, and not the Catho- 
lics. 

It was pointed out to the Law Committee that the charity 



5o8 STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS [July, 

schools were of long standing, and had, in times past, received 
the fostering care of the Legislature; that the children who 
attended them had received the branches of a plain ordinary 
education, with little or no difference as to the efficiency when 
compared with the other institutions, and in support of this 
the church officials offered to submit them to a fair examina- 
tion. In addition to this the children also received the ad- 
vantages of religious instruction. In view of the stand taken 
by many non-Catholics to-day, with regard to religious in- 
struction the arguments put forward in its behalf at this time 
are of interest: 

On the latter subject it is urged in the first place, [says the 
report of the I*aw Committee] by the advocates of the 
churches, that for this they receive no compensation ; and in 
the second, that religion is the best and only foundation of all 
private happiness, of all sound morality, and of all capacity 
for public usefulness ; and in answer to the charge of efforts 
on their part to promote sectarian influence they deny that 
such is their intended object; and they further reply and ex- 
plain, that religion cannot exist but according to some speci- 
fied form and system ; that no religious sentiment can be 
advanced except of the most general nature about which pro- 
fessing Christians will not differ, and that the objection would 
exclude all practical religious instruction whatsoever, since 
religion must be presented in some definite shape, or it can 
hardly find access to the heart, and become influential on the 
conduct. And it has in turn been argued " Show me a man 
of no sect and I will show you a man of no religion, " and that 
it is better to have a community of conscientious sectarians 
than a community of nothingarians. *' 

The opponents of the church schools were no less active. 
They contended that the churches ought not to participate in 
the fund because it would be a violation of that rule of civil 
policy admitted to be prevalent, which forbade all connection 
between matters of church and those of state; that the fund 
was raised by tax, and to devote any portion of it, so that 
by any possibility it might be turned into sectarian channels, 
would be to compel one portion of the community, without its 
consent, to become the supporters of the religious opinions of 
others. 

The Committee, after listening to both sides, reported to 



1 9i i.] STATE SUPPORT OF PARISH SCHOOLS 509 

the Council that, while personally in favor of having the well 
organized churches and religious societies in the city partici- 
pate in the fund as before; yet, owing to the established politi- 
cal and constitutional doctrines which had a bearing on the 
case, and the habits and modes of thinking of the constituents 
at large of the Board, they were constrained to recommend 
the distribution of the fund for civil purposes only, as contra- 
distinguished from those of a religious or sectarian description. 

An ordinance was accordingly submitted, the first section 
of which provided that the schools of societies which should 
be entitled to receive any of the common school fund were 
the Free School Society of New York, the Mechanics Society, 
the Orphan Asylum Society, and the trustees of the African 
Free Schools. 

Mr. Philip Hone moved to amend by providing that the 
church schools be included on the condition that they were 
not to receive pay for any scholars except those whose par- 
ents or guardians were in the habit of attending their respec- 
tive places of worship. 

This amendment was defeated, and the bill, as originally 
reported, was passed. This ended the state support of parish 
schools. 

As a result of this struggle practically the whole of the 
city's share of the common school fund was turned over to the 
semi-public association, the Free School Society, later known 
as the Public School Society. 

In the next article we shall trace the efforts of the Catho- 
lics, led by their great Archbishop, John Hughes, to put an 
end to this unjust condition of affairs, and to have their schools 
again receive their proportionate share of the common school 
fund. 




FATHER GAFFREY'S ADVENTURE. 

BY RICHARD A. O'BRIEN, S.J. 

|HE good people of Frederick Valley would laugh 
you out of countenance to-day if you said you 
were afraid of meeting with wild- cats there in 
the mountains. Wild-cats ! They never even 
heard of such creatures, nonsense, some boy's 
story! But were you to travel on through the hills them- 
selves, sipping now and again the cool spring water, catching 
it as it bursts from mossy, fern-covered rocks; and should 
you be lucky enough to come across some old mountaineer, 
who had grown up like a sapling there along with the forest 
oaks, he would tell you how, long ago in the ante-bellum 
days, those selfsame hills were indeed a favorite haunt of the 
sly and treacherous catamount. He might even show you, 
with an old warrior's pardonable pride, the rusty flint lock 
with which he and his father before him had guarded their 
cabin in winter from the stealthy savagery of these beasts. 

Father Gaffrey was such an ancient mountaineer, as old as 
the oldest and as brave as the bravest. He had grown to love 
those sun-kissed hills, to love their frozen bleakness. Not in- 
deed, because his own hearth-fire burned amongst them, for 
he lived in the valley land, but by sheer reason of the human 
hearts and souls there amongst those silent hills. They were 
his sheep and he their shepherd. Though four score and 
seven winters had snowed upon his venerable head and dug 
deep furrows in his cheeks, yet his eye was as bright as of 
old, and flashed brighter as the light of other days shone 
through them. Gathering us close about him, the dear old 
priest began : 

In those days, my dears, the winters were longer and 
harder than now. At times the mountain passes were choked 
up, and traveling, at best always difficult, became perilous. 
A single slip on the part of the horse might mean a disas- 
trous fall. God alone knows how such accidents did not 
more often occur on those mountain journeys. But His work 



i9i i.] FATHER GAFFREY'S ADVENTURE 511 

was at stake and His abiding protection overshadowed me. 
But if traveling was dangerous at mid-day, in broad day- 
light, what do you think it must have been like at dead of 
night, on those mountains, with thick forests and impassable 
roads stretching for miles between you and the next cabin? 
A sick-call at night meant the risking of one's life. Not the 
least important, and by all means the grimmest feature of 
those winter rides, was the abiding dread of the wild-eat, or 
as we used to call them in those days, the catamount. These 
creatures were as sly and savage, though luckily not as brave, 
as tigers. In summer they skulked in the deeps of the woods 
and finding there abundance of smaller game to prey upon, 
rarely showed the tip of their noses. The cold and hunger 
of winter, however, drove them from their hiding places and, 
not unfrequently, forced them to display a bravery not native 
to them. Their usual method of attack was to lie crouched on 
the limb of a tree from where they would spring, or rather, 
drop suddenly upon their unsuspecting victim as it passed. 
To be sure, as a rule they feared to attack a man, but it was 
prudent for one to travel armed in winter. Several of my 
men had had encounters, desperate enough with these hunger- 
crazed beasts. One poor fellow, may the Lord have mercy 
OB his soul, lost a leg from the vicious bites of a catamount. 
In consequence of this general fear I usually went armed when 
the snow lay on the ground. Though on more than one occa- 
sion I had heard their bickerings and snarls through the woods, 
I had never come up with one of the beasts in the open. In 
fact I had about reached the pass of flattering myself that I 
was a hunter dreaded by catamounts. Ah, me ! How my 
pride was soon to be humbled ! My turn came, and most un- 
expectedly. 

It was late in the winter of '51. The weather was crisp 
and bright, the kind of February day that sends every drop 
of sluggish blood pulsing through your veins. I had been out 
on the trail for well nigh a week, going from cabin to cabin, 
administering the sacraments through the mountains, hearing 
confessions, and in a hundred ways endeavoring to bring the 
sunshine of God's peace and love into aching and lonely 
hearts. But now at last my thoughts were turning homeward 
toward the comfortable valley. Truth to tell, I was exhausted 
after the week's round. A couple of miles of the descent lay 



5i2 FATHER GAFFREY'S ADVENTURE [July, 

behind me. How good it felt to be going home at last ! 
When suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to visit a 
cabin away up on the crest of the mountain Fat Doonan's. 
My heart, shame to confess it, sank at the thought. What? 
turn back and spend another weary two hours in climbing 
that rough mountain side ! The very thought was pain to 
tired and worn out limbs. My horse clearly shared the same 
feelings and kept persistently pointing his nose toward the 
valley. But God's work was at stake, so there was nothing 
for it but to turn and climb. A heavy snow had fallen the 
previous night. The mountains lay sheeted and silent. Leav- 
ing the friendly cabin that was sheltering me, and refusing 
the offer of a gun, saying it would prove a cumbrous thing 
on the steep climb, I struck out across the ups and downs of 
the hills, making straight for Pat Doonan's shanty. 

It was a stiff ride, over fallen and rotted stumps and 
prickly undergrowth, rising with the hills and falling again 
with the valleys through silence unbroken save by caw of 
crow or the metallic chirp of snow birds as they flitted in 
the underbrush. How merrily they skipped from bush to 
bush, twitching their white tail-feathers and seeming to relish 
the new-fallen snow. I could not but think of the sweet Saint 
of Assisi, who used to call the birds "Francis' little brothers," 
so great was his love for all of God's creatures. 

At length a familiar wall of field stones, such as the good 
people of Frederick Valley build to this day for their fences, 
warned me that Pat's cabin was near. I jogged on a bit 
faster, thinking of my last visit to the place, which had been 
the pleasantest sort of one. They were lovable people, Pat 
and his wife, Nance, and their little boy and girl, the kind of 
people who suffered much in silence, loved God and kept joy- 
ful by their holy Faith. Pat had come over from the Old Sod 
during the great famine, and like many another Irish lad, had 
seen hard times here too before he found an asylum among 
the peaceful hills of Maryland. As I rode up I was disap- 
pointed at finding the shutters closed and no sign of life about 
the place. 

"Hello, Pat," I shouted, "come to the front, man, and 
welcome an old friend ! " But my voice evoked no answer 
from the bare walls of the shanty. Even " Blarney," the mon- 
grel, was missing. The thought of those two dreary, wasted 



i9ii.] FATHER GAFFREY'S ADVENTURE 513 

hours rose up before me with pain, and my heart sank again. 
I might have been far better away and nearer home. Besides, 
it was growing much colder and the wind was biting. 

"It's queer," thought I, "yet the place doesn't really look 
deserted; there's a chicken. They surely can't have moved." 
Just then a faint wreath of smoke curled up from the chimney. 
This was encouraging. " Well, it's not so bad after all ; some- 
body has been here lately/' said I to myself relieved ; for as 
I jumped from the saddle, the sun shot its fast fainting rays 
from beneath a pile of jagged clouds. 

I walked up to the door. It was bolted fast. I tried the 
windows, but they were bolted too, all but one in the back 
of the house, facing the West. This was partly open. Walk- 
ing up to it, I peered in, expecting perhaps to catch Pat or 
Nance napping. But horror of horrors ! what a sight met my 
eyes! The first small room, the kitchen, was empty. Not so 
the adjoining one, for there on the table stood a huge cata- 
mount, with jaws wide open and teeth glistening white. Beside 
the monster lay remnants of hair and cloth. In the increasing 
dusk no more could be distinguished. The yellow glare of the 
sinking sun lit up the room with a weird and feeble light, and 
in the waning glow there stood the ferocious creature defiant! 
Our eyes met for an instant; those fixed and fearful eyes held 
mine, their horrid glare turning nerve and muscle into stone. 
Too horrified to move, I stood rooted to the spot. But if 
limbs were powerless, my brain was working fast and furious, 
flashing into realization the secret of the dreadful sight. I 
understood all : the beast had entered by that very half- 
opened window, had crept stealthily along, leaped upon the 
inmates and done his deadly work. The were the shreds of 
clothing and matted hair. The ghastly scene for a moment 
overpowered me; then suddenly realizing my own danger, I 
nerved myself to desperation. Away from the accursed win- 
dow I sprang, leaped into the saddle, and dug my heels into 
my horse's flanks. Through the woods I flew, hair on end, 
eyes bulging from their sockets, and an icy grip on my heart. 
I dared not turn round lest the glare of those green eyes 
should be seen in close pursuit. My brain reeled, between 
my chattering teeth my tongue grew suddenly dry and stiff, 
and the pounding of my heart was like to break my breast 
asunder. Every turn in the road, every overhanging branch, 
VOL xciii. 33 



514 FATHER GAFFREY'S ADVENTURE [July, 

every protruding snow-covered rock had its own heart quake. 
At each I dreaded being again confronted by those terrible 
green-glaring eyes. My horse shied at a fallen log, and my 
heart strings all but cracked. A rustling among the snow- 
laden branches sent the hot blood bolting to my temples with 
a thud, but it was merely a sudden gust of wind playing on 
the mountain-top. There was no slackening it was life or 
death, with odds on the latter. How long this lasted I do 
not know. It could not have been long, though it seemed 
an interminable time to me. But suddenly as I came around a 
turn in the road, I heard a rustling of the hard, crisp under- 
growth some yards ahead of me, the moving of some living 
creature there I could indistinctly see through the deepening 
gloom the parting of the snowy bushes. I clutched my 
horses's neck in terror, sure that the sly beast had at last 
caught up with me and passed on, and was now preparing 
to make a fatal spring at me. I breathed a fervent prayer, 
for my time was short. A shout rang out ahead: 

" Hello there ! what's the hurry ? sure, you'll kill your nag, 
my man ! " 

And almost at my horse's head, as I hastily reined in, a 
woodsman stepped out of the thicket. The sight of a gun 
slung across his broad shoulders was a tonic to shattered 
nerves. 

"Thank God I've met you met somebody !" I cried, je"k- 
ing up to a standstill, " but watch out for that beast; its after 
me!" 

In my excitement I failed to recognize a familiar face Pat 
Doonan's own. 

" Begorra, 'tis Father Gaffrey himself! But sure, yer rivrince 
is mighty disthurbed about somethin'. The baste ? not a one 
do I see ! " 

"Ah, my poor man," I cried, "it's a terrible thing that's 
happened. While you've been away in the woods, a savage 
catamount got into your house and God only knows what 
awful damage it has done you. Poor Nance, poor Nance ! I'm 
afraid she's been killed, Pat ! " 

And so with what little breath I had left in me, I told 
Pat the dreadful story in quick, broken gasps; how I had my- 
self seen the monster with shreds of clothing and hair on the 
floor, and had fled in terror for my life. "Quick, my lad," 



i9i i.] FATHER GAPFREY'S ADVENTURE 515 

I cried, " run over to Mike Barry's and Dan Flannigan's 
and get guns and dogs out at once. God knows it's too late 
already ! " 

There was a queer light in Pat Doonan's eye and a pecu- 
liar twitch to the corners of his mouth as I panted out my 
story. I was in a sorry mood to be trifled with and was at a 
loss, besides, to account for Pat's stolid indifference to the loss 
he had sustained. I was both puzzled and angry. Pat seemed 
suddenly to realize my mood, for his ruddy, weather-beaten 
old face grew serious as I finished and the odd light died out 
of his eyes as he said: 

"Father, you're not feelin' well to-night; sure then you'd 
ought to ba afther takin' a little somethin' just to warrum ye 
up." 

"No, Pat, not a drop till you get the men together. 
Quick, my boy, quick ! " 

" But sure that's jist what I'm afther a-tellin' yer rivrince 
sure then, the thing's all a humbug ! " And here Pat burst 
out laughing, loud and long. " Ha ha ha ! ha ha ha ha ! 
Begobs an' it was only a stuffed catamount yer rivrince saw 
on that table ! " 

"A w-h-a-t ?" I gasped. 

"Sure, Father Gaffrey. 'twas that an' nothin' more. Sure 
didn't me an' Jack Flynn shoot a treminjous big wild- cat 
three weeks ago come Friday. Nance an' me have been stuffin' 
the baste for the parlor. Begorra then, but we're grand hands 
at stuffin', aint we now, Father ? " 

As it was now dark, I turned back with Pat and together 
we made our way to the cabin. I had nothing for it but to 
spend the night on the mountains. 




ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 

THE MAN AND HIS WORK. 1842-1911. 
BY ANITA MACMAHON. 

'NTONIO FOGAZZARO let us at once clearly 
state died as he had lived an ardent Catholic, 
devout in the ordinary sense of devotion, regu- 
lar in the practice and profession of his religion. 
Sustained by the Sacraments of the Church he 
courageously and uncomplainingly endured the prolonged suf- 
fering of his last illness, as years before his faith had given 
him strength to support the great sorrow of his life, the death 
of his only son, a youth of most brilliant promise. 

Ail Catholics are familiar with the history of Fogazzaro's 
novel, The Saint, and are aware that, though no one at the 
Vatican ever doubted the excellence of the author's intentions, 
this work was finally placed on the Index Expurgatotius owing 
to the Modernist trend of some of Benedetto's opinions. 

Fogazzaro accepted the decision of the Church with the 
simplicity, courage, and dignity that all who knew him ex- 
pected. Any other action would have been a contradiction of 
the spirit which pervades his entire work, and his submission 
could only have surprised those who utterly misunderstood 
his idea in writing The Saint. Benedetto promulgated erro- 
neous doctrines, but he never wavered in his belief that "the 
Church is the inexhaustible treasure-house of Divine Truth," 
that she possesses the true faith and that she alone possesses 
it. So, too, adherence to the Church does not simply mean 
the acceptance of Revealed Truth,, but requires obedience to 
Christ's Representative, the visible Head of the Church: 

Understand me well, [Benedetto says in the midst of his 
severest strictures] " I do not judge the Hierarchy : I recog- 
nize and respect the authority of the Hierarchy." And one 
of his last injunctions to his followers is : 4< I,et each one per- 
form his religious duties as the Church prescribes, according 
to strict justice and with perfect obedience. " 



i9i i.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 517 

In Leila t which is a sort of epilogue to The Saint, numerous 
allusions show that the author valued the unity and authority 
of the Church above any private judgment and that he was 
absolutely sincere in his submission. Much had happened in 
the interval to alter Fogazzaro's attitude towards Modernism, 
at first one of sympathy. When the later development of the 
movement showed its followers in actual open hostility to the 
Church's authority, Fogazzaro as already indicated, broke with 
it. In Leila, Fogazzaro lets it be understood that his teach- 
ing might have been erroneous. Nevertheless the Congrega- 
tion of the Index has recently condemned Leila which it ap- 
pears is not altogether free from the errors of The Saint to 
which it is a sequel, and it is certain that Fogazzaro would in 
this instance also have bowed to the decision of the Church. 

We see here once again how easy it is for the sincerest of 
Catholics to go astray in matters of doctrine when they begin 
to rely on independent judgment. Fogazzaro, conscious that 
his own Catholicism was too securely founded to be shaken, 
did not realize that he might by his temerity endanger the 
faith of others less firmly persuaded of the Divine Authority 
invested in the Catholic Church. As a student at Turin he 
had studied science and meditated much on the question of 
Darwinism, and evolution, and all his life he continued to 
occupy himself with the problems presented by the apparent 
conflict between reason and faith. His was essentially a com- 
bative mind, eager to defend and exalt his convictions, never 
satisfied with the position attained but always striving to ad- 
vance further. "We have been cast for war and storm" one 
of his heroes, Daniele Cortis, says " We are instruments in 
a mysterious Hand which is never still and forbids us to re- 
pose" and this was undoubtedly Fogazzaro's own motto. All 
his work is founded on Catholicism, and some people have 
made it a matter of reproach that he mixed up religion with 
every phase of contemporary life, sacred and profane. Fogaz- 
zaro regarded religion as the great force for good in the 
world and he shows us that his heroes are strengthened and 
uplifted by their faith. 

It is not our purpose to enter into a detailed discussion of 
Fogazzaro's mistakes the Church has spoken definitely. The 
present writer wishes to treat simply of the literary ability of 
this man, who, when all is said, was a faithful, obedient Cathc- 



5i8 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO [July, 

lie, and in his obedience, because of his rare intellectual gifts, 
most exemplary. But before we proceed to the definite sub- 
ject of our paper we would like to call to mind the funeral 
oration which in Leila Don Aurelio pronounces over the grave 
of Benedetto, because it is undoubtedly that which Fogazzaro 
would wish made for himself. 

The priest asks the friends of the dead man to give him 
their attention. This man, Benedetto, he continues, spoke 
and wrote much of religion, of faith, and of works. He was 
neither a prophet; nor a Sovereign Pontiff speaking with au- 
thority. He may sometimes have been led astray; he may at 
times have advanced views that the authority of the Church 
would be justified in rejecting. But he never failed to proclaim 
his humble submission to the authority of the Church, to the 
Holy See of the Supreme Pontiff. Were he still alive he would 
glory in giving proof of this as an example to the world. It 
is in his name, continues the priest, that I declare this. He 
knew that the world despises religious obedience. He, on his 
part, fiercely despised the contempt of the world. He loved 
the Church above all things on earth. In thinking of the 
Church he was wont to compare himself with the smallest 
stone of the greatest temple, which, had it a soul, would glory 
in its small ministry. . . . He wishes me to pardon in his 
name all those who, possessing no ecclesiastical authority, 
passed judgment upon him, condemning him as a Theosophist, 
a Pantheist, and as one who shunned the Sacraments. But 
that the scandal of these accusations may be destroyed, he also 
wishes me to proclaim in a loud voice, that such errors were 
ever abominations in his sight, and that from the moment 
when he, a miserable sinner, turned from the world to God, 
he did always and in all things suit his actions to the beliefs 
and the prescriptions of the Catholic Church, and this unto the 
very hour of his death. 

Antonio Fogazzaro, who afterwards gained the title of 
"Poet of the Valsolda," was born in 1842 in the heart of this 
beautiful country at Vicenza, a quaint old town of tortuous 
streets and dignifiedTaliadian palaces. He came of a rich and 
respected Lombard: family, and as his parents were ardent 
Catholics and at the same time people of unusual artistic cul- 
ture, the young Antonio received a moral and intellectual 
home training well calculated to develop his natural gifts. He 



i9i i.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 519 

was further favored by fortune in that he became the pupil of 
the Abbe Zanella, a marvelous educator, who holds no insigni- 
ficant place among modern Italian poets. Zanella was an en- 
thusiastic admirer of Manzoni, and he undoubtedly helped to 
form in Fogazzaro that thoughtful and deeply religious spirit 
which enabled him to continue the high literary traditions 
of his great predecessor. Fogazzaro took his degree at the 
University of Turin in 1861. He did not, however, continue to 
practise at the bar, and it is his own history that he has mir- 
rored in that of the heroes of his novels, who as a rule mature 
late after [having passed through a period of struggle, doubt 
and vacillation. His parents, realizing that their son was gifted, 
left him free to follow his natural bent and encouraged him 
when he finally decided to adopt literature as a profession. 
Miranda was published in 1874, Valsolda, a second volume of 
verse, in 1876, and both met with an immediate success which 
proved that Fogazzaro had not mistaken his vocation. 

His poetry is characterized by a simplicity, love of nature, 
and delicate pathos rare in Italian verse and more akin to that 
of Wordsworth and the Lake Poets. There was, however, 
nothing of the cosmopolitan in Fogazzaro, who was peculiarly 
Italian, and found within the limits of the Valsolda, where 
most of his life was passed, material for a work, varied, ori- 
ginal and profound in its character, of which only a few of 
the dominant ideas can be indicated within the limits of a 
short paper. 

Fogazzaro's most marked characteristic was his absolute 
sincerity. " I can unhesitatingly affirm," he once said to a 
friend, " that all that I have written comes from the depths of 
my soul." Unlike so many of his contemporaries there was 
with him no division between the artist and the man : he lived 
as he wrote, his mind, his work, and his life in perfect har- 
mony. He was fond of saying that " the poet should live like 
the rest of mankind "; and he did not believe in an art that 
required one to isolate himself from humanity, or that inter- 
fered with a man's fulfilling his ordinary duties in domestic 
or public life. Fogazzaro's life was simple yet complete, filled 
by his intellectual work, by happy home ties, and by many 
modest municipal offices which he did not think unworthy of 
his attention. 

He had, however, a profound distaste for the feverish and 



520 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO [July, 

artificial character of modern town life, and always refused to 
be drawn from his country home at Vicenza; in the provin- 
cial society around him, his fine observation discovered the 
germs of the emotions that govern the universe and his keen 
appreciation of nature, enabled him to discover an ever-varying 
beauty in scenes familiar to him from childhood. Fogazzaro 
has immortalized his beloved "Valsolda" in his novels where 
all his personages live and move in their natural setting, and 
this harmony, which is one of the greatest charms of the orig- 
inals, is the great obstacle to an adequate translation of them. 

Fogazzaro believed, that a poet should be a prophet, 
and a moral educator, and from the outset of his career as a 
writer we find him preoccupied with philosophical, religious, 
and social questions, which, as already indicated, he treated 
with an unvarying sincerity, elevation of sentiment and cour- 
age verging on temerity. 

Malombra (1881) Fogazzaro's first novel, is a somewhat 
confused and melodramatic work, difficult to analyse. During 
his student days in Turin, Fogazzaro became for a time much 
interested in various occult subjects and it was under the in- 
fluence of all this pseudo-scientific knowledge that he wrote 
Malombra , the plot of which is based on the fantastic heroine's 
belief in the transmigration of souls. Despite its faults Malom- 
bra is a work of considerable merit, containing many beautiful 
descriptions of nature and personages, which revealed remark- 
able powers of characterization in this connection it is inter- 
esting to recall that, on the authority of his biographer, 
Molmenti, when Fogazzaro began his career as a novelist, his 
favorite author was our Charles Dickens whose humor and irony 
he much appreciated. Malombra is penetrated by a high in- 
tellectual and moral tone which at once distinguished the 
author from contemporary Italian novelists ; and the treatment 
of love and passion revealed a lofty idealism rare in any litera- 
ture. In Malombra, as in all his subsequent works, Fogazzaro 
has depicted the conflict between carnal and ideal love, ending 
in the triumph of the latter. Fogazzaro believed firmly in the 
elevating power of love, love purified by religion, tending to 
free man from his baser instincts and raising him nearer to 
God. It would, however, be a mistake to regard this love, 
which is at once human and divine, as a sort of spiritual or 
purely intellectual love tinged by an unhealthy mysticism; the 



191 1.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 521 

personages in these novels love with all the force of human 
passion, but this love is always a purifying factor, a force in 
realizing their destiny which is to mount towards God. 
" Lord of my soul ! " Conrad Silla cries in Malombra, " Thou 
knowest that it is not merely happiness I seek in love ! In 
love I seek a force to help me to fight for all that is good 
and true, a force to help me to despise all that is base ! " 

To the best of the present writer's recollection it is a priest 
who in one of Fogazzaro's novels defines the ideal Christian 
union in the following words addressed to a young man in 
whom he is interested: 

I have never told you, dear lad, but I have prayed very 
hard that God might give you what He is now giving you, a 
strong and mighty love rich and holy. You are not made for 
celibacy, you are made for a union ideally human, ideally 
Christian, ideally beautiful. You are made to raise up a 
strong and pure progeny. The tradition of great families 
heroically devoted to kings, is at an end. Men must found 
families that shall be heroically devoted to God, in which de- 
votion to God shall be handed down as a title of nobility, as 
the just and traditional sentiment of nobility. You must 
found such a family. It is my dream for you. 

In Conrad Silla, the hero of Malombra, Fogazzaro has de- 
picted a man, passionate and aspiring, weak under temptation, 
yet struggling against the dominion of his senses and conquer- 
ing in the end. It is characteristic of Fogazzaro's ideas that 
Silla dies just at the moment when he has definitely tri- 
umphed over sensual passion, when his will, aided by the mem- 
ory of the pure love of Edith, enables him to free himself at 
last from the bewitchment of the distraught heroine, Marina. 
Fogazzaro regarded life as one long combat ; he shows us man 
struggling incessantly, tempted, hesitating, succumbing some- 
times but always recovering himself again and gradually acquir- 
ing in the incessant effort a complete and definite control over 
himself. This is the real victory ; and when this is attained Fo- 
gazzaro usually closes the history of his heroes in order probkbly 
to lay stress on his belief that merit lies in the effort and not 
in the work accomplished just as an action noble in itself is 
in no way impaired by the fact that it fails, as often happens, 
to attain the result aimed at. 



522 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO [July, 

Daniele Cottis (1885) at once secured Fogazzaro European 
fame. The theme of the book is love and sacrifice, and it 
illustrates the higher beauty of duty triumphant over ignoble 
pleasure. In Daniele Cortis and his cousin Helena di Santa 
Giulia, Fogazzaro presents us with two truly noble figures ap- 
parently destined by nature to love and complete each other; 
and their love is shown to be that profound sentiment which 
resists the most severe trials, which defies separation and death, 
everything in life and beyond life except honor. To render 
his demonstration of the unalterable character of the marriage 
tie yet more striking, Fogazzaro has here introduced all the 
circumstances usually used to extenuate the sin of unfaithful- 
ness. Cortis, on bis side, is absolutely free. Helena precipi- 
tated into an early marriage by the levity of her mother 
which made her home life intolerable, finds too late that her 
husband is a cynical adventurer, sensualist and a gambler, who 
is led by his vices into the most dishonorable compromises. 
In public as in private her husband takes pleasure in wound- 
ing her most delicate feelings; he makes no pretence of hav- 
ing any affection for her and, indeed, would evidently be 
rather relieved if she were to leave him and cease her tire- 
some scruples about his affairs. She has no children who 
might one day suffer by her fault, and, lastly, the circle in 
which she lived would have taken an extremely indulgent 
view of a deserted wife seeking consolation for her wrecked 
hopes outside the marriage bond. Nevertheless, though thrown 
continually together by a combination of circumstances, and 
subject to much temptation, they resist and come through tri- 
umphantly, confident in the eternal nature of love, and be- 
lieving that by keeping their love unsullied here below they 
will earn the right to enjoy it in eternity. 

This sentiment of the eternity of all true love runs through 
all Fogazzaro's novels and is one of the most original charac- 
teristics of his work. Few of his lovers realize their dream in 
this life, and their love though a source of great moral 
strength is only a preparation for the next life where perfect 
love will at last be known. In Malombra as has been already 
related, death separates the lovers just at the moment when 
Silla after hovering long between good and evil, conquers bis 
lower nature and turns resolutely towards Edith the separa- 
tion is, however, only for this life, since, conquerers in the 



i9i i.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 523 

strife, they will enjoy eternal love. In The Poet's Mystery 
(1888) the sentiment of the eternity of love is the theme of a 
romance which is best described as a poem in prose. Violet 
and the Poet at last united after much difficulty and tribula- 
tion, are separated again a few hours after their union by the 
sudden death of Violet. The poet, however, strong in his faith 
in the survival of all that is beautiful, good and true, awaits 
with confidence the continuation of their union in eternity, 
believing that Violet was "a word from God," whispered to 
him in the darkness of moral weakness and intellectual inertia, 
destined from the beginning to be the force of his life, to be 
to him what Beatrice was to Dante. 

So too we leave Daniele Cortis and Helena irrevocably 
parted for this life. Circumstances require that Helena should 
accompany into exile her unworthy husband, who has been 
saved from public dishonor by his family on condition that he 
expatriates himself. In pages, the moral beauty of which it 
would be difficult to excel, Fogazzaro has depicted the final 
parting of these two noble souls with such poignancy, such 
vividness that an ineradicable impression is left on the mind 
of the reader. It is notable that at the last Helena, whose 
faith is lukewarm, wavers in her resolution, and it is Cortis, 
profoundly religious, who finds in his faith the courage and 
force necessary to accomplish this final sacrifice. When Helena 
murmurs despairingly: "We shall never meet again," Cortis, 
accepting suffering with the resignation which is only another 
form of hope, since it is founded on faith, sums up the en- 
tirety of his Catholic belief in the simple phrase : " God is 
good." If, however, Fogazzaro thus shows his heroes domi- 
nated by the thought of eternity, he lays stress on the fact 
that his sentiment, far from causing them to withdraw from life, 
should on the contrary urge them to more ardor for their work 
in this world. Fogazzaro had little of the visionary in his 
disposition; he loved life and those who knew him before the 
death of his only son had shattered his most cherished hopes, 
speak of his infectious gaiety and light heartedness ; to the 
end he took a keen pleasure in the joys of others, and all who 
knew him testify to his lovable character and unfailing cour- 
tesy and benevolence. 

In Franco Maironi, the hero of Piccolo Hondo Antico (1895) 
called 7hc Patriot in the English translation Fogazzaro 



524 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO [July, 

presents us with another type of Catholic; in Maironi religion 
is at first essentially passive until, vivified by suffering, it be- 
comes active and awakens all the dormant nobility of his 
nature. 

The Patriot is generally considered to be Fogazzaro's best 
novel, and it is certainly his most artistic work. In it he has 
given a complete picture of life under Austrian rule in his 
native Valsolda, showing much espionage and self-seeking, 
much that is base or trivial, interwoven with the pleasanter 
theme of courage, loyalty, chivalry and patriotism. Fogazzaro 
has mirrored in it all his youthful recollections and the dwel- 
ling of Franco and Luisa on Lake Lugano, described with such 
tender care, is his own early home. The interest of the story 
centers in the conflicting personalities of Franco Maironi and 
his wife Luisa. Theirs was a love match and they remain 
deeply attached one to the other, but, though apparently 
united, there is between the husband and wife a divergence 
of opinion on the subject of religion, and this difference at 
first unsuspected, develops at last into direct antagonism re- 
garding the education of their child. Maironi, who is pro- 
foundly religious at heart, bases all morality on the principle 
that one must not do evil because evil is displeasing to God. 
Luisa, touched by modern scepticism, seeks to inculcate an 
ideal of personal rectitude, independent of all idea of a duty 
towards the Creator, and she tells the child that she must not 
do evil simply because it is evil. Franco, who is passionately 
devoted to his wife, suffers keenly from the latent antagonism 
to his faith which he devines in Luisa, and he does not sus- 
pect that this is largely due to the fact that his own life is to 
her an argument against its efficiency: Maironi is talented and 
lovable and full of generous impulses, but he lacks the force 
of character necessary to turn them to good account. In 
order to marry Luisa he without hesitation sacrificed all the 
advantages of position and money, opposing the wishes of his 
despotic grandmother, who disinherits him in consequence of 
what she calls a mesalliance. After the marriage, however, he 
accepts without question the home offered by Luisa's uncle 
and, much to his wife's mortification, settles down into a 
pleasant but futile existence, dallying with patriotic dreams, 
much as he gratified other aesthetic instincts in music, art and 
the cultivation of flowers, completely regardless of the fact 



i9i i.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 525 

that even a simple life costs money and that all these little 
luxuries represent sacrifices on the part of Uncle Ribera whose 
labors support the household. Fogazzaro has depicted his 
own mother in the person of Signora Rigey, the mother of 
Luisa, and the book possesses a further interest because it 
was written after the death of his only son, and when Fogaz- 
zaro had earned the right to speak of the moral value of 
suffering. 

When the catastrophe occurs and the little daughter of 
Franco and Luisa Maironi drowns herself accidentally in the 
lake, Fogazzaro draws a vivid contrast between the effect the 
same sorrow produces on husband and wife, on the religious, 
as opposed to the positivist, spirit. 

Luisa, so strong, so logical, so self-reliant, is completely 
crushed; all force of mind and heart seems annihilated, and 
she loses all interest in life except for a passing phase of in- 
fatuation for table-rapping and other spiritualist practices. 
Maironi, on the other hand, believes that his child is safe with 
God where, if he is worthy, he will one day rejoin her, and not- 
withstanding his terrible grief, he finds in his faith courage 
and strength to continue the work he has already started on, 
of redeeming the futility of his early life. In conformity with 
his usual practice, Fogazzaro at the end of the book shows us 
the faith victorious, transforming Franco Maironi, the dilet- 
tante, into Franco Maironi, the brave soldier, who works so 
valiantly for God, for his country, and for those he loves, and 
who thus, by degrees, wins back the affection and respect of 
Luisa. After years of separation and suffering we see Franco 
and Luisa united once again, and the book ends on this note 
of reconciliation and hope. It is only in the sequel, Piccolo 
Hondo Moderno, that we learn that ultimately Franco had the 
great joy of knowing that Luisa had been won through him 
to the Catholic faith. 

From the literary point of view, The Man 0f the World 
as Piccolo Hondo Hoderno (1901) is styled in the English vert- 
sion is not at all up to the high standard of The Patriot. 
The leading characters and the main trend of the story are 
indeed etched in by a master-hand, but a quantity of infini- 
tesimal details and unnecessary personages encumber the scene 
and obstruct the progress of the plot. Piero Maironi, the. 
son of Franco and Luisa, is the hero of The Han of the World, 



5*6 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO [July, 

and subsequently of The Saint. Deprived of his parents at an 
early age Franco Maironi was killed in the war of 1859 acd 
his wife Luisa did not long survive him Piero was brought 
up by a Venetian relative, the Marchesa Seremin, whose daughter 
Elisa he marries while still very young. Shortly after the 
marriage Elisa goes out of her mind, and when the story opens 
we find Fiero living with his parents-in-law, and leading in 
the eyes of the world an apparently blameless life, both as re- 
gards faith and morals. Inwardly, however, Piero is torn by 
conflicting elements and assailed by violent temptations of soul 
and body: one moment he is severely ascetic with an aspiring 
faith tending to mysticism, the next moment he is drawn 
down to earth and under the dominion of his passions. The 
circle in which he lives is dominated by a spirit of narrow 
piety, and while strict attention is paid to outward observance 
of Catholicism, there is little trace of a truly religious inner 
life. Even the Marchesa Seremin, who afterwards reveals " a 
most lofty Christian soul/ 1 seems to pay much more attention 
to the letter than to the spirit, and to the ordinary observer, 
her most distinguishing quality is her avarice. Piero, like many 
another before kirn, is deeply shaken in his faith by the con- 
tradiction existing between the belief and conduct of the peo- 
ple around him, and, confusing the reality with the shadow, 
he forgets that God is in no way affected by the fact that His 
image is, owing to human frailties, often obscured and even 
distorted in those who should represent Him among men. 

At this critical period Piero meets Jeanne Dessalle, young, 
fascinating, beautiful, and intellectual, and each immediately 
feels the magnetism of the other's personality. Piero, how- 
ever, continues to struggle against temptation, and accepting 
the office of Councilor, tries to absorb his energies in public 
affairs; here, too, fate seems against him, and he withdraws 
into private life again in disgust at the general corruption and 
at the opposition his altruistic projects meet with on all sides. 
He then tries to find a refuge against his own weakness in 
monastic vows, and visits Don Guiseppe Flores a truly ad- 
mirable type of priest who, on the authority of Fogazzaro him- 
self, is stated to be an exact portrait of his uncle, Don Gui- 
seppe Fogazzaro to ask whether there is not some cloistered 
order which would receive a man in his position, married, yet 
outside the normal conditions of matrimony. Don Guiseppe 



i9i i.] ANTONIO FOGAZZARO 527 

replies in the negative, and adds that even if there were such 
an order he would dissuade him from entering it because "the 
world was still too deeply rooted in his heart and all his temp- 
tations would enter with him." Piero returns to the world 
and drifts gradually under the spell of Jeanne Dessalle, who 
is separated from her husband, and lives with her brother in 
an atmosphere of culture and gaiety which Fiero finds very 
attractive after the unintellectual circle of his mother-in-law's 
house. Piero and Jeanne deceive themselves at first into think- 
ing that theirs is a purely spiritual affinity, and later, just as 
their passion seems about to dominate them, Piero is called 
to the bedside of his dying wife, Elisa, who has recovered her 
reason and wishes to speak to him. The chapter which follows, 
entitled In Lumine Vitae, is one of those which show Fogaz- 
zaro at his best, rising without apparent effort, to the level of 
an intensely emotional crisis. 

Elisa, who all her life was an enigma even to those who 
knew her best, is at the last vouchsafed a moment of expan- 
sion, and, having revealed a soul of exquisite sensibility and 
fortitude, she dies radiating the beauty of her Catholic faith 
around her. In this hour of mystery and silence a complete 
revulsion of feeling takes place in Piero; his passion for Jeanne 
Dessalle fades away into a mere memory, and the faith that 
he had believed dead springs up from 'the depths of his soul, 
where it had lain dormant while he was under the empire of 
his senses. 

It is characteristic of Fogazzaro's courage that he is not 
afraid to introduce a miraculous element into the conversion 
of Piero, and it speaks highly for his artistic powers that he 
has managed to create a general atmosphere of spirituality in 
which the vision is, as it were, merely the highest light in 
the composition. It is while praying in the little chapel of 
the asylum that Piero has the vision which changes his whole 
life, and this grace is evidently in response to the ardent de- 
sire of Elisa that before her death she might know her hus- 
band united to her in the true faith. The veil of human 
error which hid the splendor of God from Piero is dispelled; 
and, transformed by faith, he starts life afresh, quitting his 
home, his possessions, and even his name, in order to show 
his perfect obedience to the Divine Will. 



flew Boohs. 

SAINT CHARLES BORROMEO. A SKETCH OF THE REFORM- 
ING CARDINAL. By Louise M. Stackpoole-Kenny. New 
York: Benziger Brothers. $1.10. 

While this is a book springing into existence rather from 
admiration of a great personage than frcm historical research, 
it is yet accurate and reliable. The author appropriately leads 
us to the study of St. Charles by a perusal of a particularly 
clear translation of the Encyclical of Pius X. on the Saint's 
centenary. 

St. Charles Borromeo is a stern figure in history ; and yet 
a close acquaintance, such as is given in a familiar way by 
the thirty- four well written chapters of this book, will reveal 
him as a most gentle-hearted Christian. God, however, used 
mainly the masterful elements in his character. He was divinely 
chosen as the clear-visioned mind and the firm hand fitted to 
make the great decrees of Trent institutional in the Catholic 
Church. His pastorals are the best specifications of the re-ad- 
justments of the old, and the introduction of the new, things 
needed to reinstate God's rights in the care of men's souls* 
His synods not only set things right but set up models for 
mitation to this day. St. Francis de Sales called him "the 
most austere man in Europe," and yet, St. Francis himself, 
the tenderest heart in the world, took him for his pattern in 
the government of his diocese. Our present Supreme Pontiff, 
the gentlest of men, is yet Borromean in his apostolic courage, 
his defiance of evil doers in high place, his contempt for pious 
sloth, and* the amazing strength of his apostolic arm in cor- 
recting ecclesiastical abuses. 

THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE, CONSIDERED IN ITS APOSTOLIC 
ASPECT. By a Carthusian Monk. Translated from the 
French by A. M. Buchanan. New York: Benziger Broth- 
ers. 75 cents. 

The authorities of both the author's Order and of the eccle- 
siastical hierarchy, have placed their approval upon this little 
volume, which is one of much utility. It treats, first, of the 
divine part that solitary prayer plays in the outward activities 
of the Christian religion prayer, be it remembered, associated 
with penance and the study of divine things, and practised in 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 529 

cloistered retirement. It explains the hidden economy of min- 
gled sacrifice and petition, practised under approved rules and 
in stable organizations, and explains the working of this influ- 
ence upward and outward into the mixed life of pastors of 
souls, preachers, and educators. The second part takes up 
separately the orders distinctively devoted to contemplation, 
expressly debarred from the outward care of souls and turned 
away into seclusion for the immediate communication of the 
spirit with God. These are each pithily described, and the 
characteristics of spirit and rule accurately detailed. 

The book is valuable for ready reference, not only for con- 
fessors, but also for inquirers generally. Priests dealing with 
the finer quality of spiritual natures in the confessional, should 
read it, and that very carefully. For it is certain that lack of 
intelligent direction hinders many souls from following the divine 
attraction into the Holy Spirit's quieter modes of sanctification. 

CHRIST IN THE CHURCH. By Robert Hugh Benson. St. 
Louis, Mo.: B. Herder. $i. 

In spite of the author's very modest preface in which he 
says he is making " an attempt to indicate in a lew strokes, 
the wood as a whole, to those who cannot see it for the trees," 
Father Benson's latest work is unquestionably an important 
and original contribution to apologetics; and one particularly 
well fitted to serve as breakwater to the wave of so-called 
" New Thought " that is to-day sweeping so many off their feet 
It would be impossible in the limited space of a magazine 
notice, to do anything like justice to Father Benson's noble 
vindication of Catholicism as devotion to a Person. 

He takes up, one after another, the usual charges against 
the Church, and with the intensity of absolute conviction and 
with the force of a trained and brilliant intellect he meets 
every one, not with the recapitulation of argument but with 
a statement of the Catholic position as a whole. In answer to 
the two most ordinary charges against Catholicism, first, that 
there is no such thing as absolute truth, and, secondly, that 
it is false to the spirit of its Founder, having degenerated into 
a cult of mere system, Father Benson describes the life of the 
Church "with certain extraordinary phenomena and coincidences 
of that life" which of themselves create a presumption that 
these charges are untrue. In other words he points out that 
VOL. xcm. 34 



530 NEW BOOKS [July, 

the Catholic Church is productive of results so startling and so 
unique as to warrant her equally startling and unique claims; 
and, secondly, that so far from having misrepresented the in- 
tentions of her Founder, she has fulfilled and illustrated them 
to a degree in which no Protestant church even claims to have 
attempted their fulfillment. 

Because of its clear, direct exposition (which after all is 
the best argument) Christ in the Church is a work of singular 
power. 

Father Benson portrays the Church not only as a bride 
and representative of Christ, but as the " expression of God in 
terms of a corporate life." Treating of the Church as the 
Body of Christ, Father Benson uses a striking and original 
analogy. Taking up the objection that each life being a unit, 
it is distorting words beyond their proper meaning to say 
that the Life of Christ can be identical with that of a multi- 
tude of disciples, Father Benson shows that biological research 
has proved that, however profound the unity of an organic 
life, such life is on its physical side the result of innumerable 
cells, " each individuality merged is yet transcended by the 
unity of the body of which it is a part." Each body whether 
of man or beast, does, indeed, possess its individual life, but, 
"sheltered by, and contributing to, this very unity are the 
cells that compose the body, coming into being, dying and 
passing out of existence with the destruction of the tissues, 
but never interrupting or altering the continuous life of the 
body as a unit. At death, the unity of a life is gone and yet 
the individual life of the cell continues for a certain period." 

The analogy emphasizes the vivid contrast between the 
Catholic Church and Protestantism. To the Protestant, Chris- 
tianity means the union of the individual with a divine Person 
Who lived two thousand years ago, and at death returned 
whence He came; no priest, church, or sacrament is necessary 
for that union. To the Catholic, Jesus Christ " still lives upon 
earth, having a Body in which He lives, a voice with which 
He speaks. This Body consists of a unity of myriad cells, 
each a living soul complete in itself. This Body transcends 
the sum total of the individual cells, and yet expresses Itself 
through them." The Catholic is not merely an imitator, a 
lover from afar of Christ, but an actual cell in that very Body 
which is Christ's. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 531 

It is impossible to follow out in detail Father Benson's 
justification of this overwhelming claim of the Catholic Church. 
That it is, like her Founder, wholly unique, no one has ever 
attempted to deny. No philosopher, reformer, no founder of 
a sect has ever, like Christ, promised man to come to him and 
establish in him His dwelling. 

Father Benson taking this as a central, fundamental truth, 
the Church as the Body of Christ in the world, proceeds to 
his exposition and to the details of his analogy. It is a valu- 
able work and one that ought to lead many souls to the 
knowledge and acceptance of God's revealed truth. 

THE JOB SECRETARY: AN IMPRESSION. By Mrs. Wilfrid 
Ward. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1,20. 

To the many who have watched eagerly for a new book 
from Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, because of the exceptionally high liter- 
ary standard she has set, The Job Secretary may be something of 
a disappointment. Unlike her other works it comes freighted 
with no great spiritual purpose, but is a study of unusual 
though possible, conditions in modern social life. The story 
opens with the Norburys, one of the innumerable, nomad 
married couples of the day, at luncheon, with a guest. Mr. 
Norbury, a successful novelist had reached an impasse in his 
work, owing to the loss of his competent secretary. Mrs. Nor- 
bury, however, procures a substitute. The substitute, a Mrs. 
Carstairs is neither a young girl nor trained, but a woman of 
unmistakable position, and full of subtle fascinations. 

Though Mrs. Carstairs' typing is wholly illegible ; Mr. Nor- 
bury is too kind-hearted to dismiss her curtly, and allows her 
to read aloud the beginning of his novel. 

She reads delightfully well. Later she ventures sugges- 
tions as to the interpretation of the heroine's character, until 
Mr. Norbury accepts her not as a stenographer but as a col- 
laborator. The story is told with dainty fancy and sure and 
elegant touch but, frankly, we were not attracted by it. It 
borders too closely upon the inconsequent "popular" etory of 
the day. 

LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. By Frankfort Moore. New 
York: E. P. Dtftton & Co. $3.50. 

This Life of Goldsmith might be called a Brief for Gold- 



532 NEW BOOKS [July, 

smith against the malicious attacks of Boswell in his life of 
Johnson. Boswell would have us believe that Goldsmith was 
a fool, an ignoramus, and a braggart with hardly a redeeming 
trait. Our present author Frank Frankfort Moore would apply 
these very epithets to Boswell himself. No doubt Boswell was 
a thorough-going hero- worshiper. In adoring Johnson he was 
restrained by no moral code and Goldsmith's reputation suffered. 

Another point well brought out by Moore is the marked 
difference in the English and the Irish traits. The Irish char- 
acter is an enigma to all but those " to the manner born. 11 It 
is hard for an Englishman, even a bright one like Dr. John- 
son, to understand an Irishman ; and harder still for a Scotch- 
man of the Boswell kind who by his long sojourn in London 
had contracted the faults without any of the virtues of an 
Englishman. Boswell says that Johnson called Goldsmith a 
fool. No doubt he was a fool to play the part of a fool to a 
party of English who had no sense of humor. Most likely 
he chuckled in seeing evidences of their stupidity. Irish wit 
and humor came as naturally to Goldsmith as the habit of 
borrowing and lending. His weakness on the financial side 
was readily perceived by the thrifty English; his quick-witted 
play of fancy, however, was incomprehensible. A delightful 
illustration of this dullness is given by Moore in his novel 
The Jessamy Bride. Dr. Johnson and a party of English 
friends had gone to the theatre to witness a rehearsal of Gold- 
smith's comedy She Stoops to Conquer. " Nay, sir," cried John- 
son when Goldsmith was leaving the party, "Nay, sir, you 
shall not desert us. You must stay by us to let us know 
when the jests are spoken Why, Goldy, you would not leave 
us to our own resources?" 

Outside of the defence of Goldsmith, the rest of the book 
has only an indirect bearing on the Life. Its chapters on 
"The Ireland of Oliver Goldsmith," and "An Interlude," are 
interesting, as is the author's explanation of the paradox that 
in Ireland the only chance one has of saving anything is by 
becoming thriftless. 

At times he is too discursive and psychological, and falls 
to conjecturing what might have been, had not Goldsmith 
thrown away his life in handfuls, so to speak. One thing is 
certain, had Goldsmith not been a philosophical vagabond, 
Eaglish literature would have been the poorer. 



19".] NEW BOOKS 533 

THE PROCESS OF ABSTRACTION : AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY. 
By Rev. Thomas Verner Moore, C.S.P. Berkeley, Cal.: 
The University Press. $1.00 

Every person who has acquired even a tincture of philoso- 
phy is aware of the central position which the question of 
abstract ideas holds, since the days of Aristotle, in all meta- 
physical speculations on the nature of the human mind and the 
validity of human knowledge. It is somewhat of a surprise 
therefore to learn from the careful historical sketch which 
opens this brochure, that experimental work on the process of 
abstraction dates only from 1878, when Galton described his 
experiments in composite photography. An analogy was 
drawn between these photographs and our general ideas, and 
his word was taken as confirming the view that abstract ideas 
are nothing but sense impressions variously compounded. The 
same theory is held by many of the psychologists who have 
been making experiments in the matter; but, as time has 
gone on, facts have been adduced which have put more and 
more of a strain on their theory. Father Moore took up the 
question while a student under Wundt at Leipzig. His experi- 
ments were conducted, first in Wundt's laboratory there, and 
afterwards at the University of California. 

For use in his experiments Father Moore drew about three 
hundred differently shaped figures. These were placed on a 
revolving disk and flashed five at a time before the eyes of 
the subject at intervals of a quarter of a second, the same 
amount of time being allowed for the inspection. One figure 
was common to each row of five used in an experiment. The 
subject was told to pull a switch when certain of the existence 
of a common element. To the uninitiated this may seem like 
a child's game, but to the trained psychologist it presents a 
basis for analyzing the mental processes of the subject during 
the operation. The results thus obtained are very interesting. 
We shall deal only with the most important. 

The most pregnant fact brought to light in the investigation 
is that the mental image of the object is not the sole, nor 
even the most important element in the process of perception. 
It need not be present at all. The adult mind uses its ac- 
quired generalizations or concepts or, in Father Moore's ter- 
minology, "categories," in order to perceive the object pre- 
sented to it: 



534 NEW BOOKS [July* 

The subject, [he says] does not pass from the individual to 
the general, from the concrete to the abstract, but just the re- 
verse. What is offered to the vision is individual and con- 
crete enough. But what one first sees and holds on to is some- 
thing that can fit into some kind of a mental category that the 
figure suggests. What one sees and does not hold on to, but 
at once forgets, takes no further part in the process of develop- 
ment. The mental category may be as wide as that conveyed 
by our idea of ' * something/ ' Or again, it may pick out some 
special characteristic of the figure. . . . Once a subject 
said she knew the figure was made of curved lines. She had 
not the slightest image of any curved lines nor any idea of 
how they were arranged. She attempted to draw some curved 
lines but failed utterly to reproduce the figure or any part 
thereof. Had there been a mental image of any part of the 
figure, that part could have been drawn. But there was no 
image. On perceiving the figure, it called up by association 
the idea of curved lines. That the figure belonged to the 
class of curved-line figures was apprehended clearly and re- 
membered. The image of the curved lines was not remem- 
bered. 

These facts have an important bearing on philosophy. The 
current systems of psychology which reduce all our cognitive 
states to imagery and feelings are met on ground most favor- 
able to their contention, and are found wanting. Father Moore 
has shown that even in sight perception the imageless con- 
cept is most important. He shows also that these concepts 
or categories cannot be classified as feelings, in any warranted 
use of that term. 

His business was to discover and state the facts. The 
conclusions that can be inferred from them he merely sketches. 
The most obvious of these is that the theory of composite 
impressions which has led to such baneful results in philo- 
sophical thought, is based on a defective analysis of the facts 
of perception. It remains to be discussed whether the exist- 
ence of these "categories" points in a Kantian or in an Aris- 
totelean direction. The word itself has a Kantian flavor. The 
fact that incoming impressions are interpreted by pre-existing 
categories seems at first sight to be in favor of Kantian doc- 
trine. But in a tentative analysis of the way in which the 
original categories are probably formed in the mind of the 
child, Father Moore takes a thoroughly Aristotelean position. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 535 

Most people will deem it an odd thing if one should wax 
enthusiastic over a dry, technical study which seems to them 
much ado about nothing. An event like David's cutting off 
Goliath's head with his own sword appeals to the imagination 
and stirs the emotions. Father Moore has really achieved a 
greater feat, for he has used no sling in his operations. And 
he has not merely overthrown a giant; he has destroyed the 
Philistines. Not that there are any of the sounds of combat 
in the book. We see only the patient, eager searcher after 
truth, using the best means offered by human ingenuity to 
get at it in its entirety and exactness. All the more potent 
are the facts he finds and the conclusions he indicates. The 
issues involved are bigger than most people can realize. Father 
Moore, in his quiet, impersonal way, has struck straight at 
the heart of a philosophical system which has done more than 
anything else to lower man's estimate of his own dignity and 
of his power to acquire a knowledge of God. 

THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD. By Robert Hichens. 
New York: The Century Company. $1.10. 

This novel presents a study in psychology. The problem 
of telepathic communication and of transferred personality is 
worked out between two clergymen of the English Church, a 
rector and a curate of a fashionable church in London. The 
rector, a strong intellectual man dominates the will of his 
curate, a man of but ordinary powers. The strong man, who 
in college days devoted himself to psychical research, prevails 
on his weaker companion to hold with him a repeated num- 
ber of " sittings." The result is a transference of will power, 
the stronger growing weaker and the weaker growing stronger 
at each sitting, until each sees in the other his former self. 
The characters are developed with Mr. Hichens' usual force, 
but the theme of the book is an unpleasant one. 

THE WORKER AND THE STATE. A study of Education for 
Industrial Workers. By Arthur D. Dean, S.B. New York : 
The Century Co. $1.20 

Mr. Dean is the man who was in charge of the work un- 
dertaken by the New York State Education Department four 
years ago when it amended the elementary school system 
by providing a new kind of course, composed of six years of 



536 NEW BOOKS [July, 

general instruction, and two years of preparation for mechan- 
ical and agricultural industries. In the present volume he 
surveys the facts which have induced this departure from 
the earlier method, and shows conclusively enough what every 
discerning mind will allow that there has been hitherto too 
little relation between school instruction and economic voca- 
tion. The writer is perfectly conversant with his material 
and presents it in a way that gives the reader a sufficient 
grasp on the numerous elements involved in the movement for 
an adequate system of industrial education. The book contains 
a good bibliography, including considerably over a hundred 
entries. 

JACQUETTO. By Louise M. Stackpoole-Kenney. New York: 
Benziger Brothers. 75 cents. 

Within the short compass of some two hundred pages 
" Jacquetto," is accompanied through a surprising number of 
thrilling adventures. Such characters as chance to be enemies 
to the happiness of the heroine are done away with in rather 
a summary fashion and Jacquetto, who has not come out of 
the last adventure an automobile accident unscathed, " limps 
fetchingly " away upon the arm of a devoted lover to live 
happily ever afterwards. 

THE FATE OF HENRY OF NAVARRE. By Bloundelle-Burton. 
New York : John Lane Company. $4. 

A really great service has recently been rendered to the 
cause of history and the cause of Catholicism by Mr. John 
Bloundelle-Burton, who is the author of a great many works 
of historical romance. In his latest interesting achievement 
this writer shatters, once and for all time, the cruel and long- 
enduring calumny that the Church was in some way implicated 
in the assassination of King Henry IV. of France, three hun- 
dred years ago. Mr. Bloundelle-Burton's new book is titled 
The Fate oj Henry of Navarre. 

As a result of the most exhaustive and complete research, 
he renders futile the old legend that Franpois Ravaillac, or 
any other, had been aided or abetted by the Established Church 
in any plot to get rid of the King. Henry's various tergiver- 
sations in religious matters were scandalous enough, we all 
know, but in these pages it is over and over again confirmed 



NEW BOOKS 537 

that the Church bore him no ill-will and would have heartily 
deprecated any scandalous intrigue to remove him. 

Mr. Burton is not a Catholic writer, and, that being the case, 
he is to be complimented on his fair-mindedness and general 
desire to get at the real facts of the tragedy of May 14, 1610. 
Henry was in his fifty- eighth year at the time of the tragic 
occurrence, but he had not ceased to be loose-lived, and he 
was at that very time engaged in an attempt to divorce Marie 
de Medici in favor of Madamoiselle de Montmorency, for whom 
he had conceived a violent passion. Our author claims that the 
Pope would have excused much in Henry, for the reason that 
he cherished the hope of the kingly intention to annex the 
Kingdom of Naples to the Papal dominions. From His Holi- 
ness, then, " no opposition of any kind would be likely to come." 
And the King of France had no fewer than thirteen armies 
ready to take the field, at the head of them the great Sully. 
But Vhomme propose. 

Henri Quatre, "Henry of Navarre" sire of Louis XIII. 
and grandsire of Louis XIV. was, with all his shortcomings, 
unquestionably the most popular monarch that ever ruled the 
fair land of France. The death of Queen Elizabeth of England 
in 1603 left him the most powerful and absolute monarch in 
the length and breadth of Europe, and it is clearly set forth 
that there were at least a score of plots against him. Not one 
of these, however, is shown to have been fostered or connived 
at in any way as the Huguenots so fiercely and persist- 
ently sought to prove by the Established Church, or the 
Jesuits, or any branch thereof. The actual assassin of the 
French monarch was a poor weakly religious fanatic and vision- 
ary, and the most terrible tortures failed to make him change his 
story that he had no accomplices. That there was, at the very 
moment of the assassination, another murder plot about to be 
put into execution is clearly proven ; but its bias was political 
and not religious, and it was engineered by Henry's bitter foe, the 
Due d'Epernon, who was able to save his neck because Ravail- 
lac's unassisted crime saved the " hired bravoes " of the Due 
the trouble of acting. 

The Church [asserts Mr. Bloundelle-Burton] , the old Es- 
tablished Church, which was the bitter enemy of Henry, had 
no hand in Ravaillac's terrible resolution. When he wished 
to become an active member of it a priest they refused to 



538 NEW BOOKS [July, 

admit him, and drove him forth with contumely, as unsuited 
to be one of its ministers. It may be, indeed, that they 
doubted if the half -crazed suppliant, who saw visions and 
dreamed dreams, and did not fail to announce that he did so, 
was fitted to become a member of a community in which 
silence, self-control, and caution are set forth as three of its 
most important requirements, or if, when all the land was in a 
turmoil between their own faith and the growing strength of 
the Protestants headed by the King, he would not be more of 
a curse to them than a blessing. But, whether this was so or 
not, the Church refused to accept him, and when his shocking 
deed was perpetrated, it was also free of any participation in 
it. Alone, friendless, starving, and roofless, Ravaillac did 
that which he believed the Almighty had sent him on this 
earth to do ; alone he did it without patron or associate, and 
alone he expiated his crime without any single person in all 
France who could be charged with him. 

This definite pronouncement is of all the greater importance 
because the author is certainly not imbued with any strong 
predilections in favor of Catholicism on the contrary. It is a 
circumstance sufficiently remarkable, that Henry's death by the 
hand of an assassin had been long and frequently foretold. 

The author while taking a Protestant view of Henry and 
his times, is, as a rule, just without being generous. He writes 
of the Huguenots: 

The Catholics principally hated Henry because they had 
no belief in the sincerity of his conversion, since once before, 
during the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he had embraced the 
Catholic Faith to save his life and had then renounced it 
after returning to Navarre. The nobles who were members 
of the league hated him because he had broken its power, 
and, indeed, it is possible, there were even Huguenots who 
hated him for having deserted his original faith. 

MARRIAGE AND PARENTHOOD : THE CATHOLIC IDEAL. By 
Rev. T. J. Gerrard. New York: Joseph F. Wagner. $i. 

Father Gerrard's presentation of the Catholic ideal of home 
life in all of its details is admirably thought out, and should 
have its influence upon every Catholic who reads it. His 
statements are clear, distinct, and reasonable as to the duties 
of parenthood, so frequently misunderstood or neglected. The 



i9".] NEW BOOKS 539 

tendency of much modern teaching is in favor of the usurpa- 
tion of these sacred functions by the school and the class- 
room, especially on the lines of which Father Gerrard treats. 
This makes the appearance of this work all the more timely 
and desirable. The author's whole object is to urge the loyal 
fulfillment of the law of God and of the Church in the home. 
It is an attractive and capable volume and will no doubt meet 
the cordial appreciation it deserves. 

THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER. By Edward Dickenson. 
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50. 

The author tells us that this work is the result of years of 
experience in his professorial capacity, and it is evident that 
he had first and foremost in view the training of -such young 
persons who set themselves out to acquire something more 
than a smattering knowledge of music. There are, however, 
also in it many pages which will prove useful to those who 
claim to have a love for the art, though no particular knowl- 
edge of its intricacies. On the whole the author treats his 
subject impartially, and shows that he has made a wide ac- 
quaintance with musical literature. The essay that struck us 
as being the best in the series is that on the "Art of Song: 
Music and Poetry." In it he has some excellent passages, and 
as he takes a broad view of the subject one feels some sense 
of conviction by what he writes. 

Although we say this, we have to add that we do not agree 
with him in all that he states. In one instance where he 
speaks of the rambling of Gregorian Chant (p. 91) we disagree 
with him totally, and feel that he has missed proving his as- 
sertion. And in another place (p. 16) when he says: "The 
history of musical patronage, so often clogging the wheels of 
achievement is a painful one when it is observed how many of 
the noblest spirits in the realm of art have suffered and even per- 
ished because of public dulness or intolerance," he states a half- 
truth. This is not the entire and true history of patronage ; 
such a thing may be asserted of that history only within a 
very limited and recent period ; of that period since patronage 
has passed from learned and cultured persons to the ignorant 
multitude. What about the history of patronage under the 
Popes ? We think that it would have been worth the author's 
while to have made some reference to the great things done by 



540 NEW BOOKS [July, 

them for music and musicians, before the loss of the Temporal 
Power. 

It is also necessary not to let pass unnoticed the use made 
by the author of passages by writers in general literature. To 
make apt quotations is always acceptable, but at the same time 
there always rests the great responsibility on the person quot- 
ing that young persons will not be thus introduced to writers 
unfit to be read. Our author has not given as careful atten- 
tion to this matter as one should desire, and hence while we 
are able to commend his book for its usefulness to students 
and lovers of music, our commendation brings in its train a 
warning that the writers quoted are not always those whom it 
will be wise to know any further. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE PENTATEUCH. By Harold M. Wiener. 
London: Elliot Stock. $i. 

Every reader of this book will be attracted by the sim- 
plicity and clearness with which the author sets down his 
arguments. No special effort is required to follow him through 
the maze of theories and his refutation of them, which neces- 
sarily entails a large number of quotations from the Bible. It 
is quite evident that Mr. Wiener is perfectly at home with his 
subject, and he shows everywhere that he has a firm grasp 
of the many difficulties that surround the first five books of 
Sacred Scripture. Thoughtful readers will, indeed, experience 
a feeling of consolation on seeing this non-Catholic layman 
tackling the higher critics and showing up their weaknesses, 
fallacies, and inaccuracies, which latter are not always uncon- 
sciously committed. As, for instance, their method of propping 
up their assertions. "A passage will be assigned to a par- 
ticular document on the ground that it contains a given 
phrase, and then this phrase will be cited as characteristic of 
the document" (p. 84). 

The author, with legal acumen, states first the teaching of 
the higher critics, and then proceeds to tear it to pieces in a 
most thorough-going manner. He uses arguments from law, 
history, and literature, brief but sufficiently full to convince 
the impartial reader that the author is on the right side of the 
controversy. His conclusion is : " the unanimous testimony of 
Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian tradition assigns to Moses 
the authorship of the Pentateuch. This tradition is embodied 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 541 

in numerous passages of the Old Testament itself." And in 
closing his book he pens a few remarkable sentences which 
we cannot pass over. " In the view of the whole critical 
school the Pentateuch is at best an ordinary book, at worst a 
field for practising their quaint mathematical exercises. In my 
view it is not primarily a piece of literature at all ; it is a 
piece oi statesmanship and must be judged as such." And 
the very last paragraph of the book is worthy of any Chris- 
tian scholar. We hope that some day the author will be 
able to apply his words " The truth for which one has fought 
and won is not likely to be less dear or less strongly held 
than that which was gained without difficulty or sacrifice " in 
an entirely different way ; to a theological rather than a Bibli- 
cal conclusion. He is to be congratulated on his work, and 
for the delicate yet fearless manner in which he rehabilitates 
the old and sensible teaching so persistently maintained by 
the Catholic Church on the authorship of the Pentateuch. 
Whilst the higher critics are quarreling among themselves over 
their theories the Church, with calm assurance, is insisting oa 
what tradition has handed down, and what a sane reading of 
the text exhibits. 

THE PURPLE EAST. By J. J. Malone, P.P. Melbourne: W. 
P. Linehan. $i. 

A truly pleasurable, conversational account of a spring tour, 
made by the author and his friends among the delights of 
Egypt and Palestine. The descriptions short, graphic, and to 
the point, are enlivened by the witty remarks of the author* 
whose keen sense of humor precludes any tendency to tedious- 
ness. Enthusiasm, tolerance, and good sense are present at 
every stage of the narrative. 

THE JUKES: A STUDY IN CRIME, PAUPERISM, DISEASE, 
AND HEREDITY. By Robert L. Dugdale. Fourth Edi- 
tion. With a Foreword by Elisha Harris, M.D., and an 
Introduction by Franklin H. Giddings. New York: G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. $1.50. 

Professor Giddings quite truly remarks in his Introduction 
to the present volume: 

It is doubtful if any concrete study of moral forces is more 
widely known, or has provoked more discussion, or has in- 



542 NEW BOOKS [July, 

cited a larger number of students to examine for themselves 
the immensely difficult problems presented by the interaction 
of " heredity " with " environment. " 

Published first in 1877, The Jukes has been out of print for 
a number of years, and its new appearance will be welcomed 
by all students of social science; for although in the last 
twenty years a decided change has come over the scientific 
spirit with regard to the significance of heredity, this mono- 
graph still remains a valuable collection of data on a subject 
of permanent importance. 

THE SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR PROBLEM. By Scott 
Nearing, Ph.D. New York : Moffat, Yard & Co. 75 cents. 

Popular and light in character, Dr. Nearing's little volume 
has yet a general significance as being the work of a former 
Secretary of the Pennsylvania Child Labor Committee, and a 
peculiar interest attaches to his confession of a material change 
in attitude with regard to prohibitory legislation. He regards 
the barring of children from the factories as of ne real value 
because the laws make no provision for the resultant family 
needs or juvenile idleness. As an easily read, general review 
of the situation and as a pointed indictment of the scandal- 
ous inadequacy of ordinary school training, the book deserves 
to be well circulated. 

TWENTY YEARS AT HULL-HOUSE: WITH AUTOBIOGRAPHI- 
CAL NOTES. By Jane Addams. New York : The Macmil- 
lan Company. $2.50. 

In a book which is partly an autobiography and partly a 
chapter in the history of American Settlements, Miss Jane 
Addams gathers together the reminiscences of a twenty-years 
residence at Hull House. Bound together inseparably as the 
institution and its founder have been, each detail recorded 
about the one serves as an interpretation of the other. Read- 
ers cannot resent the presentation of small personal details 
when these are shot through with the glow of an enthusiasm 
as sincere as that illuminating Miss Addams' pages. 

Hull House and indeed Jane Addams as well may claim 
to be regarded as a sort of national institution. Even critics 
must admit that the movement of which this volume speaks 
has excited much attention and exercised a telling influence. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 543 

Hence to the book before us cannot be denied a place of im- 
portance in our library of social literature. It is not written 
as a thesis; it is the frankly told story of twenty heroic years. 

THE APOLOGIES OF JUSTIN MARTYR. By A. W. F. Blunt 
M.A. Cambridge, University Press 

The Patristic age has at last come into its own. Thanks 
to the progress made in the history of Dogma, the Greek and 
Latin Fathers are being edited by scholars in different countries. 
And so the student of historical theology is having opened 
for him a mine of knowledge that will enable him to carry on 
more successfully his studies in his favorite branch. And the 
lover of literature the one who has studied the development 
of language will find that the Fathers are the legal and just 
heirs of the old classics. 

The present volume is the latest one of the series now be- 
ing issued by the Cambridge University Press. The editor, Dr. 
Blunt, has produced an excellent work, one in keeping with 
those already published. The text followed is mainly that of 
Kriiger (1904). The Introduction shows a very thorough and 
painstaking treatment of the topics under discussion ; and best 
of all, Dr. Blunt seems to have no pet theory of his own to 
present to the reader. This volume, we are told, is primarily 
intended for theological students. But it would also serve ad- 
mirably as a text-book in colleges and universities where 
Patristic Greek forms part of the curriculum. 

GETTYSBURG, THE PIVOTAL BATTLE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 
By R. K. Beecham. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 
$1.75 net. 

An old veteran revisits the scene of his experiences as a 
common soldier in the memorable battle of Gettysburg, and 
in this book fairly fascinates us with his memories, while weary- 
ing us a little bit with his military criticisms. There are many 
fine, full-page pictures of the principal Union and Confederate 
heroes of the great conflict, and we are especially thankful for 
the map which is a reproduction of a profile typographical 
engraving. We are pleased that this writer calls attention to 
the Gettysburg field as our most interesting national park, 
consecrated nigh half a century ago by the shedding of heroic 
blood, enshrined in immortal oratory by Lincoln's Address, 



544 NEW BOOKS [July, 

and now brightly shining with countless monuments, none fune- 
real or regretful, unexpectedly few inartistic. Add that the 
townspeople have from the first disdained to fleece the visiting 
public, and that their hotel and conveyance rates are quite 
inexpensive. The book is beautifully printed and solidly bound. 

HOMESTEAD: THE HOUSEHOLDS OF A MILL-TOWN. By Mar- 
garet F. Byington. $1.50. 

THE STEEL WORKERS. By John A. Fitch. $1.50. New York: 
The Pittsburg Survey Charities Publication Committee. 

Since our latest comment upon that valuable and fascinat- 
ing series of reports which is known as The Pittsburg Survey, 
two other volumes have appeared, one of them dealing with 
the industrial conditions and the other with the home life of 
the steel workers. They thus constitute a pair of complemen- 
tary investigations. 

The most significant fact brought out by Mr. Fitch's study 
is the employer's undivided responsibility for the conditions 
obtaining among the Pittsburg steel-workers since unionism 
was ruthlessly eliminated. 

Free libraries, profit-sharing, relief-plans, and pension funds 
will, in truth, never compensate the community or the indi- 
vidual for the harm done by twelve hours work for seven 
days a week at insufficient wages. 

Mr. Fitch's difficult task has been done carefully, and his 
book is to be prized. The true significance or insignificance 
of his data will be sometimes missed, however, for the want 
of a summary that might easily have been made; chapters xii. 
and xiii., for instance, contain many widely separated state- 
ments and statistics which affect and interpret one another. 
We regret that they have not been compared in that illumin- 
ating way which would have been feasible for Mr. Fitch, but 
will not even be attempted by the average reader. 

In Miss Byington's discussion of the town which has 
grown up around the Carnegie mills at Homestead, we have 
a precise and fairly thorough study. The development of the 
town, its complicated and unhappy political constitution, its 
economic dependence on absentee property owners, its un- 
checked blunders and incurable weaknesses these are set out 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 545 

in a graphic, yet not sensational way. We would refer the 
reader to the author's account of the tax situation in Home" 
stead. It shows clearly how the laborers living at the doors 
of the huge mills in 1910, carried either as house-owners or 
as rent-payers, taxes which were seven times as heavy as 
those laid on most of the property of the Steel Company 
whose authorized capital stock is over a billion dollars. In 
1910 the borough of Homestead was $621,776.03 in debt and 
was arranging to borrow more. 

The main portion of the book is divided into two parts, 
one devoted to the English-speaking, and one to the Slav 
households. Almost every page contains matter that tempts 
one to quote, but we refer our readers to the volume itself 
for the detailed descriptions which are the fruit of Miss By- 
ington's laborious and scientific methods of study. The re- 
ligious conditions among the Slavs are described briefly, but 
almost nothing is said about the English speaking parishes. 
One significant item, twice noted, is the presence of more 
than fifty saloons in this community of 25,000. 

JOHN MURRAY'S LANDFALL. By Henry Nehemiah Dodge. 
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.25. 

This curious verse romance is a feeling record one may 
eve*, say, an apotheosis of one John Murray, a wandering 
preacher who traversed the American Colonies just before 
and during the Revolution. Led on by his two dream-angels, 
the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, this quon- 
dam Wesleyite went about preaching an evangel of love as 
opposed to the contentious and rigid " elections " of the var- 
ious sects. He does not seem to have been a very epoch- 
making apostle, but upon his story Dr. Dodge has lavished 
much enthusiasm and almost every variety of verse, from sim- 
ple narrative to epic, lyric and apocalyptic ventures. 

LES SOEURS BRONTE. Par E. Dimnet. Paris: Bloud et Cie. 

2fr. 

One cannot open this book without experiencing in some 
degree a feeling of curiosity concerning the way the author 
will deal with his subject. A French priest writing the biog- 
raphy of Protestant female writers is not a daily occurrence 
in literary history. Father Dimnet comes through the ordeal 
VOL. xciii, 35 



546 NEW BOOKS [July, 

well, by producing a most interesting and well-balanced piece 
of work, written with attention to style, and with a just appre- 
ciation of the writings of the Brontes. Although he writes 
with an evidently keen admiration for their literary output, 
he is perhaps somewhat too insistent on their failings of 
character, particularly their narrow and militant Protestantism. 
He should by this time, and we think that he does, know how 
difficult it is to find in the English-speaking world more in- 
sularity, bigotry, and what has every appearance of hate, 
than in provincial England whenever there arises a question 
about Catholics or Catholicity. We get a glimpse of the 
Bronte household in the days when Catholic Emancipation was 
under discussion in the House of Commons ; the father tearing 
open excitedly the newspaper containing the latest news, and 
the children crowding around him to hear it. The only value 
this, and kindred information has for us of the present day is, 
that it teaches us that education and mental ability are not 
always means of shedding light where the darkness of cen- 
turies has accumulated. 

In Chapter XIV. Father Dimnet takes for granted that 
Emily Bronte was the author of Wuthering Heights, and he 
does not give any space to a discussion of the theory of 
Dobell, advanced in the Palladium of September, 1850, that 
Charlotte was the author. We can easily understand that 
Father Dimnet did not feel himself bound to fall into one of 
those faults of English biographers, whom he so soundly rates 
in his Introduction, by stating a theory that he believed to 
have been silenced forever by Charlotte's denial of the author- 
ship. It will mean more rewriting for our author, however, 
if Mr. Malham-Dembleby's recent book, The Key to the Bronte 
Works will come to be accepted by experts as proving that 
Charlotte had, indeed, written that book. 

LES EVANGILES SYNOPTIQUES. Par Eng. Mangenot. Paris: 
Letouzey et Ane. 3 fr. 50. 

In this series of lectures we have a scholarly discussion 
from a Catholic standpoint of the errors of M. Loisy in his 
recent work on the Synoptic Gospels. The author's plan is 
good. First of all he states in a terse way the objections of 
the rationalists, and then proceeds to their solution. Much 
disputed territory is covered. He deals with such knotty 



191 1.] NEW BOOKS 547 

problems as the silence of those ancient documents regarding 
the virgin birth of our Savior; the historical value of the ac- 
counts of St. Matthew and St. Luke regarding the same event; 
the miracles of Jesus with all their difficulties ; the testimony 
of Christ regarding His own mission and Person; the Resur- 
rection. 

The book must be commended for its sanity. While the 
author argues against Loisy and the rationalistic school, he 
does so, not from a spirit of fanaticism, because their opinions 
are advanced, but because they do violence to that faith 
which has been handed down from the Apostles. 

''PHE preparation and publication of catalogues of books by 
Catholic authors in our public libraries will do much, we 
trust, to stimulate interest in Catholic reading and make known 
our Catholic writers to our own Catholic people. The latest ad- 
dition to such catalogues is that of the Carnegie Library of 
Fittsburg. The present catalogue is one of the most compre- 
hensive and one of the best arranged that we have ever seen. 
It has a classified list of subject and author. Books in Latin 
are included. The catalogue is published by the Carnegie 
Library of Pittsburg and in the work the Library has had 
the hearty co-operation of the Bishop of Pittsburg. The price 
is 35 cents. The list includes over 700 authors. Of course 
there are names and books omitted that the Catholics of Pitts- 
burg should place in their Public Library; and we have no- 
ticed at least one publication unworthy of a place in any 
catalogue. We have also noted the names of some who are 
not Catholics; in this respect greater care might have been 
shown. 

SOME time ago we announced the proposed publication by 
Longmans, Green & Co., of a series entitled the Friar 
Saints. We heartily welcome the first two volumes that have 
just appeared: St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. The 
English Franciscan Provincial, Father Osmund, will edit the 
"Lives" of the Saints of his order and Father Bede Garrett 
those of the order of St. Dominic. The Life of St. Thomas 
Aquinas is written by Father Placid Con way, O.P. He relates 
the life in a short popular form, for the volume is small and 
handy in size and gives at the end a useful bibliography. 



548 NEW BOOKS [July, 

Father Lawrence Costelloe, O.F.M., writes attractively of St. 
Bonaventure. Four more "Lives" will follow shortly. St. 
Vincent Ferrer, St. Pius V., St. Antony of Padua and St. 
John Capistran. If they are successful they will be followed 
by the "Lives" of St. Antoninus of Florence, St. Raymond 
of Pennafort, St. Louis Bertrand, St. Bernadine of Siena, St. 
Leonard of Port Maurice, and St. Peter of Alcantara. 

We sincerely hope that the reception accorded these first 
volumes by our Catholic people will enable the editors to pub- 
lish the entire series. In form and general presentation the 
volumes recommend themselves highly; they are attractively 
bound in cloth, well printed, low in price (50 cents apiece), 
and ought to be warmly welcomed and widely read. 

''THE Ave Maria Press of Notre Dame, Indiana, which has 
long merited the gratitude of the Catholic public for its 
excellent work for Catholic literature, has placed all of us still 
further in its debt by the publication in enduring form of 
Father Damicn, the famous letter which Robert Louis Steven- 
son wrote to the infamous Dr. Hyde. The value of this pres- 
ent publication is increased by the publication of a statement 
from Mrs. Stevenson that her husband's admiration of that 
" ' saint, that martyr/ as he invariably called Father Damien " 
never changed. That statement answers for all time the gra- 
tutous charge made that Stevenson "did not really believe 
what he wrote neither did he intend to write what he did." 
The book is most tastefully presented and sells at 30 cents. 

THE CHILDREN'S CHARTER. By Mother Mary Loyola. 
(New York: Benziger Bros. 65 cents). This little book 
from the gifted pen of Mother Loyola is a timely and a 
blessed one. Its contents are best explained by its sub-title: 
" Talks with Parents and Teachers on the Preparation of the 
Young for Holy Communion." Those who have the responsi- 
bility and the privilege of preparing the little ones of Christ's 
flock for the reception of the Sacraments will find much help 
in Mother Loyola's valuable suggestions and counsels. They 
represent the fruit of her long experience in instructing chil- 
dren an experience supplemented by understanding, sympathy 
and love. There is no doubt but that this little book will be 
welcomed by mothers and children everywhere. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 549 

WE cordially welcome the two new volumes by the well 
known writer, Father H. Reginald Buckler, O.P. The 
first, Spiritual Instruction on Religious Life. (New York : Ben- 
ziger Bros. $1.15). includes a number of papers particularly 
suited for the information and guidance of priests and religi- 
ous. It is admirably well fitted also for those of the laity 
who look seriously for religious perfection. 

Spiritual Considerations (New York: Benziger Bros. $1.15) 
is a collection of short, thoughtful and attractive papers on 
subjects suited to every Christian. Father Buckler writes with 
a sense of the "time spirit." He outlines the great principles; 
he brings them home to the man of to-day, religious or lay, 
and hence his books are of special and timely value. 

A NEW edition of The Raccolta, the collection of indul 
" genced prayers and good works, has been published by 
Benziger Brothers, New York ($i). 

THE following are some late booklets published by Bloud 
et Cie, Paris, France: 

V Apologetique par Mgr. Douais (o fr. 60), gives an able 
exposition of the meaning of apologetics. Thomassin (i6ib- 
1695) par 1'Abbe Jules Martin (i fr. 50) gives a summary of 
the writings and doctrine of the great theologian. La Psyche- 
logie Dramatique du Mystere de la Passion a Oberammergau 
par Maurice Blondel (o fr. 50) is a study of the psychology of 
the mystery of the Passion. Saint Pie V. par Paul Deslanares 
(o fr. 60) Leonard de Vinci t par Baron Carra de Vaux (o fr, 
50) is a study of the subject as painter, mechanician, anatomist, 
botanist, and thinker. La Philosophic Minerale, par Albert de 
Lapparent (o fr. 50) invites us to study the mineral world 
where the eminent savant finds material for deep reflection. 

LE MYSTERE DE LA REDEMPTION, par Edward Hu- 
gon, O.P. (P. Tequi, Paris 2 frs.) is addressed both to the 
clergy and the laity, and is a capable study of the fundamen- 
tal doctrine of Christianity. La Venerable Marie de VIncarna- 
tion t Ursuline, Fondatrice du Monastere de Quebec gives the life 
story of Mme. Martin (P. Tequi, Paris i fr.). 



jforeicjn jperiobicate* 

The Tablet (20 May) : " The Break-down of the Ferrer Legend," 
by Hiiaire Belloc. The writer subjects the whole Ferrer 
legend to a close and critical examination. The leader 
of the anti-Catholic forces in Barcelona struck at the 
Church under the guise of a political reformer. He 
was arrested and the concerted efforts of an interna- 
tional organization failed to save him or to persuade 
the world of his innocence. "The exposure of the 
fraud is the first fruit of the somewhat tardy resistance 
which the Catholics of the Continent have undertaken, 
and our unexpected success in the matter is of happy 
augury for the future." 

(27 May): The Imperial Conference representing the 
four Dominions and Newfoundland and the Mother 
Country assembled for its first business on May 22. 
The address of the Cardinal Archbishop of Balti- 
more before the Peace Conference held in that city on 

May 4. The Apostolic Process of the Beatification 

of Father Dominic, the Italian Passionist who received 
John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church, has 
been begun at Rome. 

(3 June): The Holy Father has issued a Rescript, grant- 
ing a general dispensation throughout the British Em- 
pire from the law of abstinence on the Friday follow- 
ing the Coronation. The population of Ireland has 

decreased since 1801 by 76,824 persons. Of the total 
population over 73 per cent, are Catholics. The Bishops 
of Spain have addressed a forceful letter to the Spanish 
Prime Minister protesting against his new " Associations 
Bill." 

Expository Times (May): The venerable Willoughby C. Allen, 
in " Harnack and Moffatt on the Date of the First 
Gospel," while dissenting from Harnack's date for the 
First Gospel, 70 AD., and Moffat's 70-110 A.D., says 
that the Fall of Jerusalem does not determine the date 
of this Gospel, and that it should be placed rather be- 
tween 50 and 70 A.D. "Identification of an unnamed 

Old Testamant King" by P. S. P. Hancock, B.A. 



1 9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 551 

(June): The Rev. A. R. S. Kennedy, D.D., publishes 
for the first time the "Codex Edinburgensis," which is 
an Old Testament manuscript of not later than the fif- 
teenth century of the Christian era. In "The Living 

Christ" and the "Historical Jesus," the Rev. A. E. 
Garvie, M. A., insists that the "Christ of faith "and the 
"Jesus of history" are identical. 

The National Review (June) : " Episodes of the Month " raises a 
cry of alarm over the possible loss of Canada to the 
United Kingdom, because of Mr. Taft's " audacious bid" 
in the way of reciprocity. Ambassador Bryce is in this 
matter " bootblack-in-chief to the United States." This 
is followed by an article : " Will Canada Be Lost," by 
Albert R. Carman. He believes that greater things are 
at stake for the United Kingdom, because of Canada's 
possible action, than were at stake at Waterloo. 
"Women Who Want the Vote," by Maud Selborne, 

explains what class of women want it and why. 

" Pope in Worsted Stockings," by H. C. Biron, is a sym- 
pathetic appreciation of the poet, Crabbe. Violet 
Cecil makes a plea for the welfare of factory workers in 

"Some Scottish Homes." "On Titania and Com- 

pany," by C. E. Lawrence, defends the value and 2m* 
' portance of the fairy tale. 

The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (May) : " The Scapular Tradf- 
tion and its Defenders," by Rev. Herbert Thurston, SJ. 
Father Thurston defends the intellectual honesty and 
scientific scholarship of Father Benedict Zimmerman 
against the attack of Father Rushe, a brother Carmelite. 
Father Zimmerman writing in the Dictionnaire de The- 
ologie Catholique and elsewhere breaks with the Elias 
and scapular traditions of his order. It is for this that 
his confrere takes him to task. Father Thurston an- 
swers that the attitude of Father Zimmerman is in 
line with opinions of the best historical scholars, past 

and present. "Some Celtic Missionary Saints," by 

Rev. W. H. Kirwan. This is an introductory study of 
the labors and influence of the early missionary saints, 
in general. Detailed papers on the work of St. Columba, 

St. Fursey, and St. Cataldus are to follow. "The 

Pragmatic Value of Theism," by Rev. Leslie J. Walker, 



552 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [July, 

SJ. "Biblical Memories in Palestine: Old Testa- 
ment," by Rev. James P. Conry. In this essay is 
shown the unchanging faithfulness of present day Pales- 
tine to the Old Testament accoun tsof itsancient civiliza- 
tion. 

The Church Quarterly Review (April) : " The Government of 
England," by A. Lawrence Lowell. The book is, of 
course, an account of the Government of England as a 
working machine. The component parts of the machine 
are examined and described in isolation and in relation 
to other parts. Its method is mainly analytical and 
not historical. Speaking of "The New Life of Car- 
dinal Pole," by Haile, A. E. Burns remarks that the 
chief criticism of the new book is in the matter of Bibli- 
ography. Writing on such a scale, the author ought, 
according to Mr. Burns' opinion, to have taken pains 
to give a complete list of Pole's works. Nevertheless, 
such a life even if unduly laudatory, will do much to 
win for Pole the regard which he deserves in the esteem 

of his countrymen. " Community Life in the Church 

of England." A quasi-historical survey of the develop- 
ment of the community life within the Church of Eng- 
land during the last sixty years. The movement obvi- 
ously stands for a renewal of the sense of vocation, of 
avocation to a particular life, and of vocation in any life. 
Life under religious rule and vow is in itself a particular 
vocation, but it also stands for vocation in any profes- 
sion whatsoever. 

The Month (June) : The Rev. J. H. Pollen in an article en- 
titled: "The New Encyclopedia Britannica on the Jes- 
uits," scores the article on the Jesuits published in the 
" Britannica," and pleads for a fairer treatment of Cath- 
olic subjects in future. "Fairy- Tales of Natural His- 
tory " by the editor presents facts of Natural History 
which bring into question the theory of evolution. " The 
Amazaving Emperor," by W. Blake Jennings, is a re- 
view of a book of the same title by J. Stuart Hoy. 
This article is a general refutation of the book which 
claims that many Christian practises come directly from 
the religion of Baal. 

Revue du Clerge Franfais (15 May): J. Paquier writes of "The 






19 1 1.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 553 

Religious State and Marriage According to Luther." 
Luther's doctrines on these subjects were the logical 
sequence of his more fundamental doctrines on the 

relation between God and man after the fall. P. Godet 

gives a brief "History of Piety towards Mary." J. 
Riviere reviews a work of A. Palmieri, O.S.A. entitled 
Theologia Dogmatica Orthodova, a very learned work in 
which the author sets out to explore all the domains of 
the Orthodox theology, on the points in which it di- 
verges from the Catholic theology. 

Le Correspondant (10 May): "French Colonization in Tunis," is 
the second article on this subject by Louis Arnold. The 
present article treats of the difficulties to be encountered 
in such a scheme. " Souvenirs of the Pontifical Zou- 
aves " by O. De Traissau gives an account of the trouble- 
some days of 1860. "A Norwegian Novelist," by 

Jacques de Coussange, treats of the life and works with 
extracts from the latter, of the young Norwegian novelist 
Johan Bojet. 

(25 May): "The Personal Letters of Pere Lacordaire 
to Count De Falloux " appear under the title " Letters 

to the Count De Falloux." "Across Bolivia" is a 

description of a journey through this South American 
Republic by Prince Louis D'Orleans. "The Thou- 
sandth Anniversary of Normandy," by R. De Srantmesnil 
is a description of the exercises to be held commemorat- 
ing the event. " The Young Turks and the National- 
ities of Turkish Europe " by Andre Cheradame is a de- 
scription of the troubles taking place between the present 
Turkish Government and the Christians of Macedonia 

and Albania. "Colonel Henry Moll," by Count 

D'Eschevannesis an account of the life and experiences 
of this French-African Explorer, together with the pub- 
lication for the first time of his private letters. "The 
Memoirs of Richard Wagner," by M. Andre is a descrip- 
tion of the life of Wagner since his debut as a com- 
poser. "The Salons of 1911," by Andre Perat de- 
scribes the works of artists and sculptors which have 
been exhibited in the Art Salons of Paris during the 
past year. 

Revue Pratique D' Apologetique (i May): M. A. Valentin, by 



554 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [July, 

a comparative study of the respective sources of Chris- 
tianity and other religions, brings out the idea of 
" ' Mythic Christs ' and the Christ of History." " Non- 
Catholic Denominations in England " by J. D. Folghera, 
O.P. The author reviews, or rather synopsizes the four- 
teenth chapter of Father Benson's book on "Non-Catho- 
lic Denominations." High Church, Low Church, Broad 

Church, etc., all receive a word. "The Preacher," by 

H. Lestre. The preacher ought to be a man of con- 
viction and a man of humility. 

(15 May): An author signing himself XXX, comments 
on Charles Dunan's book, The Two Idealisms. The 
present article is entitled "A Return to Aristotle" 
which is a summary of Mr. Dunan's book. There are 
two philosophies : that of Decartes and that of Aristotle. 
One excludes the other. Mr. Dunan accepts the latter. 

Etudes (5 May): Joseph Brucker praises Beissel's " History of the 
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin." In November 1910 
the third centenary of Ion Arason, last Catholic bishop 
of Iceland, and martyr for the faith, was celebrated. 
Jon Svenssoa quotes tributes from Lutheran orators to 
this national hero, poet, and defender of the ancient 
church. 

(20 May): Albert Valensin asks whether the figure of 
Christ in the second and third centuries had been re- 
touched by Greco-Roman syncretism, especially by the 
worship of Mithra, and whether without Christ this 
syncretism could have done the work of Christianity. 
He answers both questions in the negative. " Scholas- 
tic Reforms in China," according to Alexander Brou, 
while theoretically excellent, have been introduced too 
suddenly. Subjects and methods are new ; teachers and 
directors incapable; parents, suspicious; the learned of 
the old school, hostile. As a result there is confusion. 

Lucien Roure reviews " Modern Masters," studies 

by Victor Giraud of Loti, Brunetiere, Faguet, de Vogue 
and Bourget. 

Stimmen aus Maria-Laach : " The Moral Theology of the 
Jesuits as a Liberalist Sees It," by G. M. Reichmann, S.J., 
discusses Dr. Ohr's latest repetition of the old charges. 
The author hints that Dr. Ohr has written without 



19 1 1.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 555 

really having read Jesuit theologians. J. B. Umberg, 
S.J., writes on " The Modern Catholic and the Grace of 
Confirmation." His thesis is that it is still very hard 
to profess Catholicism in the face of the world, and 
supernatural help from Confirmation is necessary. 
La Civilta Cattelica(6 May): "The Theory of Hugo De 
Vries on the Origin of Species," receives sympathetic 
treatment at the hands of the reviewer who takes oc- 
casion, however, to point out that the famous Dutch 
botanist's theory is in advance of his facts." The 
series on " Masonry " is continued, the writer bringing 
out much evidence to show the positive anti- religious 

trend of the order. P. Pierling, S.J., contributes an 

interesting study of the abortive negotiations between 
Pius VII. and the Russian Emperor, Paul I., for a union 
of the Russian Church with Rome, and makes it reason- 
ably clear that nothing definite would have resulted, 
even had Paul I. not been murdered while the nego- 
tiations were in progress. The history of Venerable 

Father Mastvilli, S.J., martyred in Japan in 1637, is 
reviewed by Pietro Tacchi Venturi, S.J. 
(20 May) : " New Discoveries and Ancient Truth " deals 
with recent archaeological discoveries bearing on the 
New Testament. The writer is confident that these, in 
the future as in the past, will but serve to illumine the 
old truths. The study f " Leo N. Tolstoi " is con- 
cluded with an examination of Tolstoi's " Christianity," 
in the course of which the writer condemns in the 
strongest terms his blasphemous expressions concerning 

God and the Trinity. " The Inquisition in Italy " is 

a review of a series of articles in the Archivio Storico 
Lombardo (1910), dealing with Milan and the Roman In- 
quisition. "The Origins of the Umiliati " are discussed 

in a first article reviewing a recent work by Sac. 
Dott. L. Lanoni. 

(3 June) : " The Proposed Law of Dismemberment of 
Russian Poland," is declared to be aimed at the destruc- 
sion of the Catholic Church, in the process of " Russi- 
fying" the territory affected. "Good Books" dis- 
cusses the question of reading by Catholics, and indicates 
the requisites which should be possessed by good books 



556 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [July. 

other than those of a specifically spiritual character. 

t The Recent Decrees of the Index," makes clear 

the reasons for the banning of Fogazzaro's Leila 9 and 
the principles which govern in the case of books of this 

kind. The series on " Freemasonry " is continued, the 

present article treating of its internal unity. 

La Scuola Cattolica (May) : " The Truce of God " is elaborately 
considered by Bishop Gaggia, with a wealth oi historic 

facts. " Mariavitist Theology " describes the general 

tenets of the remarkable Polish heresy. The series 

on " The Messianic Purpose of Jesus " is continued by 
Adolfo Cellini. So also is the series on the "Inter- 
national Juridical Personality of the Holy See," with 

respect to property. There are the usual departments 

of reviews and abstracts from current periodicals. 

Espana y America (May): E. Portillo continues the examina- 
tion of the life and writings of Lorenz Hervas, whom he 

greatly admires. P. P. Negrete contributes a study 

of art, through one of its most able interpreters, Father 
Granda. M. P. Rodriguez continues his able disserta- 
tion upoa the Book of Moses. His present article vin- 
dicates particularly its historical authority. P. E. 

Neveu makes a study of the combats of our Lord with 
the various sects of His time. 



IRecent Events. 

After the General Election last 
France. year, pains were taken to prepare 

an elaborate plan of reforms, 

electoral, social, and judicial. The carrying into effect, how- 
ever, of these plans has been seriously interfered with by a 
series of untoward occurrences the fall of M. Briand's Minis- 
try, the riots in the Champagne districts, the warlike opera- 
tions in Morocco and, last of all, by the tragic aeroplane ac- 
cident, in which the Minister of War was killed, the Premier 
severely injured, and the existence of the Ministry jeopardized. 
For M. Berteaux, the Minister of War, was the most influen- 
tial member of the government, to whom not only its existence 
but its maintenance in office was in the main due. He won 
to its support those in the Chamber, who were by no means 
satisfied with the action taken by M. Monis against the work- 
ingmen's demonstration on May Day and in the matter of the 
reinstatement of the railway strikers. Now that he has gone, 
and the head of the government is more or less incapacitated, 
it is very doubtful whether there may not be another change 
of government in the immediate future, giving a further illus- 
tration and proof of the thesis of M. Jaures, that at the pres- 
ent time the state of political affairs is so rotten that no reli- 
ance can be placed upon any government. There are too many 
men in the Chamber, whose sole principle is to hold office, 
and to sacrifice everything else for that purpose. They have 
no well-defined line of action, and are ready to yield to de- 
mands of any kind in order to secure support. The funeral 
of M. Berteaux was a good illustration of the present state 
of France, for although it was attended by all the pomp and 
circumstance that soldiers, and banners, and state ceremony 
could give, there was neither priest nor prayers. This was not 
because the late Minister of War was an avowed unbeliever, 
for a few days afterwards a public Mass was said for him in 
one of the churches of Paris. 

The success of the expedition to Fez is of course an evi- 
dence of the efficiency of the military administration and a 
proof of the valor of the soldiers. But the necessity for mak- 
ing the expedition and that it was necessary cannot be denied 
is very unfortunate, for it seems not improbable that it may 
lead to complications with Spain and possibly with Germany. 
Spain claims the heritage of Morocco as her own, and looks 



5$8 RECENT EVENTS [July, 

with supreme jealousy upon all efforts tending to deprive her 
of it ; while Germany, it is to be feared, is still ready to 
pounce upon France at any convenient opportunity. But 
the worst thing to be said against the expedition is that it 
was in support of the worst possible of causes. The present 
Sultan, Mulai Hafid, has proved himself one of the vilest of 
tyrants, and almost from the beginning of his reign has been 
guilty of the most atrocious cruelties so atrocious and so oft- 
repeated that Europe has heretofore had to make a protest 
in common against his inhuman proceedings. The present in- 
surrection was due to a series of outrages perpetrated by him 
upon the tribes, upon whom he has carried on a series of in- 
roads, for the purposes of taking their property, accompanied 
with wholesale outrages on women, and the murder of children. 
After France had entered Fez and thereby restored his ascen- 
dency, the Sultan allowed his soldiery to commit a series of 
cruelties so gross and numerous that the British government has 
refused to receive the delegation which was being sent by the 
Moorish Monarch to the Coronation of King George V. That 
France should be instrumental in the maintenance of such a 
power indicates how strong for evil is the present situation of 
Europe. If France had been able to have had her own way 
a few years ago, the peaceful penetration of Morocco and the 
suppression of the Moorish government would have been ac- 
complished; but the German Emperor stood in the way and 
things had to be arranged at Algeciras. All that France can 
now do is to act in accordance with the provisions there 
made. Let us hope that some means may be found to direct 
the strength of European action to worthy ends. The past 
few years have seen an end put to the awful reign of Abdul 
Hamid ; a change for the better has been made in the govern- 
ment of the Congo, and in other parts of the world so many 
steps are being taken in the direction of self-government, to 
say nothing of the fair prospects of arbitration proposals, that 
there is no reason to despair but that a way will be found to 
place the power of the European governments at the service 
of the oppressed and not at that of the oppressor. 

The Reichstag has been giving 
Germany. most of its time to the discussion 

of the Bill introduced by the gov- 
ernment for the consolidating of the various Imperial insurance 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 559 

laws which have been passed from time to time for the bene- 
fit of working men. How numerous and complicated these 
laws are, may be seen from the fact that the Bill as intro- 
duced filled six volumes, more than 2,000 pages and con- 
sisted of 1754 clauses. It was debated paragraph by paragraph, 
but with such good will on the part of all parties in the 
House, that it went through in less than three weeks time. 
Some few points indeed excited controversy, but the Social 
Democrats although they tried to make amendments without 
success, refrained from obstruction. Almost at the same time 
a Bill has been introduced into the British Parliament with a 
similar object the insurance of working men in cases of ill- 
ness and unemployment. Great Britain is thus proceeding in 
the wake of Germany for the amelioration of the classes that 
bear the burden and heat of the day. 



The elections for the National 
Portugal. Assembly have at last, by grace 

of the Provisional Government, 

been duly held and if they represent the voice of the 
Portuguese people, a Royalist does not exist, for there was 
not a single candidate to come forward as an avowed sup- 
porter of the so long-existent system under which Portugal 
has grown old. The government displayed great activity in 
preparing for the elections, the candidates throughout the 
whole country having been chosen by the Republican Direc- 
torates, and every list not approved by these Directorates was 
considered as representing an opposition to the government. 
A few only of those opposition candidates were returned. 
The elections were conducted quietly, and a fair proportion of 
the electors went to the poll. But the absence of any endeavors 
on the part of the monarchists in Portugal and there must be 
at least a few to send representatives to the National As- 
sembly seems to indicate an unnatural and artificial state of 
things. Indeed sporadic attempts to restore the monarchy 
have been made, or at least have been said to have been made, 
and arrests have taken place. They do not appear to have 
received much support, but there must be behind the scenes at 
least sullen discontent. The Constitutional Chamber is to meet 
on the I9th of June. 



560 RECENT EVENTS [July, 

While Greece has had recourse to 

Persia. France and to Great Britain for 

the renovation of her army and 

navy, it is to this country that Persia has come in order to 
seek and perchance to find a way out of her financial diffi- 
culties* To Americans has been entrusted the reorganization 
of the Revenue. Financial difficulties are said to be at the 
root of all the troubles of Persia. A state of anarchy almost 
exists throughout the country, tribe waging war against tribe, 
the only bond of union being the common practise of pillaging 
the traders and merchants who attempt to carry on business 
within her borders. Like the Greeks of the present generation, 
Persians cannot forget that there was once a great Persian 
Empire and they think that upon themselves has fallen the 
duty of restoring it, or at le'ast of not letting it fall still 
lower. Hitherto they have proved themselves too proud to 
take the necessary means to secure this much desired result. 
Perhaps the step recently taken of seeking the help of this 
country may indicate a salutary change of mind. The present 
Regent has received a Western education, having been at Ox- 
ford in England, and has spoken out his mind very freely and 
not spared the feelings of his fellow countrymen. But the 
evils which afflict Persia are too deeply rooted to be removed 
by any amount of money, although the possession of it may 
tend to a superficial amelioration. Meanwhile the experiment 
of constitutional government is being continued but has not 
so far been attended with any great measure of success. 

In China, however, the most sur- 
China. prising developments have taken 

place. As has already been men- 
tioned, the Parliament is to be summoned within three years 
instead of the nine which were originally contemplated. This 
has been in deference to the imperious demand made by the 
Assemblies which had been summoned as preparatory steps. 
A further assimilation to Western ideas has been made by 
changing the Grand Council into a Cabinet, with a Prime Min- 
ister at its head. This Prime Minister, however, must be 
looked upon as belonging to the old regime, for he is said by 
the best authorities to be a man notorious, even in China, for 
every kind of corruption, and responsible for the worst of the 
disasters which have befallen the Empire. Perhaps it was 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 561 

thought necessary to have him as a connecting link between 
the old and the new order of things. 

A still more surprising change has been made. A few years 
ago an edict was issued, forbidding the use of opium, pointing 
out in the most didactic of tones the evils produced by the 
consumption of this drug. People thought at the time that 
nothing would result, that it was a mere blind, that the habit 
of taking opium was ingrained in the very nature of the peo- 
ple, that all-powerful interests were engaged in its maintenance. 
But to the astonishment of the world the commands of the 
Empress were obeyed; the cultivation of opium has been rap- 
idly diminished, the habit of taking it has been largely over- 
come. It is, perhaps, the most astonishing instance on record 
of obedience to an autocratic command. An arrangement had 
been made with Great Britain, that as the cultivation of opium 
in China diminished, in a corresponding ratio its exportation 
to China from India should also be restricted. Ten years was 
the period fixed. But so much more quickly has the part 
assigned to China been carried out, that the desire has grown 
to shorten the period during which India is to be allowed to 
import opium into China. A new agreement has accordingly 
been made with Great Britain, by which it is provided that as 
soon as China proves that she has ceased to produce native 
opium, the imports from India shall cease. And so the opium 
traffic between China and India, so long a scandal to the world, 
is to come to an end. This is a remarkable victory of moral 
principles over sordid interests. 

A further step has been taken by China in its upward 
movement. Nothing could be worse than the state of the cur- 
rency as it has existed for long years. Oft- repeated promises 
have been made to effect its reform, promises which have 
been as often violated. The subject is too complicated to be 
described here in detail, but it is satisfactory to note that it 
is in some degree to the influence of this country that the 
present effort is due and that assistance is being sought here 
as to the practical way of making the reform. 

Sympathizers with the new order 
Turkey. in Turkey have had their patience 

strained almost to the breaking- 
point by the way in which the present holders of power have 
VOL. xciii.- 36 



562 RECENT EVENTS [July, 

abused that power. Although nothing in the range of possi- 
bility could make them wish for the restoration of absolute 
rule, hope has been almost lost of any amelioration of the lot 
of the subject races, except by the utter destruction of Turkish 
domination a thing devoutly to be desired, but of which, 
unfortunately, there appears to be no present probability. The 
last few weeks, however, have given some small indication of 
improvement. 

Ever since the expulsion of Abdul Hamid, under the form 
of constitutional government, the real power has been held by 
a secret committee, and it is said that this Committee was it- 
self controlled by Freemasons, who were either themselves 
Jews or in the hands of Jews. To such a rule, even Turks, 
accustomed though they have so long been to abject submis- 
sion to their superiors, found it impossible to submit. Within 
the ranks of the Parliamentary Committee of Union and Prog- 
ress, insurgents have arisen who demand that the pledges so 
frequently given to govern by open and constitutional methods 
shall be fulfilled. Complete success is said to have attended 
their efforts, and resolutions have been adopted, with a view 
to putting an end to the existing evils. Deputies are forbid- 
den to appropriate to themselves any offices or concessions for 
works. Liberty of action, also, is to be granted to the minor- 
ity of the party, even when in the " caucus " there is a major- 
ity of two-thirds against them. In this the minority has secured 
greater freedom of action than is accorded in countries more 
advanced in constitutional methods of government. Among 
other things secured by the new arrangement is the declaration 
of absolute respect for all laws, and that functionaries shall 
not be dismissed or appointed except in accordance with stat- 
utes that are to be prepared forthwith. The union of the 
races of the Empire, and the development of commerce, agri- 
culture, industry, and education, are to be made the immediate 
objects of the party's endeavors, while the development in 
Turkey of Western civilization and progress is set forth as 
the end to be kept in view, respect being had, the programme 
goes on to say, for public morals and national and religious 
usages. The last article lays down what is perhaps the most 
important practical point of all, in view of the hitherto ex- 
istent state of things. The party is to oppose the intentions 
and the activity of societies constituted for special secret objects. 

If impartially applied, this new programme will bring an 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 563 

end to its own former methods, as well as to those of the 
committee which 'has from Salonika up to a recent period, 
controlled the whole government. Hitherto, the Parliamentary 
Committee which has had the control of the Parliament, has 
held its deliberations in secret, has summoned ministers to 
attend its meetings, has demanded of them that they should 
explain or defend their policy. Parenthetically it may be men- 
tioned here, as an instance of the way in which extremes 
meet, that the Labor Party in the Commonwealth of Australia, 
makes and enforces upon the members of the Cabinet, the 
same demands. The members of the Turkish Parliamentary 
Committee, have hitherto been pledged to implicit obedience 
in all questions of party policy, although this did not extend 
to matters of legislation. If all this is changed in accordance 
with the programme which has just been adopted, a new era 
is possible, but we fear not probable. It has been decided to 
continue indefinitely the state of siege in Constantinople, and 
the rule of irresponsible Courts-Martial, in which political of- 
fences are tried in camera, and judgment passed without appeal. 
The liberty of the press, of political association, and of pub- 
lic meeting is in this way reduced to a minimum. But even 
though it may not be possible to entertain very sanguine hopes 
of the success of the new movement, stranger things have hap- 
pened, and perhaps by recent events an end has been put to 
a regime, in which, to use the words of an Austrian newspaper: 
"A secret committee dictated the policy of the dominant party. 
This committee was in its turn guided by the secret divisions 
of the Turkish lodges, while these lodges took their orders 
from an international Jewry, organized as Freemasonry. These 
Jewish orders were executed by the Young Turks with true 
Osmanli fanaticism." Certain changes have been made in the 
Cabinet, which may lead to the adoption of a less extreme 
policy, to the relinquishment of the attempt to unify the vari- 
ous races by force, and to the carrying out of works for the 
development of the resources of the country. Should this be 
the case the outlook will be more hopeful. Some progress, 
indeed, has been made in the last respect. It is now practi- 
cally settled, that the railway which has been so long a time 
under construction under German auspices, will be completed 
as far as Baghdad, together with a branch to Alexandretta. 
Whether, and how soon, the line will be continued to the 
Persian Gulf, is still a question. Negotiations, it is said, are 



564 RECENT EVENTS [July, 

being carried on with Great Britain and other powers to 
settle the difficulties which have so long existed as to the 
terminus on the gulf and the rival interests of the powers. 
A network of railways in the North Eastern part of Asia 
Minor is said to be in contemplation. And so there is a 
prospect of these regions so long desolated by a blighting des- 
potism, being restored to the state of civilization and culture 
which they possessed of old. 

It is time that a change was made, and that the efforts to 
improve things by force which the Young Turks have hitherto 
adopted should be abandoned. The rising of Albanian tribes 
which took place last year was suppressed after the perpetra- 
tion by the Turks of wholesale barbarities, which they did 
their best to conceal from the knowledge of the world, the 
good opinion of which the new government is so anxious to 
secure. But although suppressed last year, other Albanian 
clans, to whom promises were then made which have not been 
kept, have broken out into open insurrection and have been 
successful for some months in offering resistance to the large 
force which Turkey has sent against them. Among the tribes 
that have taken up arms this year are to be numbered some 
at least of those who are Catholic. Last year these tribes 
were kept quiet by promises which have not been kept. In 
view of these promises the clergy had used their influence to 
restrain their flocks. To an appeal made by the Turkish 
General to the Catholic Bishop that he would on this occasion 
take the same course, a distinct refusal so to act was given 
on account of the bad faith shown by the Turks. In conse- 
quence many churches have been burned, and other atrocities 
perpetrated. The people in large numbers have been driven 
from their homes. 

The Catholics of Albania are under the protection of Aus- 
tria. But Austria with characteristic selfishness has turned a 
deaf ear to all appeals and it has been left to Russia alone 
of all the powers to make representations to Turkey. This 
was not done directly in behalf of the Catholics who were 
suffering, but in response to an appeal made by Montenegro 
to the powers. The scene of the uprising borders upon the 
territory of that kingdom, and many of the villagers have 
taken refuge there. Turkey accused Montenegro of aiding and 
abetting the Albanians and not obscurely threatened hostilities. 
Hence the appeal of Montenegro. That Russia should have 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 565 

intervened has deeply grieved the Young Turks, for ever since 
the establishment of the Constitution the powers of Europe 
have vied with one another in demonstrations of sympathy 
and good will. But it is time that they learned that such 
sympathy is dependent upon a corresponding observance of 
really constitutional methods, and will not be extended to 
the ruling by barbarous methods under the aspect of a 
civilized form of government. The Albanians are not the 
only race among those who have the misfortune to be under 
the rule of Turkey that have been obliged to suffer at her 
kands. For a long time the Greeks who dwell in the Empire 
have been subjected to a most rigorous boycott which has 
entailed upon them the loss of large sums of money. In this 
case, however, the government is not to blame primarily, for 
the boycott is carried on by private individuals. Quite re- 
cently an attempt has been made to reinstate the power of 
the Sultan in Crete. An endeavor was made to appoint cer- 
tain magistrates in defiance of the fact that that right had 
been relinquished on the settlement of affairs made in 1898. 
Here, too, the powers under the protection of whom the 
Cretan administration is carried on are understood to have 
made representation to the government. On the whole it is 
evident that there is much room for anxiety, and that those 
who looked for the well-being of the races in the Turkish 
Empire as likely to be the result of the change seem doomed 
to disappointment. 

In M. Venezelos Greece seems to 
Greece. have found a man able to cope 

with the situation, a statesman 

capable of inspiring respect or, at all events, of enforcing his 
will upon the self-seeking politicans who for so long a time 
have been the bane of the country. This is the reason why 
so little has been heard of Greek politics for some time. The 
National Assembly has been quietly and steadily devoting it- 
self to the task of revising the constitution within the limits 
for which it has a commission. Progress has been slow but per- 
haps the surer on that account. The most important change will 
be the revival of a council to which legislation will be submitted 
before it is presented to the Chamber. This council was once 
in existence, but soon after the formation of the present con- 
stitution it was suppressed. The experience of a single- 



566 RECENT EVENTS [July, 

chamber parliament has proved so unsatisfactory that this 
attempt is being made to revert to the older state of things 
so far as the powers of the present National Assembly will 
permit it to effect such a change. If its powers had been 
greater in all probability the Second Chamber would have been 
restored. The new or revived council will, however, in some 
degree act as a check on the vagaries of an uncontrolled House. 
The other changes which have already been adopted by the 
Assembly include the making primary education compulsory, 
and the alteration of the quorum which, as hitherto existed, 
but which has been abused for purposes of obstruction. All 
military officers, civil functionaries, bankers, directors of com- 
panies and their officials are to be disqualified from election to 
the Chamber. A curious provision is that which prohibits the 
translation of the Holy Scriptures into any form of Greek ex- 
cept that in which the Constitution is written, thereby exclud- 
ing the popular language. The Orthodox Patriarch, however, 
is empowered to give permission for translation into popular 
Greek. The proposed restriction is due to the influence of 
the " Purists," a body of scholars who are interested in the 
maintenance of the purity of the language and influential 
enough to bring about riots in order to protect that parity. 
The present generation of Greeks look upon themselves as the 
inheritors of all the glories of the past, and this not merely 
in literature and art, but also as having a right to supplant the 
Turks, and to regain the dominions ruled over by the Byzantine 
Emperors. 

In addition to the political measures to which we have re- 
ferred, recourse has been had to France for officers to be 
placed in charge of the army in order to bring it into a fit 
state of discipline and to reorganize it, while to Great Britain 
has been entrusted the management of the navy for a like 
purpose. The service of the Public Debt has since 1898 been 
in the hands of an International Commission. With two of 
the Balkan States friendly relations have been restored. Bul- 
garians and Greeks, a few years ago bent upon mutual ex- 
termination, are now falling into one another's arms. The 
diplomatic relations between Greece and Romania, which were 
severed a few years ago, have been resumed. It is to be 
feared, however, that it is rather to the hatred of the Turk 
than to love of each other that those rapprochements are due. 



With Our Readers 



CIVIC CELEBRATION OF CARDINAL GIBBONS' JUBILEE. 

IF the praise of men, if the affectionate esteem and reverence of a 
whole nation can bring happiness to the heart of man, certainly 
Cardinal Gibbons had full cause to rejoice on the sixth of June, In 
this era of celebrations, when everything from the discovery of 
America to the starting of a cotton mill, is deemed worthy of a na- 
tional commemoration, the civic celebration of Cardinal Gibbons' 
jubilee as priest and as prince of the Church was unique. So Presi- 
dent Taft declared on the occasion, and |his words were felt to be 
true ; for when have so many distinguished men and so vast a crowd 
met to celebrate a man's civic services as were gathered in the 
Armory at Baltimore to do honor to the Cardinal? What other 
American could bring them together ? It was a nation's tribute to 
the power of goodness; it was a nation's gratitude for fifty years of 
a beneficent ministry which has been, during a great part of that 
long period, nation-wide in its influence. The nation really spoke 
through its head, the President ; and his high praise was echoed by 
Vice-President Sherman and Mr. Root, who represented the Senate, 
by the Democratic Speaker of the lower* House, Mr. Champ Clark, 
and his Republican predecessor, Mr. Cannon, by the Mayor of Balti- 
more and the Governor of Maryland. Chief Justice White, who 
would not break a precedent by making a public address, added 
dignity to the speakers' row by his presence, as well as enthusiasm 
by vigorously leading throughout in the applause of the Cardinal,* 
Colonel Roosevelt, whose very hearty reception by an audience 
largely Catholic, indicated that here was no instance of " benefits 
forgot," may be taken as the unofficial voice of America's apprecia- 
tion for the services of His Eminence. The Cabinet was repre- 
sented. The Senate adjourned early to allow its members to attend 
the celebration in the Armory where insurgents, stand-patters and 
Democrats found a platform solid and commodious enough for all. 
Many Representatives in Congress were there. So great in fact was 
the exodus of prominent statesmen and officials from Washington, 
that for several hours, said a newspaper of the Capital, the wheels of 
the national government seemed to have stopped running. A touch 
of internationalism was added to the occasion by the pleasant greet- 
ing of Ambassador Bryce. Its universal American character was 

* It is worth recalling that many years ago (we believe it was in 1887) when Cardinal 
Gibbons made his first visit to New Orleans after his elevation to the Sacred College, the 
Catholics of that city tendered him a reception ; their spokesman was Edward Douglas White, 
a name not so famous then as it was destined to become. The Mtrning Star would interest 
Us readers, we are certain, by reprinting an account of the reception and the address then 
made by the present Chief Justice. 



568 WITH OUR READERS [July, 

emphasized by the presence of ministers of all denominations, one of 
the leading committee-chairman being Bishop Murray of the Episco- 
pal Church of Maryland. Finally, an immense audience, variously 
estimated at from sixteen to twenty thousand, filled the floor and the 
galleries of the great Armory, and gave the Cardinal an enthusiastic 

ovation. 

* * * 

It was a civic celebration, with the purpose of commending the 
citizen rather than the churchman ; yet since the two cannot in fact 
be separated, since Cardinal Gibbons' civic influence is due in great 
measure to his eminent position in the Church, both aspects of his 
life and his work were inevitably blended in the eulogies of the 
speakers. It is noteworthy that not one of these was a Catholic ; yet 
their friendliness to Catholicism as a social force and their recogni- 
tion of its great power for good were unmistakable. Not that we 
think adequate recognition of this power was given ; we never ex- 
pect it from public men, for it would wound too many susceptibili- 
ties and might raise embittering controversy. Nevertheless, hearty 
recognition was given by the leading men of the government and of 
the nation both to the services of Cardinal Gibbons for civic right- 
eousness and to the general beneficent influence of Catholicism in 

this country. 

* * * 

More than any other churchman of our day Cardinal Gibbons 
has raised his voice in favor of movements for social betterment : 
and the speakers of the day, while not ignoring his direct religious 
influence, dwelt by preference on this aspect of his work. To the 
mind of the Cardinal, we venture to say, sound movements of social 
progress are but aspects of Christian activity ; his efforts in their 
behalf are not something added to his religion but are rather its 
natural outcome. No religion is so social, so all-pervading in its 
beneficent effects upon society, as genuine Catholicism ; witness the 
Catholicism of the Middle Ages, from which every movement for the 
happiness and social progress of the people took its rise. Religion 
is much more than piety or worship. St. James thought so when 
he wrote, " Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father 
is this : to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and 
to keep oneself unspotted from the world." This description of reli- 
gion is indeed but rudimentary ; and Christian charity all down the 
centuries has been developing it. Churchmen like Cardinal Gib- 
bons, who take a keen interest in all that pertains to the welfare of 
the people, are not so much modern and up-to-date, as mediaeval or 
even ancient ; they are the true heirs of the spirit of a Bernard or an 
Anselm, of an Ambrose or a Basil. The Cardinal's whole career 
shows the deep and intense conviction, that if religion pure and un- 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 569 

defiled before God and the Father demands active charity towards 
the sorrowing and the destitute, it is certainly never allowed to a 
Christian pastor to be indifferent to those movements which will 
lessen sorrow, relieve or prevent destitution, or add to the welfare 
and happiness of the people. He has had an unwavering faith in 
the power of the Christian word ; and as priest and primate he has 
preached it to the whole country, with no timidity, but with the 
firm expectation that it would be listened to. 

And his faith has been rewarded ; for we think it no exaggera- 
tion to say, that there is not a single man in the country to-day 
whose words carry so much weight as the Cardinal's. They are ac- 
cepted by myriads for their guidance ; and even when men differ 
from him, we see a reverent reluctance, such as is found in the case 
of no other man, to engage him in controversy. No man surely has 
better deserved this civic celebration ; nor, let us add, have we any 
that better deserves the religious celebration which the Catholics of 
America will unite in tendering His Eminence next October. 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 

IN PORTUGAL. 

/CONCERNING the Separation Law in Portugal the London limes 
\J which, on the occasion of the revolution last October, was so 
unfair to the Jesuits and so jubilant at the success of the Republicans, 
publishes the following : 

The decree which severs the Church from the State in Portugal is the 
last and culminating measure of the notable series which has issued from the 
fertile legislative brain of Senor Affonso Costa. Under the guise of separat- 
ing Church and State this measure deprives religious services and congregations 
of all liberty , and, indeed, seems to aim at the suppression of religion al- 
together. Its opening article guarantees full liberty of conscience to all 
Portuguese citizens, its second decrees that the Roman Catholic religion 
shall cease to be that of the State, and recognizes as equally authorized all 
Churches and religious confessions. Its third article provides that hence- 
forth no one shall be persecuted for religious motives. Its fourth decrees 
that with the coming July I all State payments for the maintenance and ex- 
penses of worship shall cease, its fifth that all impositions to meet them shall 
also end. Its sixth article makes illegal the assumption by public bodies or 
functionaries of any religious office. Article 7 decrees freedom from all do- 
mestic and private worship, and 8 a like freedom for public worship in places 
designed for it. Article 9 defines public worship as that of any number in a 
public place of worship, or of 20 and more individuals in a private house. 
Religious instruction is by Article 10 considered public worship, and the 
article obliges all schools where it is given to be open to the public. The 
following five articles prescribe that the interruption of legitimate worship 
and offences committed against ministers of religion shall be considered 



570 WITH OUR READERS [July, 

public crimes, and punished with fine and imprisonment. Thus ends the 
first chapter of this Act dealing with liberty of worship, 

RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES. 

Chapter II. decrees in its first, the i6th article, that religious worship, 
whatever be its form, can only be exercised and maintained by individuals 
who freely adhere to it as members and believers. Article 18 provides that 
in the case of religions other than Catholic, with whose belief these boards 
are not compatible, special benevolent corporations, but exclusively Portu- 
guese, may be created to meet their need. After further articles arranging 
for the decision of this matter and its public advertisement, Article 31 de- 
crees that edifices and churches which till now have been devoted to the 
public worship of any religion, or are in construction for this end, and do not 
pertain to the State or other administrative body, shall henceforth be in- 
alienable without consent of the Minister of Justice, and may at any time be 
expropriated for the public utility at their actual value, with reversion to the 
State of their future benefits, if up to July i next they continue to be applied 
to religious services. Article 32 prescribes that the corporations entrusted 
with the charge of a congregation shall have to apply at least a third of all the 
money received for religious purposes to acts of beneficence and charity, entrusting 
the money to competent parties as provided for in terms of existing legislation* 

THE CONDUCT OF WORSHIP. 

Chapter III. decrees that public worship may only legally take place 
between sunrise and sunset, and that only in very special circumstances can 
authority be granted to hold religious services outside that period. Article 
5 5 calls for the written consent of the local authority, in order to perform 
any act of worship, such as at a funeral, outside of a recognized place of pub- 
lic worship. The next article expressly names cemeteries and their annexed 
chapels as places for which this authorization is required. Article 58 allows 
municipal authorities to prohibit the use of clerical vestments at funeral 
celebrations. 

Chapters IV. and V. deal with the ecclesiastical buildings and proper- 
ties of the Roman Catholic Church, all of which now pertain to the State and 
its administrators, and with the free use which is to be granted of them to 
the several congregations meeting there for worship. A like free cession is 
made of the Episcopal palaces and parsonages for the use of the existing 
Catholic ministry. Chapter VI. deals with the pensions conceded by the 
Government to existing members of the Roman Catholic priesthood acting 
as such in this country. Article 165 annuls all bequests made to religious 
bodies and renders all such bequests in future null and void. 

Chapter VII., dealing with general points, decrees in Article 166, that 
local and national taxes shall be imposed on all ecclesiastical properties 
whether freely granted for use by the State, or otherwise held, and that the 
payment of these taxes shall be a duty for which the body entrusted with the 
fiscal administration of congregations shall be responsible. Article 173 
obliges all ministers of religion to supply, to a ceatral commission appointed 
for the purpose, their names with those of their families, with ages, resi- 
dences, functions exercised, and nationality. Article 178 allows no minister 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 571 

of religion, native or foreign, to take part in any act of public worship with- 
out permission from the competent authority, exceptions being made in the 
succeeding article, for those alone who by international conventions or very 
ancient use have right to conduct religious services within their own churches. 

RESULTS OF THE NEW LAW." 

From the above resume of this new law it will be seen that it interferes 
very distinctly with that liberty of worship hitherto accorded to foreigners in 
Portugal. The Sunday evening services at the English churches are rendered 
illegal^ the churches may be at any time expropriated, permission must be ob- 
tained to conduct funerals , even in the English and German cemeteries, and 
worst of all, the congregational funds must be administered by Portuguese 
boards of beneficence who will hand a third of their revenues over to charitable 
purposes fixed on by the local authorities- In regard to the native Catholic 
Church, the State now converts it from being a source of expenditure into 
one of income, abstracting this third from the money its members may be 
able to raise for religious purposes. Still, the arrangements made for Portu- 
guese congregations are their own affair, but this imposition upon foreign 
churches of old and historic standing in Portugal is naturally\rousing much in- 
dignation, and clearly calls for protest of the most vigorous sort. 

If through its provisions affecting the finances of congregations it seems 
to strike a death-blow at any possible Roman Catholic Lhurch in Portugal, its 
prohibition of services after sundown no less effectually blights the hopes of any 
Protestantism for Portugal. It is only in the evening that mission congrega- 
tions can be got together and any furtherance of the evangelic cause accom- 
plished. With public worship confined to the hours of sunlight, the most 
that can be expected is that the Protestant congregations already constituted 
will be enabled to have their Sunday services, till by their gradual extinction 
that time is hastened when Senor Affonso Costa* s prophecy of no God and no 
religion in Portugal will be fulfilled. 

The italics in the above extract are ours. Had the Portuguese 
Republicans been wisely prudent they would have sought to make 
Protestant England believe that they were warring against Rome 
and the Jesuits, not against Christianity. But, as the foregoing 
very clearly indicates, England now sees unmistakably that this 
anti-clerical movement in Portugal is also an anti-Christian move- 
ment of the most virulent and sweeping nature. 

Speaking recently at Oporto, Dr. Affonso Costa, the author of 
this law, declared that "the religious sentiment is a lie and every 
kind of Church is a farce/ 1 

These words have been specially noted in England. They will 
be used to deprive Dr. Costa of his last, lingering sympathizers 
among the more virulently anti- Catholic of the Nonconformists and 
Anglicans. 

In October last a Protestant clergyman appealed in The Times 
lor help in the conversion of Portugal to Protestantism. He said 
something to_the*effect that the time was ripe ; that the Portuguese 



572 WITH OUR READERS [July, 

were on the point of coming over by thousands to the Protestant 
folds, that only money and preaching were necessary. He headed 
his appeal " The Call of Portugal." Portugal was supposed to be 
calling for Anglican orders. The Separation I^aw may, in a certain 
sense, be regarded as a " call " but it is a call to keep away. Ac- 
cording to the new law, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury 
would not be allowed to celebrate a single service in the Protestant 
Church at Lisbon whether he happened to be staying in the country 
for some time or merely passing through in a Booth steamship on 
his way to Madeira. And, when the law comes into force, not a 
single Protestant clergyman of any persuasion will be allowed to 
remain in the country. 



APPROPRIATION OF BUILDINGS. 

Even before the revolution of October last, the most casual 
visitor to Portugal could not but be impressed by the numbers of 
splendid public buildings which the State has taken from the 
Church without remuneration. From Bcedecker alone, a formidable 
list of such buildings could easily be compiled. Here we have a 
palace of exquisite architecture it was built by the Benedictines. 
There you have a barrack whose superb abbey gateway brings 
students of architecture from all over the world it was built by the 
Franciscans. Public museums were once Carmelite monasteries ; 
Government offices were once Carthusian houses; stately private 
mansions were once Dominican priories. None of these establish- 
ments were paid for by the State. The money which built them 
often came from pious medieval Catholics over the sea from Eng- 
lishmen, Romans, Genoese and others. , 

The Republicans are very wroth with the Jesuits. But what 
splendid public buildings the Jesuits have built for them ! One Jesuit 
house in Lisbon is now an asylum for aged and indigent Republicans, 
another, at Cintra, has been kindly made over by the Minister of 
Justice to his own brother who now occupies it with his numerous 
family. The ancient houses of the English and Irish clergy in the 
capital will be confiscated in the same way. Looking at the matter 
in a purely business light one might be inclined to think that the 
Republicans do a grave injustice to themselves by cutting off this 
source of supply. For, with the expulsion of the religious Orders 
and the annihilation of the Church, no more great abbeys, monas- 
teries, and colleges will be built by the Portuguese Catholfcs, and 
the Republicans of the future will, when they want new public build- 
ings, be reduced to the desperate extremity of having to pay for their 
construction. 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 573 

But, r incredible as this may seem, the Republicans seem to ex- 
pect that^the Catholics will go on building for them as before. The 
Separation I^aw naively declares that the buildings which people of 
any religion may in future construct out of voluntary donations cannot 
be alienated and must, after the lapse of ninety-nine years, come into 
the possession of the State without any indemnification whatever. 
No wonder that 7 he Times is highly wroth with the Republicans, 
for certainly this does not look as if Dr. Affonso Costa and his 
friends were drifting, to any appreciable extent, in the direction of 
Protestantism. 

* * * 

THE QUESTION OF THE REGISTER. 

BY its promulgation of the Obligatory Civil Register I^aw, the Gov- 
ernment has acted very unfairly towards the Catholic secular 
clergy. In pre-republican times there was in use in Portugal two 
registers of births, marriages and deaths kept in each parish, one 
civil, the other religious. Non- Catholics registered themselves be- 
fore the administradores (the civil authority of the Commune). 
Catholics registered before the local parish priest and to this relig- 
ious register the State gave authenticity and civil value. Circum- 
stances made this religious register very important. Since the end 
of the eighteenth century the Catholic Church in Portugal had kept 
its own private census. This register was, and is, kept in duplicate 
by the parish priests, one copy being kept in the parochial house, 
while the other is preserved in the bishop's palace. Since 1859 this 
service has been maintained at their own expense by the various 
parish priests who themselves buy the necessary books and receive 
in this connection no help whatever from the State. 

In 1859 the State decided to have its own register, and from mo- 
tives of economy it conferred authenticity and judicial value on the 
religious register previously kept by the Church. The parish priests 
then continued to keep up this service. The non-Catholics contin- 
ued to register themselves before the administradores. 

By its Civil Register I,aw the Republic now despoils the Church 
of both its copies of the religious registers not only those embracing 
the period between 1859 and 1911 (which is a grave injustice) but 
also (and this is intolerable) of those private registers kept exclu- 
sively at the expense of the clergy since the end of the eighteenth 
century. 

THE late Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson was not a Catho- 
lic, but he was eminently fair-minded and at times strongly 
attracted by the Catholic faith. In the second series of Orby Ship, 
ley's " Carmina Mariana " the following poem to the Blessed Virgin 



574 WITH OUR READERS [July, 

it is entitled " Madonna di San Sisto " from the pen of Colonel 
Higginson is included : 

Look dowm into my heart, 
Thou Holy Mother, with thy Holy Son ; 
Read all my thoughts, and bid the doubts depart, 
And all the fears be done. 

I lay my spirit bare, 

O blessed Ones ! beneath your wondrous eyes; 
And not in vain ; ye hear my heartfelt prayer, 

And your twin-gaze replies. 

What says it? All that life 
Demands of those who live to be and do ; 
Calmness in all its bitterest, deepest strife, 

Courage till all is through. 

Thou Mother, in thy sight, 
Can aught of passion or despair remain ? 
Beneath those eyes' serene and holy light, 

The soul is bright again. 

Thou Child, whose earnest gaze 
Looks ever forward, fearless, steady, strong, 
Beneath those eyes no doubt or weakness stays, 

No fear can linger long. 

Thanks, that to my weak heart 
Your mingled powers, fair forms, such counsel give ! 
Till I have learned the lesson ye impart, 

I have not learned to live. 

And, oh, till life be done, 

Of your deep gaze may ne'er the impression cease ! 
Still may the dark eyes whisper, "Courage I On ! " 

The mild eyes murmur, " Peace ! " 



THE Holy Father has addressed an important Instruction to the 
Bishops of Spain, which is designed to put an end to the 
discords unhappily at work among Spanish Catholics at present. 
The following summary of the Instruction is given by Rome. 

1. Every Catholic is bound to combat the errors condemned by the Holy 
See, especially those contained in the Syllabus of Pius IX., but the limits of 
legality must be observed in this warfare. 

2. All political parties are lawful whose acts and principles are not con- 
trary to religion and morality; care must be taken not to identify or con- 
found the Church with any political party. 

3. It is not permissible for anybody to cast doubt on the Catholic senti- 
ments of persons who belong to other political parties than that which he 
follows. 

4. The meaning of the "liberalism " condemned by the Church is tha 



.] BOOKS RECEIVED 575 

contained in Leo XIII. 's Encyclical Libertas of June 20, 1888, and in the let- 
ter Plures e Columbian of April 6, 1900, addressed in the name of the same 
Pope Leo XIII. to the Archbishop of Colombia. 

5. Catholics should approve and support the good and honest measures 
proposed by men of any political party. 

6. When the common good requires it Catholics should sacrifice their 
personal opinions and forget party divisions for the supreme interests of re- 
ligion and patriotism. 

7. Nobody can be required, as an obligation of conscience, to belong to 
any one political party rather tfcan to any other; nobody can be required in 
coascience to renounce his honest political convictions. 

8. Those who join a political party must retain their liberty of vote and 
action, so as not to co-operate in any way in laws or dispositions contrary to 
the rights of God and the Church. 

9. In order to defend religion against the attacks made against it by 
the partisans of condemned "liberalism," it is lawful for Catholics to organ- 
ize independently of existing political parties, on condition that such organi- 
zation be not anti-dynastic in character and that those who decline t take 
part in it be not described as non-Catholics or bad Catholics. 

10. Given the difficulty of securing the permanent union of Spanish 
Catholics, they should unite temporarily whenever the interests of religion 
are threatened. 

11. At the elections when it is impossible to have candidates that are 
altogether acceptable, those candidates should be supported who offer the 
best guarantees for the welfare of religion and of the country. 

12. Those Catholics should not be molested who declare their desire to 
bring back to Spain the great institutions and religious and social traditions 
which formerly made the Spanish kingdom glorious. 



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The Evolution of Plants. By Dukenfield Henry Scott, M.A. 75 cents. Irish Na- 
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cents. Modern Geography. By Marion I. Newbigin. 75 cents. Parliament. By Sir 
Courteney Ilbert, K C.B. 75 cents. 

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Come, Let us Adore I A Eucharistic Manual, compiled by Bonaventure Hammer, 
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Youth's Noble Path. By T. J. Gould. 70 cents net. The Philosophy oj Music. By Hal- 
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St. Bonaventure. By Lawrence Costelloe, O.S.M. $1.50 net. Beginnings or Glimpset 
of Vanished Civilization. By Marion McMurrough Mulhall. $i. Marriage, 
Totemism, and Religion. By Right Hon. Lord Avebury. $1.25 net. The Comic Spirit 
in George Meredith. By Joseph Warren Beach. $1.25. 



576 BOOKS RECEIVED [July, 19".] 

P. J. KENEDY, New York : 

" Deer Jane" By Isabel Cecilia Williams. 85 cents net. 
CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, New York: 

One Thousand Homeless Men. By Alice Willard Solenberger. $1.25. The Alms house. 

By Alexander Johnson. $1.25. 
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The Social Engineer. By Edwin L. Earp. $1.50. 
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An* Introductory History of England. Vols. I. II. By C. R. L. Fletcher. $3.50 per 

set. 
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The Power and the Glory. By Grace MacGowan Cooke. $1.20. 
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CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York: 

The Master of the Inn. By Robert Herrick. 50 cents. 
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The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia ef Religious Knowledge. Vol. X. Edited by 

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15 cets. History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages. By Hartman Grisar, S. J. 
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By John R. Swanton. Preliminary Report on a Visit to the Navaho National Monu- 
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THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. AUGUST, 1911. No. 557. 

CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY. 

BY H. P. RUSSELL. 

a government the Church does not immediately 
recommend herself to men as a manifestation of 
heaven, as the Vicariate of God. The civil 
power in all ages, and even when saintly men 
were at the head of it, has exhibited a most in- 
ordinate jealousy of the Church, and an instinctive desire to 
intrude into her domain ; and, indeed, Protestantism, as a po- 
litical movement, was mainly a transfer of the spiritual gov- 
ernment of men to their temporal rulers; while the rulers 
themselves preferred, in their inexperience, to be controlled by 
revolutions rather than by Popes. To the multitude of the 
modern world the narrow spirit of nationality is a more ac- 
ceptable and attractive thing than the wide and comprehensive 
theory of Catholicism. . . . The secret, both of men's indif- 
ference and of their dislike to the Church as a government 
lies in this single truth, that she is a theocracy." * 

How significantly this jealous dislike of Catholic jurisdic- 
tion was exemplified in the history of England under the per- 
secuting tyranny of the Tudors, and how successfully Henry 
and Elizabeth have imbued wkh this spirit of jealousy Eng- 
land's national church, all the world knows. While for further 

Faber's Blessed Sacrament. Book III., $ VI. 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. xciii. 37 




578 CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY [Aug., 

confirmation of the truth of the words above quoted we need 
bat consider the significance of the war that is being waged 
against the Church in France and in Portugal at the present 
time. 

The multitude of the modern world needs, indeed, to learn 
that " the earth is the Lord's, the world and all that dwell 
therein ; " that rulers are subject and accountable to Him, and 
that they over whom others rule in things temporal " are 
the work of His hands," not creatures of the State to be led 
captive in relation to things spiritual. To establish His reign 
upon this earth, He has "set up a Kingdom that shall never 
be destroyed, and His Kingdom shall not be delivered up to 
another people, and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume" 
the kingdoms of the world, and, unaffected by their rise and 
fall, "itself shall stand for ever," capable the while of holding 
the nations in unity of religion, however diverse their races 
and forms of government. 

They who profess Catholicism outside the fold of Cath- 
olic jurisdiction need to learn that not until they are in com- 
munion with the faithful of all nations can they be Catho- 
lics in fact; that only in communion with the Vicar of Christ 
are Catholic jurisdiction and Catholic communion in matter of 
fact to be found ; that apart from him there is nothing in the 
ecclesiastical order existent wider than national jurisdiction 
subjected to the civil power. 

Such persons appeal from the one only form of Catholic 
jurisdiction that exists to one that they imagine is to take its 
place when the Pope and the civil power have surrendered 
their respective claims; and meanwhile, though outside the 
pale of Catholic jurisdiction, they claim the Catholic name! 
Their claim to the name can but at best express their dislike 
of nationalism in matters religious, and impatience of the sub- 
jection of their church to Caesar; while their appeal from the 
Pope to a non-existent jurisdiction does but express their de- 
termination to adopt every Catholic doctrine and practice 
short of submission to the Catholic authority by which these 
are governed. 

The history of the civil power in one country after an- 
other has been the history of the world's jealousy of Christ's 
reign upon earth, from the day that it rejected and crucified 
Him and set over His Head in mockery the title of King, 



i9".] CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY 579 

until now that at length in a country for centuries known as 
an elder daughter of the Church the boastful blasphemy has 
been shamelessly uttered against Him: "we must have done 
with the Christian idea. We have driven Jesus Christ out of 
the schools, the university, the hospitals, the refuges, even the 
prisons and the lunatic asylums. We must now drive Him out 
of the government of France." And England, which boasts a 
national Christian Church, has cemented an entente with that 
government while at the height of its satanic endeavor by 
every conceivable means by falsehood, deceit, injustice, rob- 
bery, exile to stamp Christianity out of its boundaries. Here 
is an instance of the way in which the most sacred interests 
of Christ are subordinated, if not utterly ignored, in favor of 
temporal interests by a country that professes Christianity yet 
is content to witness and seemingly to approve its suppression 
even to utter extinction ! And the religious press of its national 
church, has but little to say against the action of the French 
Government, and very much to say in condemnation of the 
French bishops, because, forsooth, they have remained loyal to 
the Pope and to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction which refuses to 
submit the things of God to the rulings of an infidel Caesar! 
To such a pass are men brought who prefer to Catholic jur- 
isdiction the idea of nationalism in relation to religion ! While 
of those who repudiate such nationalism, yet reject papal jur- 
isdiction, it may be asked, where in the world will you find 
another jurisdiction that in every country withstands the world- 
power and maintains the Kingdom of Christ in visible unity 
the world over? 

Not in the so-called Greek Church, nor in any possible 
combination of Easterns with Anglicans and Anglo-Americans 
will you find any such ecclesiastical jurisdiction. There is no 
ecclesiastical independence of the civil power to be found 
amongst the national churches that constitute what is termed 
Eastern Orthodox Christendom; nor is Constantinople any 
longer an authoritative ecclesiastical centre. Of these Eastern 
national churches there are now about sixteen, each of them 
independent of the rest, and all of them subject to the civil 
power and liable and likely to be still further subdivided. 

And how did Constantinople, originally the smallest of 
local dioceses, its bishops subject to the Metropolitan of 
Heracles, obtain at the expense of all the patriarchs and 



58o CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY [Aug., 

metropolitans of the East, the first place there, with power 
to rank as Rome's rival and to drag Eastern Christendom into 
schism with itself? The answer is obvious. Constantinople, 
which never could be made an Apostolic See, was made a 
royal one in consequence of the residence of the Emperor, 
who established the seat of his imperial government there. 
To the Emperor came bishops with their petitions from all 
parts of the East, and by him they were referred to the 
bishops of his capital who, in consequence, was wont to settle 
their matters in a sort of synod of bishops who happened to 
be in the city, himself presiding as the Emperor's bishop. It 
was on account of their policy of centralization, indeed, that 
the emperors exalted, while at the same time they kept under 
degrading subjection, the bishops of their capital, since through 
them they could the more easily govern the Church. And 
though they deposed them at pleasure, regarding them as vas- 
sals who owed their position to imperial favor, they suffered 
themselves to be crowned by them, since this added dignity to 
the imperial See. And Justinian at length, in confirmation of 
the policy of his predecessors, inserted in his Code of Civil 
Laws: "The most blessed Archbishop of Constantinople, New 
Rome, shall have the second place after the holy Apostolic 
See of old Rome; he shall precede all others." It was for a 
purely political reason, moreover, relating to the civil rank of 
the city, that the Eastern bishops themselves gave to the 
bishop of Constantinople " precedence of honor after the Bishop 
of Rome" "because, 11 said they, "that city is New Rome." 
And, lastly, the absurd title of CEcnmenical Patriarch assumed 
by John IV. of Constantinople, became under the patronage 
of the emperors, and still remains, the official style of the 
patriarchs of Constantinople; though not even Photius dared 
to use it when writing to the Pope; and not until the time 
of his schism did the Greeks attempt to revive the spurious 
28th canon of Chalcedon, which never had found a place in 
any Canon Law, Eastern or Western. 

Since the conquest of Constantinople by the Turk in the 
fifteenth century the basis on which its patriarchs rested their 
claims has been removed, and the beautiful church of St. 
Sophia rebuilt by Justinian of which he boasted that he had 
surpassed even Solomon by its magnificence has remained a 
Turkish mosque; and step by step Constantinople's patriarchs 



i9i i.] CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY 581 

have descended until now they occupy a position scarcely 
more exalted and certainly less honorable than its bishops did 
when they owed and rendered obedience to the Metropolitan of 
Heracles. To rise and increase with the growth and by the 
aid of the civil power was their ambition, the root cause of 
their schism, and, when the fortunes of civil politics turned, 
the reason of their miserable undoing. And now there is not 
only one patriarch in Constantinople ; there are several. The 
Sultan appoints, invests, deposes and re-appoints her patri- 
archs at pleasure. They seldom reign for so long as two 
years at a time, and there are usually as many as three or 
four of them in sullen retirement awaiting his will to rein- 
state them. 

In the sixteenth century a Russian patriarchate was estab- 
lished at Moscow under influence of the Russian Czar, and 
the Russian Church declared its independence oi the patriarch 
of Constantinople. In the following century the Czar abol- 
ished the patriarchate of Moscow and set up in its stead a "Holy 
Synod" with the avowed object of bringing his Church still more 
completely under the civil government. And now Russia aims 
at bringing all the Orthodox East under subjection to the 
Czar's "holy synod," nine-tenths of it being Russian, and the 
patriarch of Constantinople less entitled than ever to the 
(Ecumenical name. 

Meanwhile, the authority of the patriarchate of Constanti- 
nople is regarded as being so closely allied with that of the 
detested Forte that whenever a Balkan State becomes inde- 
pendent of the Sultan it declares its Church independent of 
his Patriarch, Thus every Eastern free State has its inde- 
pendent national Church, subjected, however, to the civil gov- 
ernment by means of a holy synod on the Russian model. 

The only Church that styles itself, or can at all correctly 
be described as, the " Greek Church " is the established 
Church of the modern kingdom of Greece. It secured its in- 
dependence in consequence of the revolution of 1821, glad to 
be free of a patriarchate which so long had identified its 
policy with that of the Sultan; and in 1833 the government 
formally declared its independence and straightway set up a 
Holy Directing Synod to govern it after the Russian method. 
And when, in 1866, England ceded the Ionian Isles to Greece, 
the Greek Government forthwith separated the dioceses of these 



582 CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY [Aug., 

islands from the patriarchate of Constantinople and united 
them to its own established Church. The same thing hap- 
pened in 1 88 1, when Thessaly and part of Epirus were added 
to Greece, their ten dioceses being straightway added to the 
national Church. 

Meanwhile Turkey itself is divided between two rival na- 
tional communions. In 1860 the Bulgars, tired of their treat- 
meat by the Constantinople patriarchate, determined on separa- 
tion. To obtain the desired independence it was necessary 
that they should be a nation, and the only way of becoming 
a nation under Turkish rule was to have an independent 
national Church. They were willing, indeed, to become a 
Uniate Church under the jurisdiction of the Pope, with Na- 
poleon III. for their patron and defender, and a large number 
of them in fact abjured their schism and obtained a Catholic 
archbishop consecrated by Pius IX. himself in 1861. But 
Russia, of course, was opposed to Papal jurisdiction, though 
strongly approving Bulgarian independence of Constantinople. 
She accordingly brought pressure to bear upon the Porte, de- 
spite its patriarch's opposition, to allow a national Bulgarian 
Church. So the Bulgars established a bishop with title of 
Exarch in Constantinople itself, where by consent of the 
Porte he rules over Bulgars everywhere in Turkey, measuring 
his jurisdiction, not by area merely, but by nationality and 
language. In 1872 the Patriarch of Constantinople held a 
synod and excommunicated him and all his communion, like- 
wise all who should aid, abet, or acknowledge him. In 1878 
the Berlin Congress established the almost independent princi- 
pality of Bulgaria, and its Church in which is the usual Holy 
Synod, sitting at Sofia in communion, not with the Greek 
Patriarch, but with the Bulgarian Exarch, was declared the 
State religion of the new principality. 

Thus throughout Turkey there are two communions, with 
rival bishops in the same towns, divided by nationality and 
excommunication. And meanwhile the Russian Church is for- 
sooth, in open communion with both, the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople not daring to put his excommunication into effect 
against her! 

And, still more astonishing, now that Constantinople's am- 
bition to rise with the fortunes of civil politics has with the 
change of those fortunes met with its just recompense; now 



i9i i.] CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY 583 

that those whom she led astray have learned of her the idea 
of the independent Church in the independent State, and by 
favor of the civil power have, as so many national churches, 
obtained independence of her now that such unlooked-for 
misfortune has befallen her, she thinks, forsooth, to have dis- 
covered a new heresy, though it is in truth but the old one 
of which she herself was guilty when her patriarch at the 
height of her secular position claimed independence of the 
Vicar of Christ; she now condemns the national idea and in 
her synod of 1872 described it as the latest and most poison- 
ous of heresies, under the name of Philetism which signifies 
national feeling in matters ecclesiastical. 

But scarcely until she returns to the Catholic allegiance 
from which she severed herself and those who now in turn 
are independent of her is she likely to convince the world of 
the sincerity of this belated profession of condemnation of the 
national idea.* 

Such, then, is the condition of that Eastern Christendom 
to which high-church Episcopalians and Anglicans appeal in 
their refusal to recognize the authority of the one only Catholic 
jurisdiction that in substantive fact exists, oblivious, or igno- 
rant, the while that the East is interpenetrated by some four- 
teen millions of Catholics under papal jurisdiction, whose num- 
bers would be vastly increased did liberty of conscience prevail 
under the Czar and the Sultan. They term that jurisdiction 
" Roman," and think to appeal to one of the highest instincts 
of an American or an Englishman by calling it "foreign** 
and its subjects " Romans," though such subjects are of every 
nation and race and outnumber all Christendom beside ! And 
they call themselves "Catholics" though they are out of com- 
munion with all these, and out of communion with the Eastern 
schismatics also towards whom their aspirations are turned ! 

Securus judicat orbis terrarum. How senseless are the terms 
"foreign " and " Roman " when applied to a jurisdiction essen- 
tially Catholic and everywhere in possession to a jurisdiction 
which visibly transcends all national frontiers and embraces 
men of all nations and races! and how foolish from the lips 
of one who is subject to no ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatso- 
ever, save such as is to be found under the law of the land, 

For a full account of this matter see Dr. Adrian Fortescue's "Orthodox Eastern 
Church." 



5 84 CA THOLICISM AND NA TIONALITY [Aug., 

or of the local communion, to which he belongs ! History, as 
we have seen, affords examples of national Churches governed 
independently, indeed, of all Christendom beside, but none of 
a federal union of national Churches, nor of a national Church 
governed independently of the civil power. A national Church 
is always the Church established by law in a country, and 
separate, in consequence, from all other national Churches. And 
if the Anglo-American and Scotch Episcopal Churches are ex- 
ceptions, they are so only because they are not commensur- 
ate with, or representative of, the respective countries in which 
they are found. 

Christ came, not to establish national Churches, but, on 
the contrary, to unite the nations in one visible Church Catho- 
lic, governed independently of the civil powers, from an extra- 
national centre. The ordering of His divine providence in 
preparation of His coming clearly pointed to this. The sacred 
Scriptures which foretold His coming and the kingdom He 
would establish were carried by the Jews in their dispersion 
into all parts of the world ; and, as in their history, so like- 
wise in that of the world at large, the ordering of His provi- 
dence was manifested under the four great monarchies of 
Daniel's prophecy. Under the first of these, the Assyrian, the 
captive tribes, by chastisements for their idolatries, and such 
severe visitations at the hands of their conquerors as compelled 
their return to God, were preserved from permanently lapsing, 
and thus by means of their dispersion were instrumental in 
spreading abroad the knowledge of the truth. Under the Per- 
sian monarchy, which succeeded the Assyrian, the Jews re- 
turned to Judea, and under Cyrus and his successors re-estab- 
lished themselves and rebuilt their city and temple in the land 
where Christ was to be born. The Greek monarchy succeeded 
the Persian, and by means of its vast extent and the wide 
diffusion of its language prepared the way for the rapid spread 
of the " Gospel of the Kingdom " in the tongue in which it 
was to be preached and written, with a view to uniting in one 
Catholic religion, worship, and obedience, the many nations 
that were familiar with this universal language. And mean- 
while, by sending the Jews into all the world, and causing 
their Scriptures to be translated into the Greek of the Septua- 
gint, it not only providentially provided for the spread of the 
truth, but by safe custody of the Scripture text in the famous 



1 9 1 1 .] CA THOLICISM AND NA TIONALITY 585 

library at Alexandria likewise preserved it from any subse- 
quent attempt on the part of the Jews to alter or expunge 
aught that referred to the Person of Christ and His kingdom. 
The Greek monarchy, in turn, was absorbed into the vast 
ocean of the Roman Empire, which in the most manifest way 
of all prepared the world for the visible reign of Christ. It 
provided, though it little dreamt it, for the passage of the 
gospel of His kingdom by means of its famous roads, which 
to this day excite the wonder of the scientific world ; and, by 
humbling the pride of the nations, sweeping away their boasted 
national frontiers, and thus breaking down the barriers of their 
separations, it prepared them, even as they became united in 
one vast society under a common temporal ruler, likewise to 
submit themselves to the dominion of Him Who "has redeemed 
us to God in His Blood out of every tribe and tongue and 
people and nation, and has made us to our God a kingdom/' 
appointing, as His visible representatives after His Ascension, 
Peter and his successors, to reign until the end of time. 

And as in the providence of God the events of the world's 
history before the coming of Christ concurred towards the es- 
tablishment of His reign upon earth, so since His coming have 
they subserved the extension and continuance of His visible 
kingdom. Rome, the world's centre of empire in the natural 
order, became in the supernatural, by the will of God, the cen- 
tre of a visible kingdom still more extensive, more transcendent 
of nationality, stronger to survive the world's vicissitudes, en- 
during, invincible a kingdom which despite the world-power's 
most cruel endeavors to extinguish it in the blood of the 
martyrs, nay, by very reason of such conflict, subdued in love 
its would-be destroyers and made of them its most faithful 
servants and sons. " No institution is left standing," writes 
Macaulay, " which carries the mind back to the times when 
the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when ca- 
melopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. 
The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared 
with the line af the Supreme Pontiffs. . . . She saw the 
commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesi- 
astical establishments that now exist in the world ; and we feel 
no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all." 
And Hallam, after enumerating all the natural causes of which 
he could think for Rome's survival of the sixteenth century 



586 CATHOLICISM AND NATIONALITY [Aug. 

upheaval, admits their insufficiency, and concludes : " It must 
be acknowledged that there was a principle of vitality in that 
religion, independent of its external strength ... an in- 
tense flame of zeal and devotion." He does not, however, 
appear to see that he leaves his puzzle still unsolved, that he 
falls short of an endeavor to account for that which alone could 
kindle and sustain so divine a flame ; that not a mere natural, 
but a supernatural cause must be sought for. And the inerhent 
supernatural power of the Church is shown by the fact that 
when, after the close of the eighteenth century to revert to 
Macaulay's account " anarchy had had its day," and "a new 
order of things rose out of the confusion, new dynasties, new 
laws, new titles, amidst them emerged the ancient religion" 
" the unchangeable Church," which " remained unshaken, and, 
when the waters abated, appeared alone amidst the ruins of a 
world which had passed away." 

The kingdom of the Catholic Church, transcending nation- 
ality and independent everywhere of the civil power in the 
domain of religion, though always insisting upon the duty 
of loyalty to every form of just government, is that visible 
kingdom of Christ over which He Himself reigns in the per- 
son of His Vicar as its visible head. This is that spectacle 
sustained through the centuries, "not with an army, nor by 
might "of temporal conquest, but supernaturally, which the 
world wonders at, cannot explain, and has signally failed to 
supplant ; a dynasty ever without a rival, whether in the civil 
or in the ecclesiastical domain the Catholic Church, outside 
of whose fold is no jurisdiction ecclesiastical to be found, save 
such as is confined to nationality and subjected always to the 
civil power. 




THE PATRIOTS. 

BY HELEN HAINES. 

the valley swept a hostile gray host, invading 
with splendid effrontery that great State the 
first to answer the Union call. 

Rumor spread wide before this confident ad- 
vance, and fact ran quaking into panic-stricken 
towns. It was a small force. It was a force of thousands. 
It was Lee's whole army ! 

Uncle Anthony Orth was dozing in his cool, darkened par- 
lor, and his niece Betty, her knitting in her lap, sat twisting 
nervous fingers. 

" War in your own state war at home, seems different," 
she kept saying to herself. For Betty recalled when the war 
was being waged in a far other state, dear to her because it 
was Richard Jeffers own, and she had heard much of the ad- 
vantages of fighting on home ground. 

Betty Orth had come up from their farm near Gettysburg 
to Carlisle. Until now, she had not left her mother since her 
father, Colonel John Orth, had been brought back to Cemetery 
Hill after his first battle. 

But now that General Anthony Orth was chafing in his 
big chair, with two wounded legs propped up before him, 
Betty had been detailed to divert him, and at the end of her 
visit to bring home her share of Aunt Matilda's recent raid 
on the Philadelphia shops, where there had been a slaughter 
of small figured bareges and mozambiques, and an immense sac- 
rifice of silk mantillas. 

Betty found the silence unendurable. She tossed aside her 
work and crossed the room to the sleeper. " Uncle, I must 
go to mother. I must go home," she volunteered now for the 
twentieth time. 

And for the twenty first, the General had roused himself 
to answer: "Too late now, my girl," and had dozed off again. 

The old Mexican War veteran, though keenly alive to the 
gravity of the situation, had some contempt for the scurrying 



588 1 "HE PATRIOTS [Aug., 

farmers and his fleeing townsmen, and had vowed that his 
home the abode of peace and plenty should be the last to 
close if the enemy came. . 

But early one Friday morning, when his orderly brought 
word that the Union troops would evacuate their entrenchments 
that night, he called loudly for his sister Matilda, whose to- 
mato ketchup was at the nice point of straining. 

"You and Betty pack your duds for the Springs," he or- 
dered, " and send Peter back with the horses for me." 

Peter had gone out to the General's farm just beyond the 
Federal lines for a supply of fresh vegetables. The other ser- 
vants had fled, but Aunt Matilda and Betty sped to obey. 

Miss Orth toiled up and down to the garret to hide the 
silver and linen in the glory holes. Betty laid desecrating 
hands on the quiet order of the big, neat bed-rooms. She reso- 
lutely turned her pretty head from those fascinating new 
"makings" from Philadelphia, to ransack high-boys and low- 
boys, chests and wardrobes, for the serviceable necessities 
which must go with them to the Springs. 

Suddenly, in all the confusion, the General's voice sounded 
a storm signal, and his niece hurried down to him. 

Peter had returned with his market basket and the vege- 
tables, but the -horses had been confiscated. He sheepishly 
stood emptying a pocket of Confederate money, while Uncle 
Anthony trumpeted and tossed the notes to the floor. 

Betty thriftily picked up the money, and tried to pacify 
him. Aunt Matilda and she could walk, for Peter must be 
left with him. They would be certain to get a lift on some 
farmer's wagon, and once at the Springs would arrange for 
General Orth. In a moment she was upstairs again to calm 
her aunt's agitation and to repack; and, soon all superfluities 
left behind, the women started. 

But long before they reached the outskirts of the town the 
bundles seemed lead -weighted, yet Betty already knew she had 
left out everything she had meant to bring. At each bend of 
the road, she looked for the expected lift. Only one vehicle 
passed, already opulently filled, the horses staggering. There 
was nothing for it but to trudge on. At length a cart loaded 
with household goods appeared, and in desperation, Betty way- 
laid the driver and piled their treasures high, forgetting to 
inquire its destination. 



ip ii.] THE PATRIOTS 589 

As it disappeared in the hot dust under the late June sun, 
the girl leaned wearily against a stone wall. Miss Matilda had 
sunk to the grass by the roadside. She was flushed, breathless, 
tremulous. Her pearl bonnet strings hung limp, and her best 
black silk, which she had refused to crease, was in a ruinous 
state. 

"Betty, child," she panted in dismay, "I fear I have torn 
my spencer." 

Her niece tried to say something sympathetic, but she, too, 
was worn out. How her side ached! She put her hand to 
her heart, where inside her stays and next its swift beat, she 
had sewed the little flag of stars and bars Richard had sent 
her, and which had run the blockade and had come to her all 
the way from England. The thought of it steadied her. 

" Why it's Richard's army I'm running away from Rich- 
ard's ! " she told herself, and made a swift decision. 

A friendly branch of berries plucked her sleeve. She 
turned to pick them and brought them in her kerchief to re- 
fresh the old lady. 

"Aunt, we are going back to Carlisle." 

" Oh, my dear" 

" It can't be worse for Carlisle to be shelled than it was 
for Charleston." Then as Miss Matilda looked unconvinced, 
Betty added wilily : " If anything should happen to Un- 
cle": 

Miss Orth hastily scrambled to her feet, and the two tired 
women retraced their steps. They found the same deserted 
city with shut shops, shuttered houses, silent streets. Only a 
few men were stirring near those centers where news might 
come from the valley. 

That night Betty awoke to the sound of marching feet, 
marching, but marching back. It had not occurred to her that 
Union troops could march back, in spite of her uncle's infor- 
mation. She sat up in the big four-poster with her hands 
clasped about her knees, and listened to that monotonous 
tramp, orderly, sustained, but retreating. With a sudden ter- 
ror for the future, she drew the sheet up over her head and 
cuddled down under it, in tense, silent indignation. 

The old general also fumed over the necessity, but not si- 
lently. "Oh, if my legs " he would begin, and then shut 
firm lips on womanish complaints. Nevertheless, when the 



590 THE PATRIOTS [Aug., 

enemy occupied his city the next morning, he ordered a ham- 
per of provisions to be sent at once to headquarters. 

His sister expostulated, "But, Anthony, we may need " 

The old man pointed an authoritative finger, and soon Peter, 
bending under the weight of the General's hospitality, was 
tottering through the alleyway and down the empty street. 

The old warrior saw him go. "I hope, Matilda," he said 
suspiciously, " you didn't pack those half-ripe tomatoes you 
had left from that ketchup." 

"Brother, the tomatoes I sent were plenty good enough 
for" 

"Woman, woman, don't you know for less than that they'll 
shell this town?" he bellowed. 

So Saturday wore on, followed by a distressful Sabbatarian 
sadness. Betty's nervousness over her deserted mother had 
grown acute, but Aunt Matilda had demanded hymns and the 
young girl seated herself at the piano. Miss Orth sat com- 
placent as her niece's fingers made the yellowed keys ring, 
but no one could deceive the General's sharp ears. 

" Betty, my girl," he called from his deep chair, " isn't 
that a carnal tune ? " 

The piano shut with a bang, and Betty was up and down 
the room like a whirlwind. " Yes, it's carnal, Uncle Anthony, 
and I'm carnal too! I'm tired of all this secrecy and sus- 
pense. I'm tired of scraping lint, and rolling bandages, and 
knitting socks for soldiers that retreat just when you need 
'em." 

Her uncle stared for an instant open-mouthed. His brother 
John's child was diverting. "Why, my dear," he said with an 
uneasy laugh, "that is war." 

" Then war is worse than wicked ; it's senseless." 

" Betty," cried her aunt in distress, "think of the Union!" 

The girl's eyes filled. "Am I likely to forget it?" she 
asked. 

" Well, don't straminade up and down that way. Do sit 
like a lady, and " 

A strong pull at the door-bell startled them all. The harsh 
jangle, awakening the echoes of the silent hall, smote harshly 
on spent nerves. 

"There's no use waiting for servants when there are none," 
suggested the General irascibly. 



i9i i.] THE PATRIOTS 591 

His sister was for poking out a discreet head above stairs 
and disappeared into the dining-room. Betty bristled to the 
attack, slamming the parlor door behind her, and for an in- 
stant after answering the summons stood looking dazedly at 
the young officer in gray on her uncle's steps. Then the hall- 
door softly shut, and she was enveloped in his strong arms. 
Richard's eyes were shining and Betty's cheeks aflame as they 
entered the parlor. 

" Uncle," said Betty, " here's f an officer from headquarters 
to thank you for the hamper." 

General Orth's back was to the hall. He half turned, and 
then called, "Matilda, come out from behind that door. 
Here's that young scoundrel of Ariadne's." 

Pink but dignified, Miss Orth emerged from her hiding 
place to give a gracious welcome. 

" Isn't this luck ? " joyfully inquired the young guest. 

She smiled. t( We haven't thought so until now." 

" I was afraid you would have gone with the rest, and 
mother would be so disappointed ! She especially reminded 
me to give you all her love, when we got to Pennsylvania." 

" When you got to Pennsylvania ! " the General bawled. 
11 You'd not be here now, if my underpinning " 

Young Jeffers interrupted with a laugh. "Nor, my dear 
General, would I be here or anywhere, if my dearest Betty 
hadn't managed that quinine for me in old newspapers." 

The old man's crutches knocked to the floor. His steely 
eyes pierced Betty's sweet defenses. " Contraband of war, 
Miss, and you knew it." 

She answered bravely. " I wasn't thinking of the war, 
Uncle Anthony; the man I'm going to marry had fever. He 
needed it." 

Anthony Orth closed his eyes and sighed. In the excite- 
ment he had wrenched his poor legs. His sister hovered over 
him. Richard's fingers slipped across the old horsehair sofa 
and closed over Betty's little hand. He decided to engage the 
enemy, and more than once during his recital of the wreck of 
all at home, Miss Matilda softly wept and the old veteran 
cleared his throat. 

The General's own youth walked before him, and it did 
not walk alone. There was a path beside a murmuring river 
with the waving green of the rice fields embroidering the 



592 THE PATRIOTS [Aug., 

other shore. There was an odor of autumnal roses, and 
the drowsy whir of humming birds darting in and out the 
opopanax. 

He opened his eyes with a start, his swift glance traveling 
up and down the lithe figure in gray. " Dick, don't you lack 
spurs?" he asked abruptly. He pointed to where gift sword 
and spurs hung above the mantel. "Here, young man, bring 
me those." His voice broke. " Take 'em, Dick, I'll not wear 
'em again." 

The youth was stammering confused thanks, the gruff old 
fighter protesting. Betty had fastened on the spurs. She 
wound soft arms now round her uncle's neck, and her red lips 
brushed his ivory bald spot. " Contraband of war," she mur- 
mured, "and I must think, sir, you know it." 

"I wasn't thinking of the war," the General unexpectedly 
sparkled, " I was thinking of my future nephew's needs." 

These precious moments were all too brief, and Richard's 
time was up. Betty stole after him into the hall. 

"Dear Dick," she coaxed, "couldn't you sell me a horse?" 

"What will you give me?" he teased her. 

Betty drew herself up stiffly. "Confederate money the 
same your soldiers gave us for two of uncle's." 

"Never mind, little Yankee, it will be worth more after 
this campaign ! " He caught her hands and drew her towards 
him. "But why, sweetheart, do you want a horse? To run 
away from me, just when I've found you ? " 

" No, Richard, no. But mother is alone on the farm. I 
must get home." 

Jeffers looked grave. Then he said smilingly, " General 
Orth's niece will, perhaps, bear our dispatches ? " 

" Never ! " she said with a toss of the proud head. 

All in a moment she softened to the pain in his eyes. 
" Dick, dear, mother can't be left there alone, with the coun- 
try full of reb of your army. Uncle will never ask an escort 
for me, and there is no way unless you take me." 

His hesitation filled her eyes with tears. " Oh, I won't 
ask why you're going nor where," she pleaded. " Even if 
this is war, can't it just be you taking me home?" 

He kissed the pleading lips, promising. 

At midnight, his sprinkle of pebbles on her window called 
her. She was ready, and a note lay on her dressing-table for 



i9i i.] THE PATRIOTS 591 

Uncle Anthony. Betty could laugh now, thinking of his rage, 
when Aunt Matilda found it. 

She was in the hall at the head of the stairs, when a 
smiling impulse sent her a-tiptoe back to her moonlit room, 
to kneel before the chest of Philadelphia spoils. 

" Good-bye," she whispered to the girlish vanities within, 
" good-bye." She shut the lid with a little hysterical laugh. 
"Ah, war in your own state is different," she said. 

Betty had thought she knew this hydra that had gripped 
the country these long months. A thing for texts, and hot 
glib speech. A sprightly thing of uniforms and flags and 
bands that set the blood to tingling and the feet to marking 
time. A thing of broken friendships, straining hearts; of dis- 
tant battles and long lists scanned to see which life was 
spared, and which a memory. A thing for brave true souls 
to meet, and dare to whisper " Courage," to busy hands. 

But in her own state it bore still another aspect. This 
wild hard ride in the moonlight of a summer's night, should 
be a lover's ride. But when Duty sat a-pillion with Richard, 
whose stern lips brooked no delay, and fear spurred Betty's 
horse, tender vows were laggards. To the girl's swift unreason, 
this passing between unfriendly pickets to reach her home, 
and by the courtesy of a hostile foe, became a monstrous 
thing. A thing now that crawled and twisted between towns 
and farms, homes, holding familiar highways. Its baggage 
trains blocked roads, and the long dull rumble of artillery 
wagons jarred the silent hills; while from side cuts and trampled 
fields, troops of infantry barred the way, marching with their 
long swing to the click of the canteen. 

The last miles were clear, and at a gallop. A big blue 
army, too, was moving towards Gettysburg, moving from the 
south, while a great wing of gray brooded in the hills to the 
north-west. To reach it, Richard had other weary miles be- 
yond the farm-house on the way, where he paused to swing 
Betty down. 

As his lips pressed her's, he asked: "Whichever way this 
ends, sweetheart?" 

"Whichever way," she answered, trembling, and from his 
arms she was enfolded by her mother's. 

Worn youth had the respite of some quiet hours in which 
to tell its story, before the July sun dawned bright and clear 
VOL. xcin. 38 



594 THE PATRIOTS [Aug., 

upon that ominous first. Then every window of the peaceful 
farm-house on the ridge framed the approach the clash. 

Back on the western horizon the grays had waited. Now 
down the long pike, and north of it through the railway cut, 
south of it through woods and fields, Betty saw them pour, 
a mighty flood, down to the little stream where she had 
waded, and built dams and sailed her leafy boats. 

There the blues stopped them, holding the nearer hollows 
and all the wooded ridge behind the farm buildings, and 
down the eastern slope again, through every tranquil bit of 
meadow, field or pasture, to the higher ridge overlooking the 
town. 

She saw the slaughter in the cut, and the batteries 
in the road and woods slit long strips in that brave 
advance. They fought and crossed the run, were driven back 
and crossed again; were up the ridge, repulsed, and over it, 
and more came after them to meet the blues' long lines of 
cavalry, dismounted to the attack, while their artillery boomed 
above their heads, tearing great gaps in the gray ranks. Back 
and forth across the farm they charged, each barn or shed or 
little flowered space a thing worth fighting for, and fickle 
victory shifted from one side to the other. 

Ah, this was war Betty knew now war at home ! 

All day she watched the conflict, sometimes hiding in ter- 
ror of the din, or braving it to perform some work of mercy, 
A great hope thrilled her with the later coming of the host 
that had held Carlisle and beyond now pitilessly cross-firing 
the hollows between the ridges all blue with reinforcements 
that Richard would have rejoined his corps, that he at least 
was spared this dread destruction of her home. But towards 
evening this hope was stilled, when she saw him dragging 
from the woods, a wounded prisoner. 

She begged him from his guard, and drew him to the 
shelter of the porch to dress his wounds. 

" Ah, Betty, Betty," he groaned, in the agony of his 
humiliation, "this history making is a fearful thing!" 

Youth had left them. Man and woman, they clung together 
behind the honeysuckle vines. 

Betty looked out upon the scarred woods and trampled 
fields, the men and horses, dead and dying She saw the blue 
retreat, the many captured grays, uncaring which had won. 



i9i i.] A WET MEADOW 595 

The woman thought no more of the cause, but of the 
carnage. 

" Oh, sometime there must be another way!" she cried 
through her hot tears. "What cause is worth it?" 

"Ours," said the man. 

"But I said, 'Whichever way/" she whimpered. 

Richard's proud lips writhed. " I am a captured rebel. At 
best, they'll say some day, a pardoned traitor." 

The vision of Love, the seer, was in her eyes. "No, 
dear, no. It is all the way men see. Some day they will 
call us all ' Patriots.' " 



A WET MEADOW. 

BY CAROLINE D. SWAN. 

billowy mists are drifting fleecy-white 
Adown the grassy meadows half asleep, 
O'erhung with earthly tear-drops, prone to weep 

And then rejoice. For Heaven's great scarlet light 

Ablaze on high, falls infinitely bright 
On mosses fresh and rosy pools that leap 
To catch the sun, on blossomings that keep 

Joy-cups upturned and on the blue-bird's flight. 

O vain earth-tears ! Ah, whither has it gone, 

Your sparkle and your pain? I/ost in Thy smile, 

O God of Graciousness, a mist swept on ! 

And our joy- flowers flash into gold, the while 

We wonder at the glory and the gleam ! 

The glory, real; the grief, a dewy dream. 




EFFORTS TO REGAIN STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC 

SCHOOLS. 

BY MICHAEL HENRY LUCEY, PH.D. 

fHILE the Church in the United States was yet in 
its infancy, and in dire need of priests, there was 
cast on our shores by the French Revolution a 
devoted number of men, who rendered inestima- 
ble service to the cause of Christian education. 
Of this number one of the most illustrious was the Rev. John 
DuBois, D.D., later third bishop of New York. Born in Paris, 
in 1784, he remained in his native city, first as a student and 
later as priest, until the rising tide of hostility compelled him 
to flee. He was warmly welcomed by Bishop Carroll, and for 
many years labored with indefatigable zeal in the mission fields 
of Maryland and Virginia. Dr. DuBois, as a member of the 
teaching society of St. Sulpice, was especially interested in 
educational matters, and on the mountain top near Emmetts- 
burg, Maryland, he opened a small school early in the last 
century, which, under his management, grew to be one of the 
leading Catholic colleges in the United States. Mount St. 
Mary's College has probably mothered more priests than any 
other ecclesiastical seminary in the United States, and so many 
of her sons have been raised to the episcopal dignity that she 
is known as the " Mother of Bishops." 

Dr. DuBois had already entered the evening of life when 
he was chosen bishop of New York, but he brought with him 
to his new field the zeal and enthusiasm of youth. He planned 
a complete system of Catholic schools, and hoped with the aid 
of his people to put the plan into execution. In connection 
with a proposed seminary he hoped to found a college, and 
intended that the members of the teaching orders, whom he 
expected to introduce into the diocese, would found academies. 
Unfortunately, the times were not ripe for his plans. The 
churches were then in the control of lay trustees, elected by 
the pew-holders, who claimed and exercised complete control 
over the temporal affairs of the Church. To them the most 
immediate need seemed to be the building of new churches, and 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 597 

to this the people directed themselves with commendable zeal. 
Daring the twelve years of Bishop DuBois* active administra- 
tion the number of churches in the city was increased from 
two to eight. 

Burdened as the people were with this enormous task of 
buying sites and erecting church buildings, it is not surprising 
that in the absence of aid formerly received from the State 
School Fund, the establishment and maintenance of schools 
seemed an almost impossible task. Yet to this undertaking 
they were urged, not only by their own faith and inclinations, 
but likewise by the decrees of church councils and the ex- 
hortations of their bishop and pastors. 

The First Provincial Council, which met at Baltimore on 
October 4, 1829, enacted that schools be established in which 
the young, while they were taught letters, should also be taught 
the principles of faith and morals. The Fathers of the Second 
Provincial Council, held four years later, likewise emphasized 
the necessity for schools where the best opportunities of liter- 
ature and science might be united to a strict protection of the 
morals of the children and the best safeguards of their faith. 

Even before these councils thus pronounced on the subject 
of education, one of the able and clear-sighted priests of New 
York City, the Rev. F. C. Levins, had shown that the clergy 
of the city were alive to the importance of the subject: 

Were I asked [he writes in the Truth Teller of August i, 
1829"] what is the evil which in a religious and moral point 
of view presses with most severity on the Catholic community 
of this city, I would without hesitancy say, the want of that 
education which blends religion with the education of the 
mind, and I should consider him the best benefactor to our 
community who most completely aided in establishing this 
system of education. This opinion may clash with the mod- 
ern cant term, liberality ; and possibly in the Catholic com- 
munity there are those who are votaries of this mischievous 
idol. Should any of the liberal class demand why I would 
blend religious instruction with education, I would answer : 
Because first, education conferred, unaided by religion, is a 
curse ; and second, the Catholic religion in the city cannot 
receive a fixed and permanent increase unless this mode of 
education is adopted. 

Urged on, then, by these exhortations and by their own 



598 STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

faith and zeal the Catholics opened a school as soon as each 
church was completed. These schools were, for the most part, 
in the basements of the churches, the curriculum was limited, 
and the teachers were poorly educated and unskilled in the 
art of teaching. In many cases the sexton was the teacher, 
and sometimes the organist lent a hand. Tuition fees were 
usually charged, and in fact some of the schools connected 
with the churches might be classed as private schools. 

Bishop DuBois, himself a learned educator, deeply regretted 
this condition of affairs. He tried to come to an agreement 
with the Public School Society to the end that the children 
under his charge, while receiving a Catholic education, might 
at the same time enjoy the advantages which well- equipped 
buildings and trained teachers always give. As the Public 
School Society had established one of their schools on Mott 
Street, not far from the Cathedral, Bishop DuBois requested 
the Society that he be allowed to present a Catholic teacher 
for that school, subject, of course, to the examintion and ap- 
probation of the Society, and also to removal whenever they 
saw fit. He also requested that the use of the school be al- 
lowed him on Sundays for the purpose of giving to the Ro- 
man Catholic children instruction in their religion, and of 
keeping a Sunday- School in the evening for poor apprentices 
and servants who had no other time to devote to education. 

These requests were refused, and the schools were com- 
pelled to grope their way along in the semi-darkness of this 
dreary time. 

That the burden of supporting schools was felt not only 
by the Catholics of New York, but likewise by their brethren 
throughout the nation is evidenced by the action of the Fourth 
Council of Baltimore, convened in 1840. 

Looking back over the ten years since the Fathers of the 
First Council had deemed it absolutely necessary that schools 
be established in which the young might be taught the prin- 
ciples of their faith and morals while they were instructed in 
letters, the prelates of this Council were apparently disap- 
pointed and discouraged at the results accomplished. It 
seemed as though in this period of church building, the addi- 
tional expenses of building and maintaining schools was too 
much to bear. Accordingly the Council, in its sixth decree, 
looked to making the public schools available for Catholic 



i9ii.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 599 

children by obtaining exemptions for them from participation 
in Protestant prayers and Bible reading. 

Such was the condition of affairs when a new leader ap<* 
peared, who was to inspire his people to greater effort thari 
any which they had yet put forth, and who was to make them 
conscious of their own strength and resources. The Most Rev. 
John Hughes, was born in Ireland, at Annaloghan, in the 
County Tyrone, on June 24, 1797 of typical Irish peasants. 
When nineteen years of age he came to the United States, 
and, after much striving, entered Mount St. Mary's College, 
of which the Rev. Dr. DuBois, whom he was later to succeed 
as bishop of New York, was president. His career, both as a 
student at St. Mary's, and later as pastor of St. Mary's 
Church, Philadelphia, showed that indomitable strength of 
will, efficiency as a man of affairs, and ability as a controver 
salist which later marked his career in New York. His was 
the militant type of Christianity, which stood ready to give 
and to receive blows in the fight for righteousness. 

Bishop Hughes first attacked the trustee system, which had 
hampered the efforts of Bishop DuBois in his endeavors to 
render the work of the Church and the schools more effective. 
A year after his coming to New York a case occurred which 
showed that the struggle could not be avoided. A civil offi- 
cer, acting on the authority of the trustees of the Cathedral, 
expelled from the Sunday-School a teacher who had been ap- 
pointed by the bishop. Bishop Hughes at once issued a pas- 
toral address to the congregation of the Cathedral in which 
he intimated that if such actions were tolerated he would feel 
justified in deserting their building and erecting an altar 
around which religion should be free, the Council of Trent 
fully recognized, and the law of the Church applied to the 
government and regulation of the Church. 

This appeal was entirely successful. At a subsequent meet- 
ing of the pew-holders of the Cathedral congregation resolu- 
tions were adopted endorsing the stand of the bishop, and at 
the next election trustees were chosen who were acceptable to 
him. Having thus broken the power of the trustees and se- 
cured the cordial support of his people, he resolved to visit 
Europe to study systems of education and means of advanc- 
ing the cause of religion. 

While Bishop Hughes was in Europe the most important 



600 STATE SUPPORT POR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

and far-reaching campaign for the purpose of securing for the 
Catholic schools a portion of the public school funds was be- 
gun. The controversy may be said to have been started by 
the action of the Governor of the State, Hon. William H. 
Seward, who, in his annual message for the year of 1840, de- 
plored the fact that many children of foreign parents were 
deprived of the advantages of our system of public education 
in consequence of prejudices arising from difference of lan- 
guage or religion. He therefore advocated the establishment 
of schools in which such pupils might be instructed by teach- 
ers speaking the same language as themselves, and professirg 
the same faith. 

As this view seemed to be held by many other men prom- 
inent in public life, the time seemed propitious for the Catho- 
lics to assert their rights. Accordingly, on February 17, 1840 
the trustees of the eight Catholic schools on Manhattan Island, 
met and prepared a petition requesting the Common Council, 
in whose hands the law vested the distribution of the school 
money, for a proportionate share. 

The memorial contended that the petitioners contributed 
in common with all other citizens who were taxed for the 
purpose to the accumulation of the school fund, and that 
they were entitled to participate in its advantages; that now 
they received no benefit from the fund, inasmuch as the mem- 
bers of the Catholic churches could not conscientiously send 
their children to schools in which the religious doctrine of 
their fathers was exposed to ridicule and censure. The peti- 
tioners admitted that in the schools attached to their churches, 
religious instruction in the doctrines of the Church would 
be given after the usual school hours, but with the under- 
standing that no child would be requested to attend at that 
time without the approval of the parents. 

On March 16, the Hebrew Congregation, on Crosby street, 
and the Scotch Presbyterian Church likewise presented a 
petition for a share in the distribution of the school money. 

In the controversy of 1824 the Catholics, while demanding 
their rights under the law, had taken no prominent part in 
the agitation. At that time, as we have noted, the leaders 
of the movement for state support for Church schools were 
prominent ministers of many of the Protestant churches of 
the city. 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 601 

Times had changed since 1825, however, and men with 
them. Most of the Protestant churches had closed their 
schools, and their members were now sending their children 
to the schools of the Public School Society. They had be- 
come accustomed to sending their children to these schools, 
and were well satisfied with the education received. As Dr. 
Hughes pointed out, they had no such grievance against the 
schools as had the Catholics: 

Although, [he says] one denomination of Protestants 
may differ from another and may carry their attachment to 
their respective dogmas to great length, yet there is one 
common ground on which they all, so far as I know, without 
exception meet. "What is it?" That the Bible alone, as 
understood by each individual, is their rule ol faith. They 
could, therefore, unite on the public school question so far as 
the Bible was concerned. 

The Catholics, therefore, found themselves practically alone 
in the fight. The Scotch Presbyterian Church and the Hebrew 
Congregation concurred in the petition, but were opposed by 
the Methodist Episcopal Churches, the East Broome Street 
Baptist Church, the Dutch Reformed Churches, and the Re- 
formed Presbyterian Church, and many citizens. The Public 
School Society also vigorously opposed the prayer of the 
petitioners, presenting a memorial to the Common Council, 
in which they declared that they were opposed to the propo- 
sition as being both unconstitutional and inexpedient. The 
petition was rejected by the Board of Aldermen, April 27. 

The Catholics, nothing daunted by the defeat, began a move- 
ment for the purpose of bringing their grievances before the 
public. Meetings were held, at which the Catholic position was 
eloquently set forth by the Rev. Dr. Powers and others. Mat- 
ters were in this condition when, on July 18, Bishop Hughes 
arrived from Europe. While he had been in no way con- 
nected with the inception of the movement, he threw himself 
into the fight immediately on his arrival and assumed com- 
mand. Ten days later he addressed a meeting held in the 
school-house attached to St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

In this address Bishop Hughes expressed pleasure at the 
fact that the movement was not a political one, but that a 
feeling higher and holier than mere politics was the soul of 
the agitation. The question at issue, namely, whether Cath- 



602 STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

olic children were exposed to the danger of forfeiting their 
faith by an attendance on the state supported schools, was 
infinitely above anything that could be found in mere politics. 
Speaking of the schools then existing he said that the system 
had not been tested by its results; sufficient time had not 
elapsed to develop them ; but when they reflected that all 
morality was founded on religion, and that this was an at- 
tempt to make a man moral on the basis of education with- 
out religion, he would ask what would be the harvest that 
such culture would produce* For his own part, he believed 
that it would produce men either indifferent to religion, or 
with a feeling of contempt for it. 

He contended for the right of conscience and for the 
sacred right of every man to educate his own children. He 
asked only that the Catholics be granted a fair and just pro- 
portion of the funds appropriated for the common schools, 
provided the Catholics would give their children just as good 
a secular training as could be obtained in those schools. In 
an address of the Roman Catholics to their fellow-citizens of 
the city and state, which appeared soon after, Bishop Hughes 
appealed to the general public on the same grounds as set 
forth above. 

The Catholics were now thoroughly aroused to the im- 
portance of the movement, and during the summer attended, 
in large numbers, meetings which were held every two weeks 
in the basement of St. James' Church. A weekly paper, the 
Freeman's Journal, now appeared for the purpose of keeping 
the public, and more especially the Catholic portion thereof, 
informed as to the progress made. 

On September 21, a memorial was adopted and presented 
to the Board of Aldermen. The petitioners set forth that the 
rights of conscience guaranteed them by the Constitution were 
violated in the provision made for the education of their chil- 
dren in New York City. They pointed out that the Public 
School Society had attained a monopoly of the public educa- 
tion of children in the City of New York. They asserted 
that while enjoying this monopoly, the Society conducted its 
schools, which were supported by funds contributed by the 
petitioners in common with other citizens, in such a way that 
Catholics could not conscientiously, and with their sense of 
duty to God, intrust the education of their offspring to them. 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 603 

For while the Society professed to exclude all sectarianism 
from their schools, they in fact, said the petitioners, did admit 
sectarianism in a great variety of ways. This was evidenced 
by the various annual reports of the Society, in which the 
importance of early religious education was emphasized. This 
religious education, to be sure, was exclusively general and 
scriptural in its character, but the members of the Society or 
its teachers must of necessity decide the difficult question on 
which the sects disagree, namely, what kind of religious edu- 
cation is exclusively general and scriptural. 

The petitioners then pass to the objectionable nature of 
many of the books used in the schools, stating that many of 
them contained passages both historically inaccurate and bear- 
ing a tone of prejudice against the Catholic Church. The 
petitioners therefore prayed that the Board would be pleased 
to designate as among the schools entitled to participate in 
the Common School fund, upon complying with the require- 
ments of the law and ordinances of the Corporation of the 
City, St. Patrick's School, St. Peter's School, St. Mary's 
School, St. Joseph's School, St. James' School, St. Nicholas' 
School, Transfiguration Church School, and St. John's School. 

Remonstrances in opposition to the petition were pre- 
sented by the Public School Society, and a committee repre- 
senting the pastors of the Methodist Episcopal Churches. 
The remonstrance of the Society was short, inasmuch as they 
stated that the matter had been already fully set forth before 
the public. Some of the points made by the Catholics were, 
however, taken up. In order to show their freedom from 
religious bias it was pointed out that no regard was had by 
the trustees to the religious profession of the teachers ap- 
pointed, and that as a matter of fact six or seven of the 
number were Roman Catholics. 

The petition and remonstrances were referred to a com- 
mittee of the Board for consideration, but later it was decided 
to give hearings before the full board, and Thursday and Fri- 
day, October 29 and 30, were named as the days on which 
arguments would be heard. It was a dramatic moment when 
John Hughes arose in the Council Chamber of the Board of 
Aldermen to present the case of his Catholic fellow-citizens. 
He stood alone before a board which had shown its hostility 
to the principles which he represented, while opposed to him 



604 STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

were two of the leading members of the New York bar and 
representatives of the leading Protestant Churches of the city. 
Men may not agree with the principles advocated by John 
Hughes, but they cannot withhold their admiration for his 
battle against odds for what he believed to be right. Dr. 
Hughes was not only a loyal churchman but a sincere patriot 
as well. He yielded to no man, either in his devotion to his 
church or his love of country. Believing as he did that reli- 
gious instruction was an essential element in the training of 
a man, as well as in that of a citizen, he strove with all his 
might to enable his fellow Catholics to make this principle 
effective in the education of their children. 

Dr. Hughes began by explaining the petition formerly 
presented, and stating the grounds on which the Catholics 
sought relief. He then, in turn, reviewed and analyzed the 
remonstrances of the School Society, and of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, pointing out the weakness of their argu- 
ments. 

Mr. Theodore Sedgwick now arose on behalf of the Public 
School Society, and delivered a dignified, scholarly address. 
Mr. Sedgwick reviewed the history of the Public School So- 
ciety in its gradual acquirement of control over the Common 
School funds. He doubted the power of the board to grant 
the prayer of the petitioners even if they were so inclined. 
He agreed with the petitioners that if a large body of citizens 
could not, for sound reasons, participate in the advantages of 
public free education, then that education was on a wrong 
footing radically wrong. But the question, after all, was one 
of fact. Mr. Sedgwick concluded that the ground on which 
they prevented their children from attending these schools 
was not well taken. 

Mr. Ketchum, of counsel for the Society, followed in a 
caustic address, in which he attacked Bishop Hughes for de- 
scending into the arena for the purpose of discussing public 
questions. He defended the cause of the Public School Society 
and impugned the motives of the petitioners. The question at 
issue was, he said, whether the board was ready to desert the 
Public School Society and take up the new society the 
Catholics. 

The next afternoon the Rev. Dr. Bond, of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, took the floor. Dr. Bond protested against 



i9ii.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 605 

the apportioning of money for sectarian purposes. Then pro- 
ceeding on the assumption that it was the peculiar creed of 
the Catholics on which they rested their scruples against 
sending their children to the public schools he made a bitter 
attack on the Catholic Church. To support the charge made 
in their memorial that it was a persecuting church he cited 
passages from a Rhemish New Testament, published by Protes- 
tants in New York, and afterwards proven by Bishop Hughes 
to have been condemned by the authorities of the Catholic 
Church. 

Dr. David M. Reese, also of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, in his address proceeded on the assumption that the 
schools of the Society were public schools, and that the con- 
scientious scruples which Catholics now entertained against 
sending their children to them had been instilled into their 
minds by the action of their Bishop. Fundamentally, there- 
fore, the conscientious scruples being mere prejudices, there 
was no case of conscience in the matter at all. If, therefore, 
certain individuals chose to educate their own children, and 
refused to avail themselves of the advantages of the public 
schools the act was their own, and furnished them no pre- 
text for complaint. 

The Rev. Dr. Knox, of the Dutch Reformed Church, and 
the Rev. Dr. Bangs, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now 
spoke in turn. Each voiced the satisfaction of his Church with 
the schools as conducted by the Society, and their opposition 
to the memorial of the petitioners. It remained for Dr. Spring, 
of the Presbyterian Church, who closed the debate for the op- 
position, to voice the most pronounced note of hostility heard 
during the entire debate : 

The gentleman, Bishop Hughes, [he said] has sought to 
prove that the present system leads to infidelity. Now, sir, 
let no man think it strange that I prefer infidelity to Catholi- 
cism. Even a mind as acute as Voltaire's came to the con- 
clusion that if there was no alternative between infidelity and 
the dogmas of the Catholic Church he should choose infidel- 
ity. I would choose, sir, in similar circumstances, to be an 
infidel to-morrow. 

Bishop Hughes, in a speech lasting three hours and a half, 
replied to the arguments of all the gentlemen who had been 
heard on the subject. Owing to the fact that the learned 



606 STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

gentlemen had devoted a large part of their time to attacks 
on the doctrines and teachings of the Church, Bishop Hughes 
was compelled to devote a large part of his time to answering 
these charges. He took up the arguments of each opponent 
and answered them. In answer to Mr. Sedgwick's contention 
that the Catholics had no just ground in fact for keeping their 
children from the schools of the Society, he pointed out that 
morality cannot be taught without religion. Banish religion 
and you have infidelity. But if religious instruction is given 
it might be satisfactory to others, but it could not be to 
Catholics. 

He defended his course of taking part in public meetings, 
saying that he hoped the time would never come when it 
would be deemed a descent for a man in office to mingle with 
his fellow-citizens, when convened for legitimate and honorable 
purposes. He complained humorously of the personal hostility 
which Mr. Ketchum had shown him, saying that he expected 
every minute the learned gentleman would forget himself and 
say "the prisoner at the bar." 

To the charge that he was responsible for stirring up the 
agitation and the opposition of Catholics to the schools of the 
Public School Society, he called attention to the fact that for 
years Catholics had been struggling to establish and to main- 
tain schools to the extent to which their means allowed them. 

If state support were granted, the Catholics were willing 
that their schools should be under the same regulations as 
those of the Public School Society, the same hours, the same 
order, the same exercises, and even the same inspectors. They 
reserved to themselves the designation of teachers, subject, 
however, to examination by the proper public authorities as to 
their qualifications. 

The Special Committee, to whom the matter had been re- 
ferred, found themselves unable to agree to the demands of 
the Catholic authorities, and requested that they be discharged 
from further consideration of the matter. 

The report of the committee was adopted, and thus the 
appeal of the Roman Catholics was rejected and the committee 
discharged. 

The Catholics, having been defeated before the Common 
Council, determined to appeal to the legislature. 

On April 26, the Hon. James C. Spencer, Secretary of the 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 607 

State, and also Superintendent of Common Schools, submitted 
a report upon the memorial of the Catholic authorities, which 
had been referred to him by the Senate. Mr. Spencer held 
that the founders of such schools as those established by the 
Catholics had absolute rights to the benefits of a common 
burden, and that any system which deprived them of their 
just share in the application of a common and public fund 
must be justified, if at all, by a necessity which demanded the 
sacrifice of individual rights for the accomplishment of a social 
benefit of paramount importance. This necessity, Mr. Spencer 
concluded, did not exist, and therefore he objected to the exclu- 
sive control of public education by the Public School Society. 
The report, therefore, was distinctly favorable to the Catho- 
lic schools as against the contention of the Public School So- 
ciety. Even in the matter of religious instruction the Super- 
intendent took a broad stand: 

It is believed to have been satisfactorily shown, that there 
must be some degree of religious instruction, and that there 
can be none without partaking, more or less, of a sectarian 
character ; and that even the Public School Society has not 
been able, and cannot expect to be able to avoid the imputa- 
tion. In this respect, then, matters cannot well be in a worse 
condition than they are at present. 

This favorable attitude shown toward the prayer of the 
petitioners by the Governor and the Superintendent of Com- 
mon Schools aroused the friends of the Public School Society 
to vigorous and renewed activity. Mr. Ketchum delivered a 
long speech before a special committee of the Senate in which 
the usual arguments in support of the Society were gone over, 
and Mr. Spencer's report analyzed. A memorial and remon- 
strance from the Public School Society in reply to Mr. Spen- 
cer's report was also presented to the Senate. 

The Senate decided to take no action at the time, and on 
May 25, by a vote of n to 10, decided to postpone consid- 
eration of the bill until the first Tuesday in January following. 
Bishop Hughes, in a speech which occupied the evenings of 
June 16, 17 and 21, reviewed the arguments of Mr. Ketchum 
and reiterated the Catholic position. This was the beginning 
of the final struggle, which lasted well over the summer. 
With the election of members of the state legislature coming 



6o8 STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS [Aug., 

on in the fall the school question became a political issue. 
Meetings were held, the public press teemed with the subject, 
the question became the leading political issue of the cam- 
paign. The candidates for the state legislature were inter- 
viewed, and letters of inquiry were sent them by friends of 
the Public School Society in which they were requested to 
state their views on the school question. In this way pledges 
were secured from many of the candidates of the leading po- 
litical parties to vote against the Catholic petition. Those 
who expressed themselves as in favor of a change in the ex- 
isting system, or who did not answer, the Society declined to 
support. 

Bishop Hughes decided that the time had come for deci- 
sive action by the Catholic voters. Accordingly, at a meeting 
held in Carroll Hall four days before the election, certain can- 
didates who were already in the field and supposed to be 
favorable to the claims of the Catholics were indorsed. Three 
new candidates were also placed on the ticket. In taking this 
action Bishop Hughes disclaimed any desire to become involved 
in political controversies. But he did feel justified in advis- 
ing the Catholic citizens of New York to use their votes to 
secure for themselves their just rights. 

In the election the distinctive candidates of the Catholics 
received only about two thousand votes apiece, but this action 
of a religious body in nominating and, on such short notice 
securing so many votes for its candidates, created a profound 
impression. It was felt by all patriotic citizens that the con- 
troversy should be settled, and Governor Seward, in his an- 
nual message, devoted a considerable portion of it to a dis- 
cussion of the subject. He suggested that the general school 
law of the state be extended to New York City. On April 
n, accordingly, a bill was passed embodying the Governor's 
suggestions, and was signed by him. 

There was much doubt as to the effect of the new law on 
the existing schools. The trustees of the Public School So- 
ciety feared that the statute would result in subjecting their 
institutions to the blighting influence of party strife and sec- 
tarian animosity. 

While the victory seemed to rest with the Catholics, in 
that the system of public instruction was placed in the hands 
of officials elected by the people, yet as the new system of 



i9i i.] STATE SUPPORT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS 609 

schools became operative they found sufficient reasons for 
maintaining schools of their own. 

Under the new law each ward elected ten commissioners, 
two inspectors and five trustees of common schools. The 
provisions of the general school law of the state was ex- 
tended to the city, and each ward was to be considered as a 
separate town, in which the local trustees had large powers. 
They were empowered to appoint teachers, to specify the books 
to be used, and to take the initiative in organizing new schools. 

When the question was being considered at Albany it was 
thought by many that, with the control of schools vested in 
local officials elected by the people of the several wards, a 
satisfactory working basis could be found which would please 
all parties. 

If the greater part of the people in any one district were 
of a certain religious denomination it would naturally follow 
that the local control of the schools would in a measure reflect 
the opinions of the community. As the schools of the city were 
open to all, regardless of ward lines, the parents of children 
who were opposed to the methods or management of any par- 
ticular school could send their children to a neighboring one. 

But, unfortunately, this happy solution could not be at- 
tained under the law as passed. The new statute specific- 
ally deprived the school authorities of any power to provide 
or allow religious instruction. 

The rigid enforcement of this law, at least as far as Cath- 
olic interests were concerned, gave notice to the friends 01 
the parish schools that they must be continued. Before the 
new system had been in operation a year the clause prohibit- 
ing religious sectarian instruction was invoked against certain 
school officials of the Ninth Ward. The trustees of this ward, 
the majority of whose inhabitants were evidently of the 
Roman Catholic religion, had introduced into their schools a 
reader compiled by the Brothers of the Christian schools, and 
other books containing passages which gave umbrage to a 
number of the citizens of the ward. A special committee of 
the Board of Education was .appointed to consider the mat- 
ter. The committee, after an investigation, recommended that 
principals and directors of the schools in the several wards 
in which the books referred to were used, be directed to 
omit the reading of the objectionable passages. 
VOL. xciii, 39 




THE ESCAPED NUN. 

BY KATHARINE TYNAN. 

|H intelligent and cultivated Englishman is per- 
haps hardly aware, at least consciously, that 
there still appears in the suburbs of London 
and in English provincial towns, the Escaped 
Nun, a lady who is as much out of date at the 
beginning of this twentieth century, as the story of human sac- 
rifice among the Jews and other exploited myths of the kind. 
One wonders if the same lady is yet extinct in America. 

The Escaped Nun draws large audiences. She is a living 
and most thrilling example of the Shilling Shocker or the 
Penny Dreadful, She affords numberless thrills. She is sug- 
gestive, indecent, prurient. Finally she ministers to that 
odium theologicum which is apt to enter so strongly into 
lives led amid narrow and dull surroundings. There are abun- 
dant reasons for her vogue ; and the curious thing is that 
there is no protection against her calumnies for the innocent 
and devoted women whose lives are besmirched by the foul- 
ness of her fancies. 

The Escaped Nun need not be in every case nor in any 
case a conscious liar or criminal. She may be, as a matter of 
fact, suffering from hysteria. Ask any doctor or any student 
of mental diseases and he will tell you that such morbid mani- 
festations and imaginations are most common in a certain 
class of disorder. Only less piteous than the case of the 
women of holy lives besmirched and defiled, is the case of 
the poor creature whose disordered imaginations are dragged 
in the light of day or the gas-light, for the entertainment of 
the impure and the gross-minded. That the woman who was 
once a nun could stand up in a public hall with such tales 
on her lips is as poignant a thing in its way as the distraught 
Oph-eiia singing her lewd songs. 

The demoralization that follows the Escaped Nun is a ser- 
ious matter. Her "revelations' 1 are not only for the ears of 
those who conceivably are not hurt by them ; they reach the 
ears of the young as well I have not heard that there is any 



i9i i.] THE ESCAPED NUN 611 

limitation as to the age of the audience the odium theologi- 
cum gives a reason for the discussion of these matters in cir- 
cles where the avowedly prurient would be kept out of sight; 
worst of all, ignorant and well-meaning people may be per- 
suaded that societies of women, ostensibly banded together 
for the service of God and His poor, indulge habitually in 
secret orgies of vice or are victims of persons more wicked 
than themselves. The evil the Escaped Nun does spreads fur- 
ther and further, like the circles of water into which a stone 
has been thrown. Not only are the ignorant deceived, but to 
the wicked is given a justification for their wickedness. Re- 
ligion is defiled and cast down in the mud of the streets. 

There have been numberless pamphlets written and circu- 
lated to expose the Escaped Nun. It is quite safe to say 
that not one in a thousand overtakes the calumny. The per- 
sons who run to hear the libel are not those whom the refu- 
tation reaches. Surely it is time that the Escaped Nun was 
regarded by law as on the same level with other indecencies 
and corruptions which pollute the fount of human virtue at its 
very spring. 

As a matter of fact there is no such thing as an Escaped 
Nun, because there is no such thing as an immured nun. I 
do not believe there is a convent in existence, as I know con- 
vents, that will not gladly open its doors to set free the 
woman who has mistaken her vocation in becoming a nun. 
Such a one, whose discontent takes, or may take, the form of 
hysteria is, indeed, a menace and a dread to every convent. 
Most gladly will the nuns see such a one depart, and breathe 
freely when she is beyond the convent portals. 

I think I am safe in saying that where the affairs of a 
convent have been dragged into the light of day as in the 
law courts, where the evidence for and against has been thor- 
oughly sifted, the result has shown that the convent has noth- 
ing to conceal. A difficult person in a subordinate position, an 
over-dominant person in the place of authority ; these are the 
worst things that have been brought to light. There is no 
record of proceedings in the case of a nun who has escaped, 
or wished to escape. The disputes have been in the matter 
of property; and there has been nothing in the result to make 
Catholics blush for the convent. 

I am personally aware of the cases of nuns who have left 



612 THE ESCAPED NUN [Aug., 

their convents and given trouble afterwards. In one case the 
nun, who had become a Catholic and a nun when of a mature 
age, returned to Protestantism and became a militant enemy 
of her late religion. She had always been a strikingly eccen- 
tric person, whose eccentricities would have been a matter of 
mild scandal anywhere except in Ireland where the confidence 
in a priest or a nun is a touching thing. Released from the 
convent, these eccentricities were more striking than ever. She 
had had a spurious reputation as an author, which must have 
cost the convent great sums, for she had brought out a number 
of lifeless and empty volumes on a scale of great magnificence. 

To me, if I were not a Catholic and a believer in the 
conventual life as a life of great supernatural virtues and 
happiness, if I were a doctor or a philanthropist, or a person 
much interested in my kind, I should bear enthusiastic testi- 
mony to the virtue of convents as regards the health of the 
world. The convent solves the great and painful difficulty of 
defeated and disappointed womanhood, into which even an 
ordinary happy woman, if she be a sympathetic and under- 
standing person, gets many sad glimpses. To the many 
women, intended by nature to be wives and mothers, framed 
absolutely for that purpose, yet denied by law or civilization 
or the preponderance of their number over those of the male 
sex, the fruition of their purpose, the convent offers happiness, 
supernatural if not natural ; it gives them the love of God and 
the rapture of the mystical life for the love of lover and hus- 
band ; in the childless arms and the childless heart it places 
humanity in its greatest need of soul and body; it gives the 
warmth of family life and the security of home. 

The rule, which in some cases, one might grumble against 
as antiquated and tyrannical, is, one must confess, justified of 
its results. Without the rule would it be possible for so many 
women of varying temperaments and tempers and tastes and 
inciinati6ns to live together in the harmony which prevails 
under the convent roof ? I claim no immunity for the nun 
from the common human failings. She would not claim such 
immunity herself. " We didn't leave our hearts behind us 
when we became nuns," is often heard from the lips of a nun, 
who is not ready to accept the somewhat dreary isolation 
from human griefs and joys which the fervid idealist might be 
disposed to bestow upon her. In the convent there are di- 



i9i i.] THE ESCAPED NUN 613 

vergences as well as elsewhere. There are attachments ; there 
are what might be dislikes if they were not held in check by 
the rule and by the high, supernatural ideals which are always 
in the forefront of a nun's thoughts. I have said in my haste, 
when I was younger than I am to-day, that there was need 
for a congregation of women to do good works where there 
would be freedom of coming and going, where the members 
would keep in touch with the world, with books and music 
and art and science and what not. With a fuller knowledge 
I believe that such a congregation would not be possible, 
would not exist for long. It is the rule, the incessant busi- 
ness, as well as the supernatural virtues, that keep the con- 
vents going. The hours packed to overflowing with occupa- 
tion of one kind or another, the soul has not time to get into 
mischief. Satan finds no idle hands for which to provide 
mischief in the convent. 

As a convent school pupil, acquainted with nuns from my 
earliest infancy, accustomed to a tender intimacy with nuns in 
my earlier and later womanhood, I bear testimony that as a 
whole the nuns have satisfied my highest ideals of conduct. 
My years under a convent roof have left me with an exquisite 
feeling of the poetic atmosphere which is about the nun like 
a subdued sunlight. The odor of conventual sanctity is indeed 
fragrant in my nostrils. I speak of the Irish converts which 
I know best, and I strive to recall my childish impressions of 
the convent school. Mine happened to be a very old-fashioned 
school and a very old-fashioned convent. It had been estab- 
lished during the penal days when a priest's head had the 
same value as a wolf's, when the adherents of the Old Religion 
sheltered themselves behind high walls, practiced the rites of 
their religion in secret, and had only the honor and honesty 
of their Protestant neighbors to trust to that they should not 
be despoiled of all they possessed. No Catholic could own a 
horse of the value of more than 5. A son conforming to 
the established religion could take all, leaving his father beg- 
gared. Everything a Catholic had was liable to confiscation; 
and the estates of many Irish Catholics were only saved to 
them by the honorable friendship of their Protestant neigh- 
bors who held for them the property they had forfeited by 
their adherence to their religion. Schoolmasters were in as 
evil case as the priests; and nuns were also under a ban. 



6 14 THE ESCAPED NUN [Aug., 

The shadow of those penal days yet hung heavily over my 
old convent. It secluded itself between high walls and had 
an air as though it lived by stealth. It was originally the 
house of some Irish nobleman or gentleman, a great house 
of four stories, with wings at either end. There was a sunk 
floor in which were acres of kitchens and pantries and scul- 
leries. It was quite a good walk from the school-house in 
one wing to the chapel in the other, and we used to take it 
two by two, our heads covered with black veils like so many 
little senoritas. Midmost of the two wings was the convent, 
which was strictly enclosed. There were high screened doors 
of glass and iron work beyond which lay long sunny corri- 
dors that had the most extraordinary fascination for my child- 
ish imagination. My memory of the place is as of some- 
thing sunny, bright, clean, so clean that the strongest sun 
showed no mote in the atmosphere. There was a garden at 
the back in which we played our games and took our con- 
stitutionals, a dreary garden of vegetables and a few forbidden 
fruit trees, with the nuns' cemetery in the heart of it. Out- 
side those walls lay the world. We used to hear the bells of 
St. Magdalene's Church chime on Sundays; and at one point 
the high wall lay between us and a public thoroughfare, where 
we could hear the feet of the unseen passers-by and dream 
our dreams of what lay over the wall. 

The nuns' garden was a much more cheerful place. It lay 
in front of the house, a thick hedge enclosing it instead of 
the forbidding stone walls. It was a place of grassy spaces, 
with flower-beds cut in the grass and gnarled fruit trees every- 
where amongst the flowers. On high feast-days we were 
allowed there for the afternoon recreation with the nuns. It 
was a place of winding walks and arbors and shrines set in 
every tree. The convent garden is always a place of conceits. 
I can remember the nuns there in their recreation hours, the 
novices chattering and laughing with a light-hearted gaiety 
that was like a grove of starlings in summer. The novices 
would crowd round the older nuns, especially the Reverend 
Mother and the Mistress of Novices. We used to hear the 
same sound of chatter and laughter coming through the com- 
munity room windows in the winter afternoons. There is 
something peculiarly child-like about the gaiety of nuns. 

There was a dog belonging to one of the lay-sisters who 



i9i i.] THE ESCAPED NUN 615 

was a sort of complete workman in herself. She was gardener 
and carpenter and hen-wife and dairy-woman and swine-herd 
and many other things a privileged person ; and no one ques- 
tioned her right to keep a dog, which went in and out among 
the nuns at recreation hour and had much notice and petting. 

Also there were many robins in the garden, and they had 
become wonderfully tame. It used to be a pretty sight to see 
the robins perch on the nuns' shoulders and heads and take 
crumbs from their tongues. It seems to me looking back that 
the robins gave delightful testimony to the innocence and 
harmlessness of the nuns. 

My convent belonged to one of the oldest orders of the 
Church and had a very austere rule. The nuns never partook 
of meat in any shape or form. From Holy Cross, the I4th 
of September, till Easter, they had only one full meal a day 
with a collation. They rose at 4:30 A. M. all the year round 
and retired to bed at 9 P. M. At 9:30 the bell rang profound 
silence, which could only be broken in case of great necessity. 
"Praise be to Jesus!" the nuns would say the last thing at 
night; and from that onward the silence was unbroken till the 
Sister, whose duty it was to call the others, offered them her 
finger tips which had been dipped in the holy water font, say- 
ing again : " Praise be to Jesus ! " 

These nuns belonged to one of the contemplative orders, 
for which some people who consider themselves broad-minded 
in admiring the active orders, have small toleration. They 
were of the few orders of women on whom it is incumbent to 
sing the Divine Office every day. This singing of the Divine 
Office, if I remember rightly, occupied seven hours of the day, 
and a goodly portion of it was accomplished before the bell 
called the children for Mass. The Divine Office and the school 
occupied the nuns' time pretty well ; there were artists and 
poets among them; musicians, embroiderers, illuminators of 
fine manuscripts. Despite the hard asceticism of the rule, 
which kept poor Brother Ass, the Body, in a perpetual and, 
one would have said, painful subjugation, the nuns were as 
merry as children. 

As for their simplicity although the convent had its astute 
business women, wiser in their generation than the children 
of this world their simplicity often made irreverent little girls 
smile. I remember that they had a very ancient organ in the 



616 THE ESCAPED NUN [Aug., 

school oratory, which had painted upon it the god Pan. Since 
the shaggy goat god was not fit for convents and convent 
school girls one of the artist nuns had changed him to David, 
putting a crown on him and a royal red robe and disguising 
the feet. Yet quite obviously it was Pan, or Bacchus, or some 
other pagan deity ; or else it was David in most disedifying 
mood. And the school- children knew it. It was one of many 
simplicities which I could tell if this were not a serious article. 

Their childlikeness, side by side with the hard ascetic life, 
was strangely alluring. Their contemplative manner of life was 
such as even tolerant people and people of their own religicn 
denounce and decry. "What is the good of the Contempla- 
tive Orders?" they ask. "Surely they are out of date, only 
fit for the Middle Ages." A world which runs itself to death 
in the pursuit of folly and worse, has even dubbed the Con- 
templative Orders lazy and selfish. Well, to the nuns, it would 
seem a proposition beyond doubt, that in praying for those 
who would never pray for themselves, in constantly praising 
and worshipping God, whom the world insults and defies with 
every instant that passes, in mortifying and denying innocent 
bodies, because all the world over other bodies are committing 
sin every day; that in this life of prayer and penance offered 
for others they are really filling an important part in God's 
scheme of the regeneration of the world. 

It takes all sorts to make up the world, spiritual and other- 
wise. Side by side with the women who pray and meditate 
are those whose ministrations are to the body and to the soul 
through the medium of the body. Who shall dare to say 
which is the more meritorious ? To me, if I were not a Chris- 
tian and a Catholic, the thought of the Contemplative Orders 
would be like the thought of water-wells in the desert. When 
one thinks of the mass of sinning and suffering humanity, of 
the suffering of the lower creation, of the things that every 
day and every night put out the stars and moon and "make 
a goblin of the sun," it is good to turn and look upon the 
cool, green places of the world from which atonement and in- 
ercession arise through the hours of the day and night, as 
though the world swung a censer before the Throne of God. 
It is the Deare Secret Greennesse of George Herbert, the quietness 
upon the thought of which the soul may brood and find peace. 

My first and most intimate knowledge is, therefore, ci a 



i9i i.] THE ESCAPED NUN 617 

convent of contemplative nuns. But since then I have known 
many nuns of the active orders. I have known Sisters of 
Caarity who nurse the sick in hospitals and their own homes; 
who nurse the dying a tender charity this, when it is remem- 
bered amid what circumstances the people of the slums must 
die; who shelter the blind and train them to a high degree 
of efficiency despite their sad disadvantages; who do the like 
for the deaf and dumb ; who are ready to go out on the bat- 
tlefields or into the midst of plague and pestilence to nurse 
the sick bodies in which they see the members of Christ; who 
shelter orphans and visit jails and workhouses; who reclaim 
sinners. 

I have known Sisters of Mercy whose ministrations also 
are to the sick and maimed in body and soul. 

I have known the Little Sisters of the Poor, who take 
care of the old, worsted in the battle of life. The Little Sis- 
ters go on their questing often far afield. They know what it 
is to meet with rudeness and refusal. Unless some good soul 
gives them a cup of tea and some bread and butter, they fast 
all day, for their dependence is on charity, although they will 
not ask for themselves. To feed them has its own sweet re- 
ward. It is as though one were feeding the little children of 
God. Theirs is a life of austerities, which I have had the pre 
sumption to think too great. This order, founded by a poor, 
lowly Frenchwoman, has attracted to itself in many cases ladies 
of birth and rank. The Little Sisters and their charges live 
on almsgiving. They are true Franciscans, for they have noth- 
ing of their own. The broken food from hotels and restau- 
rants, the things left from private tables, the rubbish that in 
many cases might go to the dust-heap are their provision. 
The Little Sisters eat what is too coarse or stale for their old 
charges. They find a use for the most unlikely things. I con- 
fess I shuddered, on a certain visit paid to the Little Sisters 
many a year ago, at seeing an exquisite face, tellirg of birth 
and breeding, bent above a bed which had seen much service 
and showed it very unpleasantly. The delicate long fingers 
were engaged in uncovering this with a view to re-making and 
covering it; and there was something in the expression of the 
face which said that many austerities would be preferable to this. 

I have also known nuns who instructed the peasant girl 
in the arts of lace-making and embroidering, who taught them 



618 THE ESCAPED NUN [Aug., 

to weave and spin and make tweeds and carpets and blankets 
and woolen stuffs. 

I have known all the varieties of teaching nuns, from those 
I had almost said from her who in a short score of years 
have put the education of Irish Catholic girls on a level with 
others who had a long start of them, to those who teach the 
children of the poor, with the many grades in between ; and 
I am bound to say that in all cases the work has been per- 
formed with a selfless devotion beyond praise. I have known 
many of the convents of the active orders with their busy 
beneficences; I have known many of the contemplative or- 
ders; and I can only say that active or passive their lives 
were faultless in the sight of men. I have heard minor 
grumbles against them; that they think all the world ought 
to work for nothing as they do themselves in the service of 
God and incidentally of the convent; that they disturb the 
balance of things economic, bringing labor ill-paid-for and un- 
paid-for into competition with the work of those who must 
earn a living wage for themselves and their families; that 
they educate girls above their station and give them a false 
standard of refinement ; that they spend too much time in 
prayer. 

All these things are beside the purpose. Possibly or prob- 
ably they are all or some of them true. The matter vital to 
my argument is that in all my experience of convents, cover- 
ing some thirty years or more, I have never heard a word of 
scandal whispered concerning a nun. No one will deny the 
nuns their foibles, they would hardly desire that; but the image 
of the nun to those who know her best is always snow-white! 
snow-white! and one's thought of a nun is always a thought 
of the Madonna. 

In the country I know best, the convents are usually re- 
cruited from quite young girls. It is one of the arguments 
against them that girls go into convents without knowing 
their own minds. Very often they go in from the convent 
school. Sometimes a girl will come home; and laugh and 
dance and have her fun through a year or two; then she will 
slip away to the convent. They are the merriest girls who 
become nuns. One hears now and again of a girl dancing all 
night at a ball, coming home in the small hours and taking 
off the finery with a laugh and a sigh; then slipping away 



i.] THE ESCAPED NUN 619 

during the morning hours to a convent and putting on the 
black gown and veil of the postulant. The irresistible call is 
often answered with pangs. It is not a thing one does lightly; 
and I have seen a girl at a merry picnic turn suddenly white 
on receiving a letter which summoned her to the convent 
earlier than she had expected to go. But they go willingly; 
there is no doubt at all that they go willingly ; and the great 
renunciation being over, you will find on visiting the convent 
the girl who was the life and soul of her home and the fes- 
tivities she joined in, transformed into a still merry, demure, 
little nun, whose jests delight the community room and the 
recreation hour as late they did another audience. 

All convents desire young postulants. It is not disap- 
pointed, disillusioned women, who have grown rooted in their 
own habits and their own ways, that make the best subjects 
for the convent rule. Rather is the older postulant one to be 
received with anxiety, at least ; and, though the genuine vo- 
cation may and does come to women over thirty, it is they 
who in many cases leave the convent later, who if they per- 
severe suffer the most in the necessity of submitting their own 
will in all things to another's. 

The Irish mother giving up her young daughter to a con- 
vent will say, between a smile and a sigh : " Ah well, sure 
she's safe anyhow; safer than those who get married." I 
have often heard an Irish mother say that she would rather 
see her daughter in a convent than married, a saying which 
has a special strangeness in a country where the married 
estate and the bringing of children into the world are held in 
peculiar honor. 

But, to be sure, the mother is right. Life has many 
chances and changes. The innocent child fresh from the 
convent school is often among the farming and shop-keep- 
ing classes in strange contrast to the youths among whom 
she may look to marry. The convent schools make ladies of 
their girls, as the monastery schools do not make gentlemen 
of their boys. Perhaps the monasteries, where no woman 
comes, lack the exterior purity and refinement of the convents, 
which those children from the farm-houses and shop- parlors take 
on as to the manner born. Many a convent school-girl finds 
her dream and her ideal in the bare, light, convent rooms, 
amid fields and flowers, where never a rough word is spoken 



620 



THE ESCAPED NUN 



[Aug. 



nor a voice raised, where all is gentleness, peace, purity and 
an almost over-refinement, rather than in marriage with a man 
of her own class. What the nuns teach her she is not able to 
put off; and the call of the convent follows and finds her at 
the hearth or at the dance. 

I have tried in this somewhat discursive article to bear tes- 
timony to the convents and the nuns, whom the Escaped Nun 
defiles in her platform appearances up and down England. It 
seems to me somewhat of an infamy that such things should 
be permitted; and an anomaly that the Englishman, whose 
daughters and sisters, just a little dearer, a little more sacred 
than those who have remained in the world, a little more 
surely his should remain silent while;they and their convents 
are dishonored and defamed by foulness. Those convents, 
where: 

"The Brides of Christ 

Lie hid, emparadised," 

are dragged in the foulest dirt of the sewers up and down 
England; and it seems no one's part to interfere. 

Let me bear one woman's testimony to the convent's purity 
and to its beneficent purpose. If there were more convents 
there would be less of the strange manifestations of the 
natural woman that we find in our literature, on our stage, in 
our law-courts. The convents do not breed suicide or mad- 
ness or shame. To the convents before all the colleges, all 
the high schools, I would commit the training and the shaping 
of our girl-children. 




THE MIDDLE AGES. 

BY HILAIRE BELLOC. 

SAID in my Jast that the Dark Ages might be 
compared to a long sleep of Europe: a sleep 
lasting from the fatigue of the old society in 
the fifth century to the spring and rising of the 
eleventh and twelfth. The metaphor is far too 
simple, of course, for that sleep was a sleep of war : and in 
all those centuries Europe was holding its own desperately 
against the attack of all that desired to destroy it; refined 
and ardent Islam from the South, letterless barbarians from 
the East and North. At any rate from that sleep or that be- 
seiging Europe awoke and was relieved. 

I said that three great forces, humanly speaking, worked 
this miracle ; the personality of St. Gregory the Seventh ; the 
brief appearance, by a happy accident of cross breeding, of 
the Norman race ; and finally the Crusades. 

The Normans of history, the true Normans we know are 
stirring a generation after the year 1,000. St. Gregory filled 
that same generation. He was a young man when the Nor- 
man effort began, and died full of an enormous achievement 
in 1085. So much as one man could, he had re-made Europe. 
Immediately after his death there was heard the march of the 
Crusades. From these three the vigor of a renewed Europe 
proceeds. 

Much might be added were time or space, as I could wish, 
available to me. The perpetual and successful chivalric charge 
against the Mohammedan in Spain illumined all that time and 
clarified it. Asia was pushed back from the Pyrenees and 
through the passes of the Pyrenees perpetually cavalcaded the 
high adventurers of Christendom: the Basques strange and 
small people were the pivot of that reconquest but the valley 
of the torrent of Aragon its channel. The life of St. Gregory 
is contemporaneous with that of the El Cid Campeador. In 
the same year that St. Gregory died, Toledo, the sacred centre 
of Spain, was forced from the Mohammedans and held. All 
Southern Europe was alive with the sword. 



622 THE MIDDLE AGES [Aug., 

In that same moment romance appeared ; the great songs, 
the greatest of them all, the Song of Roland ; then was a 
ferment of the European mind, eager from its long repose, 
piercing into the undiscovered fields. That scepticism which 
flanks and follows the march of the Faith when the Faith 
is most vigorous had begun to speak. 

There was a youthful expansion beyond the boundaries 
eastward so that something of the unfruitful Baltic Plain was 
reclaimed, and in general, the moment was one of expectation 
and of advance. 

But, for the purposes of these few lines I must confine the 
attention of the reader to those three tangible sources of the 
new Europe which, I have said, were the Normans, St. Greg- 
ory the Seventh and the Crusades. 

Of the Norman race we may say that it resembled in his- 
tory those mires or New Stars which flare out upon the dark- 
ness of the night sky for some few hours or weeks or years 
and then are lost or merged in the infinity of things. He is 
indeed unhistorical who would pretend William the Conqueror, 
the organizer and maker of what we now call England, Robert 
the Wizard, the conquerors of Sicily, or any of the great 
names that light Europe in the eleventh, and twelfth centuries, 
to be Scandinavians. They were Gauls. Short in stature, 
lucid in design, vigorous in stroke, positive in philosophy. 
They bore, apparently, no relation to the soft and tall and 
sentimental North from which they drew their name. 

But on the other hand anyone who should pretend that 
this amazing and ephemeral phenomenon, the Norman, was 
merely Gallo-Roman would commit an error less gross but 
not less false on account of its subtlety. In speech, in man* 
ner, in accoutrement, in the very trick of riding the horse, in 
the cooking of food, in that most intimate part of man, his 
jests, the Norman was. wholly and apparently a Gaul. But 
no other part of Gaul did what Normandy did, nor did any 
other province show as Normandy showed, immediate, organ- 
ized and creative power, during the few years that the marvel 
lasted. 

That marvel is capable of explanation and I will attempt 
to explain it. Those dull blundering and murderous ravagings 
of the coasts of Christian Europe by the pirates of Scandi- 
navia (few in number, futile in achievement) which we call in 



19".] TffE MIDDLE AGES 623 

English history, "The Danish Invasions" were called upon 
the opposite coast of the Channel " The Invasions of the Noid- 
raanni": "The Men of the North." They came from the 
Baltic and from Norway. They were part of the universal 
struggle which the Dark Ages of Christendom had to main- 
tain against a ceaseless pressure from without; and they were 
but a part of it. It was on the estuaries of a few rivers and 
throughout the British Isles they counted most in the lives 
of Europeans. 

Now among the estuaries of the great rivers was the estu- 
ary of the Seine. The Scandinavian pirates forced it again 
and again. At the end of the ninth century they had besieged 
Paris which was then rapidly becoming the political centre of 
Gaul. 

So much was left of the Roman tradition in that last 
stronghold of the Roman Empire that the quieting of invading 
hordes by their settlement, inter-marriage with and granting 
of land in a fixed Roman province was a policy open to those 
who still called themselves " The Emperors of the West." 

In the year 911 this antique method consecrated by cen- 
turies of tradition produced its last example and the barbar- 
ian troublers were given a fixed limit of land wherein they 
might settle. The maritime Province " Lugdunensis Secunda"* 
was handed over to them for settlement, that is, they might 
not attempt a partition of the land outside its boundaries. 

On the analogy of all similar experiments we can be fairly 
certain of what happened, though there is no contemporary 
record of such domestic details in this last example. The 
barbarians, few in number, coming into a fertile and thickly 
populated Roman Province occupied waste land, planted them- 
sevles as heirs of existing lords, took to wife the daughters of 
these ; in some few cases they may have forcibly dispossessed, 
by the aid of the cleric and under some legal plea, the orig- 
inal owners. 

For the mass of the population the new arrangement 
would make no change; they were no longer slaves but they 
were still serfs. Secure of their small farms but still bound 
to work for their lord, it mattered little to them whether that 
lord of theirs had married his daughter to a pirate or had 

* The delimitation of this province dated from Diocletian. It was already 600 years old , 
and won later its name of " Normandy " 1600. 



624 THE MIDDLE AGES [Aug., 

made a pirate his heir or his partner in the management of 
the estate. All that he would notice from the settlement was 
that the harrying and the plundering of occasional barbarian 
raids had ceased. 

In the governing class of perhaps some twenty or thirty 
thousand families the difference would be very noticeable 
indeed. The pirate newcomers though insignificant in number 
compared with the total population were a very large fraction 
added to so small a body. The additional blood permeated of 
course rapidly throughout the whole community (caste feeling 
in such matters is a modern perversion so far as Europe is 
concerned), but Scandinavian names and Scandinavian rituals 
had no little effect upon the owner- class with which the Scan- 
dinavians first mingled, and, as had been the case centuries 
before in the earlier experiments of the sort, it was their chief 
and his hereditary descendants who took over the local gov- 
ernment and "held it" as the phrase went of the universal 
government of Gaul. 

These "North-men," the new and striking addition to the 
province, the Gallo- Romans called "Normanni." The province 
into which they had come, the Second Lyonnese became "Nor- 
mannia." For a century the slight admixture of new blood 
(numerically certainly not a twentieth of the whole) worked in 
the general Gallo-Roman mass of the province and transformed 
its character, just as in certain chemical combinations the small 
admixture of a new element transforms the whole; with the 
beginning of the eleventh century, just as everything was 
springing into new life, when the great saint who was to re- 
form the Church was already born, when the advance of the 
Pyreneans against Islam was beginning to strike its conquering 
blows, there appeared, a sudden phenomenon, this new thing; 
French in speech and habit and disposition of body, yet just 
differentiated from the rest of Gaul by Scandinavian admix- 
ture, the Norman race. 

It possessed these characteristics a great love of exact 
order, an alert military temper and a passion for reality which 
made its building even of ships (though it was not seafaring) 
excellent and of churches and of castles the most solid ol its 
time. All the Normans' characteristics (once the race was 
formed), led them to advance. They conquered England and 
organized it; they conquered and organized Sicily and South- 



1 9i i.] THE MIDDLE AGES 625 

ern Italy ; they made of Normandy the model state in a con- 
fused time ; they surveyed land ; they developed a regular 
tactic for mailed cavalry. Yet they endured for but a hun- 
dred years, and after that brief coruscation they are wholly 
merged again in the mass of European things. 

You may take the first adventurous lords of the Cotentin 
in, say, 1030 for the beginning of the thing; you may take 
the Court of Young Henry the Second with his southerners 
and his high culture in say 1160 most certainly for the burial 
of it. During that space of time the Norman had not only 
reintroducd exactitude in the government of men, he had also 
provided the sword of the new Papacy and he had furnished 
the framework of the Crusading host. Before his adventure 
was done the French language and the writ of Rome ran from 
the Grampians to the Euphrates. 

Of the Papacy and the Crusades I now speak. 

St. Gregory VII. the second of the great re-creative forces 
of that time was of the Tuscan peasantry, Etrurian in type, 
therefore, already Italian in speech, by name Hildebrand. 
Whether an historian understands his career or no is a very 
test of whether that historian understands the nature of Eu- 
rope. For St. Gregory VII. imposed nothing upon Europe. 
He made nothing new. What he did was to stiffen the ideal 
with reality. 

For instance; it was the ideal, the practice, the tradition, 
the major custom by far, that the clergy should be celibate. 
He enforced celibacy as universal discipline. 

The awful majesty of the Papacy had been present in all 
men's minds as a vast political conception for centuries too 
long to recall ; St. Gregory organized that monarchy and gave 
it its proper instruments of rule. 

The Unity of the Church had been the constant image 
without which Christendom could not be; St. Gregory VII. 
at every point made that unity tangible and visible. The 
Protestant historians who, for the most part, see in the man 
a sporadic phenomenon, by such a misconception betray the 
source of their anaemia and prove their intellectual nourish- 
ment to be unfed from the fountains of European life. St. 
Gregory VII. was not an inventor but a renovator. He worked 
not upon, but in, his material, and his material was the nature 
of Europe. 

VOL. XCHI. 40 



626 THE MIDDLE AGES [Aug., 

Of the enormous struggles with which such workmen meet 
all history speaks. They are at conflict with inertia and 
with local interests and with short views and with restricted 
mental landscapes. Always they think themselves defeated as 
did St. Gregory when he died. Always they prove themselves 
before posterity to have done much more than any other mould 
of man. Napoleon also was of this kind. 

When St. Gregory was dead the Europe which he left was 
the monument of that triumph whose completion he had 
doubted and the fear of whose failure had put upon his dying 
lips the famous phrase, "I have loved justice and hated in- 
iquity, therefore I die an exile." 

Immediately after his death came the stupendous Gallic 
effort of the Crusades. 

The Crusades were the second of the secular irruptions of 
the Gauls. The first, centuries before, was the Gallic invasion 
of Italy and Greece and the Mediterranean shores of the old 
Pagan time. The third, centuries later, was to be the wave of 
the Revolution and of Napoleon. 

The preface to the Crusades were those endless and al- 
ready successful wars of Christendom against Asia upon the 
high plateaus of Spain. These had taught the enthusiasm and 
the method by which Asia, for so long at high tide flooding a 
beleagured Europe, might be slowly repelled, and from these 
proceeded the military science and the aptitude for strain 
which made the advance of 2,000 miles upon the Holy Land 
possible. The consequences of this last and third factor in 
the re-awakening of Europe were so many and so fundamen- 
tal that I can give but a list of them here. 

The West, still primitive, discovered the intensive culture, 
the accumulated wealth, the fixed civilized traditions of the 
Greek empire and of the town of Constantinople. It discov- 
ered also, in a vivid new experience, the East. The mere cov- 
ering of so much land, the mere seeing of so many sights by 
a million men expanded and broke the walls of the mind of 
the dark ages. 

The Mediterranean came to be covered with Christian ships 
and took its place again with fertile rapidity as the great 
highway of exchange. 

Europe awoke. All architecture is transformed, and, that 
quite new thing, the Gothic, arises. The conception of repre- 



i9i i.] THE MIDDLE AGES 627 

sentative government, monastic in origin, fruitfully transferred 
to civilian soil, appears in the institutions of Christendom. 
The vernacular languages appear, and with them the begin- 
nings of our literature. The Tuscan, the Castilian, the Langue 
D'Oc, the Northern French, somewhat later the English. Even 
the primitive tongues that had always had vitality, the Celtic 
and the German, begin to take on new creative powers and 
to produce a new literature. That fundamental institution of 
Europe, the University, arises, first in Italy, immediately after 
in Paris, which becomes the type and centre of the scheme. 

The central civil governments begin to correspond to their 
natural limits, the English monarchy is fixed, the French king- 
dom is coalescing, the Spanish regions will soon combine, and 
the Middle Ages are born. 

The flower of that capital experiment in the history of our 
race was the thirteenth century. Edward I., Alphonso of Cas- 
tile, St. Louis of France, Innocent III., were the types of its 
governing manhood. Everywhere Europe was renewed, there 
were new white walls round the cities, new white Gothic 
churches in the towns, new castles on the hills, law codified, 
the classics rediscovered, the questionings of philosophy sprung 
to activity and producing in their first vigor, as it were, the 
summit of expository power in St. Thomas; surely the high- 
est and most virile intellect which our blood has given to the 
world. 

Two notes mark the time for any one who is acquainted 
with its building, its letters, and its wars: a note of youth 
and a note of content. Europe was imagined to be at last 
achieved, and that ineradicable dream of a permanent and sat- 
isfactory society seemed to have taken on flesh and to have 
come to live for ever among Christian men. 

No such permanence and no such good is permitted to 
humanity, and the great experiment, as I have called it, was 
destined to fail. 

While it still flourished, all that is specially characteristic 
of our European descent and nature stood visibly present in 
the daily life, and in the large as in the small institutions of 
Europe. 

Our property in land and instruments was well divided 
among many or all; we had produced the peasant; we main- 
tained the independent craftsman; we founded co-operative 



628 THE MIDDLE AGES [Aug., 

industry. In arms that military type arose which lives upon 
the virtues proper to arms and detests the vices arms may 
breed. In general, an intense and living appetite for truth, a 
perception of reality, invigorated those generations. They saw 
what was before them; they called things by their names; 
never was political or social formula less divorced from fact, 
never was the mass of our civilization better welded and in 
spite of all this the thing did not endure. 

By the middle of the fourteenth century the decaying of 
the flower was tragically apparent. New elements of cruelty 
tolerated, of mere intrigue successful, of emptiness in philo- 
sophical phrase and of sophistry in philosophical argument 
marked the turn of the tide. Not an institution of the thir- 
teenth century but the fourteenth debased it; the Papacy 
professional and a prisoner, the parliaments tending to oli- 
garchy, the popular ideals dimmed in the minds of the rulers, 
the new and vigorous and democratic monastic orders already 
touched with mere wealth and beginning also to change but 
these last can always and do always restore themselves. 

Upon all this came the enormous accident of the Black 
Death. Here half the people, there a third, there again a 
quarter died; from that additional blow the great experiment 
of the Middle Ages could not recover. 

Men clung to their ideal for yet another hundred and fifty 
years. The vital forces it had developed carried Europe from 
one material perfection to another; the art of government, 
the sphere of letters, the technique of sculpture and of paint- 
ing, here raised by a better vision, there degraded by a worse 
one, everywhere developed and grew manifold. But the su- 
preme achievement of the thirteenth century was seen to be 
ephemeral, and in the fifteenth it was apparent that the at* 
tempt to found a satisfied and simple Europe had failed. 

The full causes of that failure cannot be analysed. One 
may say that science and history were too slight; that the 
material] side of life was insufficient; that the full knowledge 
of the past which is necessary to permanence was lacking, or 
one may say that the ideal was too high for men. I should 
personally incline to believe that wills other than those of 
mortals were in combat for the soul of Europe, as they are 
in combat for the souls of individual men, and that in this 
spiritual battle fought over our heads perpetually, some acci- 



19".] THE MIDDLE AGES 629 

dent of the struggle had turned it against us for a time. If 
that suggestion be fantastic (which no doubt it is) at any 
rate none other is valid. 

With the end of the fifteenth century there was to come a 
supreme test and temptation. To the provinces of Europe, 
shaken by an intellectual tempest of physical discovery, dis- 
turbed by an abrupt and undigested enlargement in the ma- 
terial world, in physical science and in the knowledge of an- 
tiquity, as to be offered, a fruit of which each might taste 
if it would, but the taste of which would lead, if it were 
acquired, to evils no citizen of Europe then dreamt of; to 
things which even the criminal intrigues and the cruel tyrants 
of the fifteenth century would have shuddered to contemplate 
and to a disaster which very nearly overset our ship of his- 
tory and very nearly lost us forever its cargo of letters, of 
philosophy and of all our other powers. 

That disaster is commonly called "The Reformation. 19 I 
will deal with it in my next paper. I shall not there pretend 
to analyse its material causes, for I doubt if those causes were 
material in even a determining fraction. I shall rather describe 
the event; I shall show how the ancient and civilized bound- 
aries of Europe stood firm under the storm ; how that storm 
might have ravaged no more than those outlying parts newly 
incorporated never sufficiently penetrated perhaps with the 
Faith and the proper habits of ordered men the outer Ger- 
manies and Scandinavia. I shall point out that this disaster 
would have been upon a scale not too considerable and that 
Europe might quickly have righted herself after the gust had 
passed, had not one exception of capital moment marked the 
intensest crisis of the storm, to wit: the defection of Britain. 
I shall ask the reader to remark that, conversely to this loss 
of an ancient province of the Empire, one district and one 
alone, which the Empire had not known, stood the strain and 
preserved the continuity of Christian tradition: that district 
was Ireland. 

In later papers I shall attempt to show what consequences 
certainly followed from an evil the full harvest of which we 
have not yet wholly reaped, and which, though now it is 
working to its end, has tainted and embittered the true life 
of Europe for now four hundred years. 



CARMELO'S MIDNIGHT MASS. 

BY CHARLOTTE MORTON. 

Devotees say : 

To this day 

Father Junipero Serra, 

Comes from his grave 

Where grasses wave 

Entwined with sweet madeira. 

Once each year 

Does he appear 

A midnight Mass to say 

To Carlos, the saint, 

Of the mission quaint 

In the hills of Monterey. 

The mustard stalks 

Part as he walks 

With spirit congregation 

A spectre bright 

With soul alight 

In heavenly contemplation. 

Slowly they pass 
The dark- haired lass, 
Grandame and grandsire hoary, 
Father, mother, 
Sister, brother- 
Bathed in spectral glory. 

Softly and light 

Treads the neophyte 

His voice to stars ascending ; 




i9i i.] CARMELO'S MIDNIGHT MASS 631 

Inspired by stories 

Of the glories 

The padre's faith is lending. 

Flambeaux burn 

At every turn, 

And there are censers swinging 

Among the file 

That down the aisle 

I/atin chants are singing. 

Faith sublime 

On songs divine 

I/ifts to stars unending, 

Soon to end 

As starlight bends 

To a day ascending. 

Softly tells 

The sacring bell ; 

Ite missa est is spoken, 

For sere and gray 

Has dawned the day 

And rank and file are broken. 

I/ying down 

In the ground, 

Junipero soon is sleeping ; 

Upon his grave 

Wild tar-weeds wave 

A lonely vigil keeping. 

The Mass is sung, 

And night is done 

The owls hide in the shadow 

Of the ground 

That Serra found 

Hard by the Bay Carmelo. 




SIR CALIDORE 

A PAPER FOR GIRLS. 
BY EMILY HICKEY. 

JIR CALIDORE was one of the Knights of Faery- 
land ; Faeryland, which was ruled over by a 
Queen " of excellent beauty," " a most royal 
Queen or Empress," as well as a " most virtu- 
ous and beautiful lady," even the great Gloriana. 
In Gloriana, Spenser shows us that Glory will one day be the 
reward of work faithfully done and suffering bravely borne. 
The story of the knights of Faeryland is told in one of the 
most beautiful of the longer English poems, The Faery Queened 
In a letter written to his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser 
tells us what his intention was in writing this poem. It was 
11 to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gen- 
tle discipline." Spenser felt that the end of Poetry, as another 
friend of his, Sir Philip Sidney, had said, was " to teach and 
delight," and so he chose a form which he believed would 
teach his hearers as well as delight them, and wrote in most 
beautiful verse an allegory which had as its outside subject 
the History of Arthur, the great British hero, about whom, 
as he tells us, so many had written, and of whom, as you 
know, a great modern poet, Tennyson, has had so much to 
say. In Arthur, Spenser portrays the perfect knight, the one 
in whom all the virtues are found in their perfection, the vir- 
tues which together make Virtue or Goodness itself, called by 
Spenser Magnificence. 

"For the more variety of the history," Spenser intended 
to show us twelve knights, each an exemplification of one of 
the "twelve moral virtues" included in Virtue, or Magnifi- 

* For my purpose it seemed unnecessary to notice the fact that The Faery Queene is a 
double allegory, in which various historical persons and historical incidents are dealt with, 
This historical side is not so prominent in the Sixth Book, the Legend of Courtesy, as in 
some of the others. I have not thought it necessary to touch on Spenser's having seen, in 
Gloriana, not merely Glory, but the highly idealized Queen of England. 



.] S/ff CALIDORE 633 

cence itself, and the poem, when complete, was to consist of 
twelve Books, each Book containing the adventures of one of 
the Knights. Every one of these knights was bound to the 
Queen to fulfill perfectly his own particular quest, letting noth- 
ing turn him back, but going on faithfully to the end. But 
the poem was never finished, and we possess only six Books 
of it. These contain the adventures of (i) "The Knight of 
Holiness/ 1 (2) "The Knight of Temperance/' (3) "The Knight 
of Chastity/' (4) "The Knights of Friendship," (5) "The 
Knight of Justice," and (6) " The Knight of Courtesy," of 
whose adventures I am now going to speak. 

Where is Faeryland? It is a country that we know well, 
and yet we cannot define its limits or fix its boundaries; for 
it has no locality, and no special name, but is shown to us by 
the great " shaping spirit of Imagination," a spirit who can 
indeed show us its lofty hills and pleasant valleys, its deep 
and strong rivers, its stately trees, its fair flowers, and the 
tender green of its pastures. In this land also, there may be 
found great jagged rocks, and barren places, and desolation 
that has never known the smile of the tempered sunshine. 

Imagination, the Shaper, can people this land with many 
folk, and show us how some of them have set themselves on 
the side of right and justice; and some, too, who are trying 
to put down right and destroy justice, and put bitter for 
sweet, and darkness for light, and evil for good. And yet we 
know that right is stronger than wrong, and bye-and-bye must 
triumph ; and we know that each person who puts himself or 
herself on the side of right is hastening on the day when that 
triumph shall be complete. For the Queen of that land is the 
glorious one, the very Glory itself, and she reigns by right 
divine, and that right none can overthrow. And one day, 
Virtue and Glory shall take hands forever, and neither Sin nor 
Death shall part them. This is what Spenser meant when he 
said that one day Arthur was to possess Gloriana. To us, as 
Catholics, the allegory has a still deeper meaning, a wider 
significance, than it could have had, or can have, to those un- 
happily deprived of the Catholic Faith. 

Let us now ask our teacher, our poet, Edmund Spenser, 
what he has to tell us about courtesy. We shall find that he 
has many things to say. 

Where does our poet place Courtesy ? Among " the moral 



634 /* CALIDORE [Aug., 

virtues." This means that he does not look upon it as merely 
a pleasant thing, something that is to be desired, but yet can 
be dispensed with ; but as a virtue necessary to form the 
character of the good man. Listen to what he says, in invok- 
ing the Muses : 

Amongst them all grows not a fairer flower 
Than is the blossom of comely courtesy; 
Which, though it on a lowly stalk do bower, 
Yet brancheth forth in brave nobility, 
And spreads itself through all civility.* 

But virtue's seat is deep within the mind, 

And not in outward shows, but inward thoughts defined. 

Inward thoughts. Spenser goes to the very root of the 
matter. True courtesy is indeed not merely in outward shows, 
but in inward thoughts. So it may be that some one who 
has what is called " no manner," and yet thinks of his or her 
fellows with all honor and kindness, may be really more cour- 
teous than one who is prominently "polite." But, as inward 
thoughts do reveal themselves in outward deeds, so, I think, 
it is not common to find a cold and repellent manner with a 
heart that is full of love. 

Spenser gives us the etymology of the word courtesy. 

Of Court, it seems, men Courtesy do call. 
For that it there most useth to abound; 
And well beseemeth that in Princes' hall 
That virtue should be plentifully found 
Which of all goodly manners is the ground, 
And root of civil conversation, (i. e. the intercourse 
of citizens). 

Those who are leaders, princes, that is, First, or Foremost, 
dwell at Court. Leaders of men are bound to be the ones 
most strongly to express, most strongly to show forth, all 
goodness, which is all beauty. In schools we notice, do we 
not, how to some of the girls belong pre-eminently the quali- 

* Civility here means civil life. 






i9i i.] S/tf CALIDORE 635 

ties of leadership; some naturally acquire that influence over 
their comrades which comes from the possession of these quali- 
ties, and hence they have, consciously or unconsciously, a 
great responsibility, for in the leaders " virtue should be plen- 
tifully found." 

The name of Calidore, the Knight of Courtesy, is signifi- 
cant; Calidore, the beautiful gift; indeed a beautiful gift for 
all. See what the Knight of Courtesy is ; a man full of gifts 
and graces. 

But mongst them all was none more courteous knight 

Than Calidore, beloved over-all. 

In whom, it seems, that gentleness of spright 

And manners mild were planted natural ; 

To which he adding comely guise withal 

And gracious speech, did steal men's hearts away; 

Natheless thereto he was full stout and tall, 

And well approved in battelous affray, 

That him did much renown, and far his fame display. 

Nor was there Knight, nor was there Lady found 
In Faery court, but him did dear embrace 
For his fair usage and conditions sound, 
The which in all men's liking gained place, 
And with the greatest purchased greatest grace; 
Which he could wisely use, and well apply, 
To please the best, and th' evil to embase; 
For he loathed leasing [lying] and base flattery, 
And loved simple truth and steadfast honesty. 

Calidore is comely to look on, and gracious in his speech ; 
he is strong and tall, and brave in battle. Eyes delight in 
"comely guise," and ears love "gracious speech"; but this is 
not enough; we need that the Knight should be "well ap- 
proved in battelous array." For the Knight of Courtesy is 
no "carpet knight"; he is as strong as he is comely and 
gracious. Power underlies his beauty; strength is at the heart 
of his grace. 

Like the other knights of Faeryland, Calidore has his 
special "quest ! " A special deed is to be done, which is to 



636 S/tf CALIDORE [Aug., 

crown his life with a special glory. To the Knight of Justice, 
Sir Artegal, he explains what that quest is: 

" The Blatant Beast," quoth he, " I do pursue, 
And through the world incessantly do chase, 
Till I him overtake, or else subdue 

It is a monster bred of hellish race." 

The monster had often injured, "good knights and 

ladies true." 

Of evil race and evil, birth. 
Into this wicked world he forth was sent 
To be the plague and scourge of wretched men, 
Whom with vile tongue and venemous intent, 
He sore doth wound, and bite, and cruelly torment. 

This Blatant Beast is so called from the terrible noise of 
his thousand tongues, all agreeing in spite and malice, with 
'which he bays and barks. In the Blatant Beast, Spencer per- 
sonifies the power of Infamy, Detraction or Scandal. Cali- 
dore is to tame this evil thing, as true courtesy can do. 
Courtesy that springs from the heart can give no place to 
detraction; the truly courteous man or woman cannot away 
with backbiting or slander; we may even say that true 
courtesy avoids that gossip which so often is the beginning of 
scandal, just as it also does what it can to shield people from 
harsh censure and misunderstanding, be it wilful or careless. 
For what, after all, is courtesy but another name for a mani- 
festation of that chanty for which all of us are bound to 
strive ? 

Calidore has many other adventures, in which he proves 
the power of courtesy ; but nothing stays him from the special 
work he has to do. His work is the taming of the Blatant 
Beast, and everything else that he does is, as it were, only 
taken on the way. When the Blatant Beast carries off the 
lady Serena, Calidore forces him to forgo his prey; but, 
though Serena is wounded, Calidore does not stay beside her. 
In her own knight she has one who will give her the help 
she needs, and the care; and there is fine courtesy in not 
taking away from another the opportunity of serving one 
whom he loves and who would best love to receive help and 
care from his hand. 



i9i i.] S/# CALIDORE 637 

I am necessarily obliged to pass over much that is of 
great interest, as I must go on to the injury inflicted on 
Arthur's Squire, Timias, by the tooth of the Blatant Beast. 
The brave Squire set upon the Beast, 

And charged him so fierce and furiously 

That his great force unable to endure, 

He forced was to turn from him and fly ; 

Yet ere he fled, he with his tooth impure 

Him heedless bit, the whiles he was thereof secure. 

That is, Timias was over confident, and off his guard. 
The power of Detraction may touch those who feel most safe 
from it. 

The beautiful Serena, by mischance separated from her 
knight, was brought by Arthur, along with his own Squire, 
Timias, to a little Hermitage, where there lived a holy Religious, 
who had once been a doughty knight, but now lived the life 
of a hermit, as free from care as a bird. The wounded ones 
were too weak and ill to move on, and so Arthur left them 
in the Hermit's care, while he went on his way. Let us see 
what Spenser says of the suffering inflicted by Infamy, the 
evil thing that has a poisonous, often a deadly bite: 

No wound which warlike hand of enemy 
Inflicts with dint of sword, so sore doth light 
As doth the poisonous sting which infamy 
Inflxeth in the name of noble wight, 

Such hurts are hellish pain. 

Such were the wounds the which that Blatant Beast 
Made in the bodies of that Squire and Dame ; 
And being such, were now much more increast 
For want of taking heed unto the same. 

When one's good name is touched, he suffers more than 
we can tell. When we repeat a story that tells against any 
one's character, repeat it unnecessarily, we are doing a mis- 
chief that we never can undo. And if the story is untrue, 
or even only exaggerated, we are committing a sin that is 



638 Six CALIDORE [Aug., 

very great. We may do all we can to contradict the tale, 
and to prevent it from spreading, but the spoken word can 
never, never be recalled. We cannot tell what influences we 
have set to work against our victim, for a victim indeed he is, 
nor what evil or deadly fruit the seed we have sown, per- 
haps in the merest thoughtlessness, may one day bear. 

Spenser means even more than this; he implies, as we 
shall see, that if people lay themselves open to scandal, they 
may suffer, even terribly, in the risk to their good name, as 
well as in the injury to their character. 

Though the Hermit duly dressed the rankling wounds of his 
two patients, and tended them with all the skill of the leech- 
craft in which he had learned to be an adept, he found that 
the festered wounds seemed past the help of surgery, 

And rather needed to be disciplined 

With wholesome rede of sad sobriety, 

To rule the stubborn rage of passion blind, 

Give salves to every sore, but counsel to the mind. 

You see here that Spenser, in his great earnestness, drops 
the veil of allegory, and tells us the truth out straight and 
plain. 

The Hermit took Timias and Serena apart, and showed 
them how they must work for their own healing, and set 
their own will to cure their malady. And what he tells them 
is, in brief, that they must practice self-control and avoid 
occasions of scandal. We remember the words of our Lord, 
" Woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh," (Matt. 18). I 
cannot dwell on the episode of Mirabella, the discourteous 
lady, who says, " To love myself I had learned in school/ 1 
showing how the root of discourtesy is the love of self, or, 
in other words, the deadly sin of pride. I must go on to 
Calidore, who is now to enter on a kind of life very different 
from the life of courts and camps. He has pursued the monster, 
neither by day nor night suffering him to rest, and giving himself 
only what repose was absolutely necessary for the needs of 
nature; coursing the Beast from court to city, from city to 
town, and on "to private farms." Calidore follows him, even 
to the happy and peaceful shepherd folds. 



19 1 1.] S/tf CALIDORE 639 

There, on a day, as he pursued the chase, 

He chanced to spy a sort of shepherd grooms, 

Playing on pipes, and carolling apace, 

The while their beasts there in the budded brooms 

Beside them fed, and nipt the tender blooms. 

In answer to Sir Calidore's inquiries as to whether they 
have seen the Blatant Beast, they tell him that no such 
Beast have they seen, and offer him food and drink, seeing 
the plight that he is in after his ceaseless pursuit. He ac- 
cepts their courtesy, and sits down among them. He sees 
the beautiful Pastorella, her who is destined to be the lady of 
his heart. Dressed in home-dyed green and crowned with 
flowers, she sits, a queen among the shepherds, who sing the 
praise of her beauty, a beauty which is of the soul as well as 
of the body, Melibeus, her reputed father, invites Calidore 
to his home, and treats him with all courteous hospitality. The 
knight, charmed with the sweet content and beauty of the 
shepherds' life, asks their leave to remain among them for 
a time. We must remember that he has come among them 
while on his quest; he has not turned aside from the work 
of his life; it is in the pursuit of the Blatant Beast that he has 
come upon this abode of tender peace. The lovely country 
life attracts him, draws him to it; there is peace and purity in 
the clean, sweet air, and in the clean, sweet lives around 
him. And yet, and yet, he is surely wrong in entertaining 
the possibility of making a more than brief sojourn in that 
rest and quiet, out of which he might well pass, refreshed, 
and with new vigor for his work. 

He seems for the moment to forget that he cannot re- 
main there. He has set his hand to the plow, and the tale 
of his furrows is not yet completed. Therefore he has no 
right to the repose that comes to those whose special work 
is done; no right to dwell among those who have a work 
to do that is not his. 

As we shall see, he is not to be allowed to rest while 
his work is unaccomplished. We shall see how trouble comes 
upon him, as God mercifully sends trouble to His children, 
when they need to be quickened into perfect life. 

Calidore comes to love Pastorella very dearly, and woos 
her as knights woo their ladies, not at first recognizing that 



640 Six CALIDORE [Aug., 

his courtly way is strange to her and even repels her. He 
is quick to find this out, and taking the dress of a shepherd, 
woos her in a way that she well understands; helping her 
and protecting her as he well can do. His love, which is the 
root of courtesy, has taught him to adapt himself to what is 
around him. It is always a fine kind of courtesy which teaches 
us not to insist on our own forms, but, keeping the lovely 
spirit, to use the forms of those among whom we are. 

Pastorella has another lover, one Coridon, and Spenser 
shows the contrast between him and his Knight of Courtesy. 
When Calidore was present, Condon would lour at him, and 
bite his lip: whereas Calidore would do all that he could to 
commend Coridon to the grace of Pastorella. 

And oft, when Coridon unto her brought 

Of little sparrows stolen from their nest, 

Or wanton squirrels in the woods far sought, 

Or other dainty thing for her addrest, 

He would commend his gift, and make the best. 

Calidore's courtesy teaches him not merely not to under- 
value the gifts of his rival, but even to commend them. Into 
everything he carries his exquisite courtesy ; and at last he 
wins the love of Pastorella. Happy in his love, he delays; 
he leaves his quest unfulfilled; and this must not be. An in- 
cident that proved the courage of Calidore and the cowardice 
of Coridon was the occasion of the dismissal of Coridon from 
the thoughts of Pastorella, who saw now that Calidore was 
the true man who was to win her. But the time was come 
when Calidore must no longer delay; the time when, by the 
breaking up of his peaceful life, he is forced to go on his 
quest. 

It fortuned one day, when Calidore 

Was hunting in the woods (as was his trade) 

A lawless people, Brigands height of yore, 

That never used to live by plow or spade, 

But fed on spoil and booty which they made 

Upon their neighbors which did nigh them border, 

The dwelling of these shepherds did invade, 

And spoiled their houses and themselves did murder, 

And drove away their flocks, with other much disorder. 



19 1 1.] ./# CALIDORE 641 

The dwelling of old Melibeus was despoiled, and all his 
people were led away captive. Among them was Pastorella, 
" sorrowful and sad, most sorrowful, most sad." 

They are taken by the Brigands to their island dwelling 
there to remain until the opportunity shall come for selling 
them to merchants who would either keep them in durance or 
sell them again. When Calidore returns he is nearly mad with 
grief and anger, and goes to seek for Pastorella. Through his 
courtesy, shown even to the Brigands, he obtains tidings of 
her, and finally delivers her, bringing her to the castle of 
Belgard, and leaving her to the care of Sir Bellamour and 
his wife, who, later on are proved to be the parents, to whom, 
for many years, she had been lost. With the time of the 
returning strength of his beloved, after the shock of her loss 
and danger, there comes to Sir Calidore the sense that he 
has failed in his duty : 

Then gan Sir Calidore him to advise 
- Of his first quest, which he had long forlore; 
Ashamed to think how he that enterprize 
The which the Faery Queen had long afore 
Bequeathed to him, forslacked had so sore ; 
That much he feared lest reproachful blame 
With foul dishonour him mote blot therefore; 
Besides the loss of so much loos [renown] and fame 
As through the world thereby should glorify his name. 

We have to learn that not pleasure, not the purest and 
sweetest earthly love, but the doing of our duty, however 
hard it may be, must be our end and aim : so Calidore must 
leave the one he loves the best and finish the work appointed 
for him. 

Spenser indicates that some abuses were found ; he also 
indicates, or rather implies, how evilly abuses may be dealt 
with. It is not many years since the foul slanders propa- 
gated by the tools of Henry the Eighth were shown to be 
indeed foul slanders. And this was done through the study 
of State documents which were for a very long time not to 
be got at, as, we must be thankful to know, they are now. 
We also see how Spenser thinks that abuses, if such exist, 
ought not to be dealt with. In the next stanza we see what 
VOL. xcm. 41 



642 Six CALIDORE [Aug., 

he thinks of the way in which the evil Beast, Infamy, or 
Slander, dealt with the beauty and the glory of our churches: 

From thence into the sacred church he broke, 

And robbed the chancel, and the desks down threw, 

And Altars fouled, and Blasphemy spoke, 

And th' Images, for all their goodly hue, 

Did cast to ground, whilst none was them to rue; 

So all confounded and disordered there. 

In a narrow place Sir Calidore overtakes the Beast, and 
the combat between them rages fast and strong. The terrible 
mouth with its thousand tongues and its thousand voices is 
open wide. The poisonous tongues of serpents are among 
them, and wrong words and hateful things are spoken of good 
and bad alike, of low and high. Neither emperors nor kings 
did the Beast spare: 

But either blotted them with infamy, 

Or bit them with his hateful teeth of injury. 

Grinding and biting, and throwing forth his venom, the 
Beast rages; but his raging is to be in vain; for the more 
he rages, the more the strength of Sir Calidore increases. 
Reviled and railed at with bitter terms of sharpest infamy, 
accusations of lying brought against one who had always 
cleaved to the truth, at last the force of the champion of 
right prevailed and the Blatant Beast was muzzled with surest 
iron, and his blasphemous tongue shut up from injuring. 

So Courtesy, the great fine Courtesy of Love and Charity, 
breaks the power of Infamy, of Scandal, of Detraction, which 
cannot be at large where Courtesy is master. 

Let us think a little now about courtesy in our own life, 
in the life we lead in the world. It is sometimes said that 
the age we live in is a cold and unheroic one, differing ter- 
ribly from the old days of faith and fervor. But though 
there may be much coldness and hardness and selfishness, 
there is also to be found high ideal and noble deed. We are 
surrounded by great goodness and self-sacrifice, though we 
are often so slow in perceiving it. The light that streams 
from the Face of Our Blessed Lord, the light reflected in the 
faces of those great and glorious saints of His, and from their 



i9i i.] /# CALIDORE 643 

faces refracted also, is seen, however faintly, on many a face 
among us. And it is seen also, thank God, among those who, 
belonging indeed to the soul of the Church, from unhappy 
circumstances, for which they are not responsible, do not yet 
belong to her body. And it behooves us Catholics, who have 
the glorious light and liberty of the full revelation of the 
Lord, in His Church, and all the marvelous privileges of 
Church life, to show forth in all possible ways, the beauty of 
the unstained ideal of Catholicity. 

There is in our time much real and refined courtesy, though 
there are, no doubt, not a few who do not seem to realize 
how it is not fine manner and pleasant address, but a river 
flowing from the source of goodness, and making the country 
of its course as pleasant as fair. 

What does Spenser say about the attaining of this virtue ? 

Thereto great help Dame Nature's self doth lend, 
For some so goodly gracious are by kind, 
That every action doth them much commend, 
And in the eyes of men great liking find, 
Which others that have greater skill in mind 
Though they enforce themselves, cannot attain : 
For everything to which one is inclined 
Doth best become, and greatest grace doth gain : 
Yet praise likewise deserve good thews [virtues] 
enforced with pain. 

We all feel the truth of this. To some of us things come 
easily and naturally, which for others are to be won only by 
great and ceaseless effort. But there is high praise, and from 
the Lips of the Highest, for those who struggle to attain what 
is hard indeed for them. 

Oar poet teaches as to bear ourselves aright: 

To all of each degree as doth behoove. 

Here we have the very important recognition of degree: 
some amongst us are the elders; some are naturally placed 
higher by the possession of wider knowledge and greater ex- 
perience ; some by the gift of greater talents; some by the 
gift of genius. Surely to some a special reverence is due; a 
reverence by no means inconsistent with the tenderest and 



644 Six CALJDORE [Aug., 

frankest intimacy a reverence over and above that which 
all of us owe to one another. So we have one kind of 
courtesy for equals and another for superiors. In school life 
we have the relation of scholar to teacher, and of teacher 
to scholar; these taking, for the time being, the lower and 
the higher degree. In school life we recognize the absolute 
need of obedience to rule; that obedience without which 
things are unworkable; but we do not always recognize how 
important is here the exercise of courtesy ; for, while obedi- 
ence carries out commands, courtesy carries out wishes; and 
the more refined courtesy carries out wishes that have not 
been as yet expressed. It makes a great difference in the 
smoothness and beauty of life whether it be or be not neces- 
sary for wishes to become commands. In the little world of 
school, as in our home life, we have many opportunities for 
the exercise of courtesy; in our gentleness, our quiet move- 
ment when such is needed ; and, on the other hand, in our 
vital and vivid entering into the heartiness of sport as well as 
the heartiness of work. This, of course, I am not going to 
dwell upon; for it is the spirit of courtesy that we are think- 
ing of, and there is no one who can lay down the law as to 
its manifestation. Courtesy is a law-making power, and has 
nothing to do with a mere book of etiquette. 

Those who have the spirit will show it; they cannot do 
otherwise. 

There are two very well-known historical anecdotes which 
I should like to say a word or two about, as bearing on this 
subject. One is that of the young man who laid down his rich 
cloak before his queen, when her steps were stayed by the 
mire in her path. It was a pretty action and graceful, though, 
I think, smacking more of courtliness than of courtesy. Per- 
haps we should care more about the story if the lady had not 
been a queen; We may compare the story with another, the 
story of a knight lying wounded to death in battle, and giving 
to a poor soldier the draught that should have slaked his own 
dying thirst. You may say that this was humanity, not merely 
courtesy. I reply by asking what is the highest courtesy but 
the truest humanity ? Let us think how the action was done. 
There was no assertion, implicit or direct, of there being any 
sacrifice in the giving up of this precious draught ; no " I need 
it sorely, but I will give it up." We know how some people 



i9i i.] Sf CALIDORE 645 

seem as if they could not make even a little sacrifice without 
in some way trying to impress upon others that they are offer- 
ing up a perfect holocaust. 

Again, there was no polite variation from truth; no "I do 
not want it; I do not care about it." Simple and direct in 
their truth, as tender in their courtesy, the words came : "Thy 
need is greater than mine/' 

This was the last deed of him whom, in very great proba- 
bility, if not in absolute certainty, Spenser, with fine apprecia- 
tion of a character noble, brave, and generous, took for the 
Knight who was to express by life and deed the grace of 
Courtesy; the brave soldier, the true gentleman, Philip Sidney. 

For each of us the work of life must be, in some form or 
other, the breaking of the power of evil, as Calidore's was the 
taming of the Blatant Beast; and we are breaking the power 
of the evil by every assertion of the good, whether in thought 
or word or deed. In our early life we have to spend much 
time in preparation for the future of our life here ; whether 
bye- and- bye we are to engage in some great and noble conflict, 
or to lead a simple life and gentle, showing forth without vis- 
ible effort the strength and the glory of our Faith ; or to live 
the life of Religion which moves in time to the bells of God. 
Our Savior and Master gave up His glory, gave up His life 
that the might of evil might be destroyed. Let us tread in 
His footsteps and in the footsteps of those who have followed 
Him. To do our work well the important condition is that we 
be good and true in ourselves; to do good we should be good. 
Our ideal of great manhood and great womanhood is not the 
exaggeration of one virtue, the preponderance of one quality, 
however noble and beautiful such may be; but the happy 
union and perfect balance of all. It is the balanced mind alone 
that can possess any virtue in its true development. As in 
The Faery Queene we have the Knights of Holiness, Tem- 
perance, Justice, Chastity, Friendship, and Courtesy, so we see 
that courtesy is possessed in its fullness by one who is holy, 
just, pure, temperate, loyal. Courtesy is the outcome of the 
casting out of self ; not polish, not politeness, but the higher 
grace, which fits its possessor for the Court that is greater 
than the courts of earthly rulers. Blessed indeed are those to 
whom is given entrance to that Court ; in which one day is 
better above thousands. 




A NEW " HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS." 

JOHN J. BURKE, C.S.P. 

UTSIDE the course of Christian doctrine, there 
is no study, to our mind, more important in 
our Catholic schools than that of English litera- 
ture. For literature, as Newman puts it, is a 
national and historical fact. It is the voice of 
the nation, past and present. It expresses the life of the 
world which all of us must share, in which we will be placed, 
and by which we must inevitably be affected. To be able to 
measure it correctly, to interpret it wisely ; to make it the 
handmaid of that revealed knowledge of Catholic faith a 
helper not unto worldliness nor mere intellectualism but unto 
salvation, is a part of the necessary equipment of every intel- 
ligent Catholic to-day. Never was such equipment more vitally 
necessary than it is now, because of the wealth and cheapness 
of reading matter. Hence when the present volume came to 
us for consideration, stamped as A Text Book of English 
Literature for Catholic Schools? we judged it worthy of lengthy 
notice. 

Since our literature is the record of our life as a people 
(we speak now of the English-speaking world as a whole and 
will so speak for the purpose of illustration) it will be seen at 
once that into the creation of that literature has entered a 
thousand and one influences religious, moral, social, histori- 
cal, political, scientific, personal all that go to make up the 
life of an individual or a nation. Our first great classics, 
thus stamped with the character of those who created them, 
are Protestant, not Catholic. As a whole, since their creators 
were not without Catholic influence and could not be, they 
agree in their great broad lines with the fundamentals of 
Catholic teaching; they have much of the Catholic spirit; but 
they were written by Protestants, not Catholics; and in as much 

*A Text Book of English Literature for Catholic Schools. By Rev. W. H. Sheran. 
New York : American Book Company . 



i9i i.] A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 647 

as Protestantism has of itself anything positive, this classical 
English literature is marked by it. 

Since it is true, then, that a literature may be characteristi- 
cally pagan or Mohammed or Catholic or Protestant that it 
will be such as were the men and women who created it it is 
vitally important for the Catholic student, to know this. 
More important than the knowledge of any or of all authors, 
is the knowledge of what literature is; of the canons that 
govern it, lest he be taken up into the whirlpool of " life" 
and be drowned therein. 

Such a knowledge is particularly necessary for a Catholic, 
for Catholicism to-day alone cherishes and defends Christian 
truth. Two generations ago Protestants retained and defended 
much of it; to-day as an organized body they have capitu- 
lated in the face of a sceptical world. More and more evi- 
dent is it that the battle lies between Catholicism and a gen- 
teel scepticism. More and more evident is it that in order to 
make our literature, that is our life, Christian we must adhere 
to the principles of Catholic faith in every department of life. 
As Christianity revolutionized the spiritual world so has it 
put its own obligations, its own rules upon literature which 
is essentially spiritual, for it is the worthy expression of an 
author's own thoughts. 

That a Catholic student should be led to expect that all 
real literature is Catholic in the sense that it re-echoes or 
lives up to Catholic teaching, or that he should read only 
works that would pass such an examination, would be absurd. 
He must know that literature is life, and that we live in a 
sinful world and a vale of tears. He cannot be brought up 
without a knowledge of the world else to his undoing the 
world itself will one day teach him. 

But as he is asked to live his own Christian life with God, 
and to live it in spite of the innumerable temptations offered 
by the world, the flesh and the devil, in spite of the many 
false ideals put up before him by other men and oftentimes 
by society at large so also must he know that the Christian 
ideals of conduct hold true in literature; that being a thing 
of the mind, the writer's mind is not free from those obliga- 
tions which Christ has placed upon all of us. 

In other words it is of primary importance that he look 
upon things with the eye of a Christian ; that to him the in- 



48 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Aug., 

terior soul is far more important than the external form; that 
art is not art unless it be born of those standards of eternal 
beauty begotten of God and, in turn, of His Divine Son, Who 
Alone is Beautiful; that the corner-stone of literature as well 
as of life is that " Satan is not a hero, nor Cain a victim, but 
pride is pride and vice is vice ; " that sanctity and truth are 
the sine qua non of all creative and critical literary work. 

It would take us too long to carry out this thought to its 
fullness, and its application varies infinitely; but unless the 
Catholic student has this truth ingrained into the very fibre of 
his soul then he will be confounded in the presence of English 
literature, and it would be better for him were he never to 
undertake its study. For just as surely as he would start 
without this, just so surely would he stand helpless before au- 
thors who have championed falsehood or immorality ; just so 
surely would he be led captive, as so many have been, by 
emotionalism, intellectualism, and literary hedonism. He would 
judge the mythical world of literary art to be outside the pale 
of God's laws, and that to recognize any law therein, save the 
law of correct expression, would be to place the shackles upon 
artistic talent and kill every flight of genius. 

Everything depends upon the beginning. Never was this 
truer than in the case of the young pupil and his introduc- 
tion to reading. For whatever other questions he will have 
to deal with are subsequent to the fundamental principles laid 
down above. Adhering to these principles he will never go 
far wrong. Fortified by them he can enjoy the great treasures 
of every capable writer; he can handle safely what otherwise 
he could not touch without danger; with these as a compass 
he can go out in safety on the sea of English thought now 
wild with storm and passion ; now unfettered seemingly by 
rule of any kind ; now strong, inspiring, magnificent in its 
mighty swell and its infinite distances; now playful in its gen- 
tle waves; now peaceful and joyous in its calm. After the 
manner of the Church who has preserved the classics to the 
world with their falsehood and their sin so also may he en- 
rich himself with all the works of human genius. 

It is characteristic of the day, and ever was and ever will 
be characteristic of the world, to separate, as the world puts 
it, religion from every department of life. " It should keep 
within its own sphere", says the world, which means that it 



i9i i.] A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 649 

should not interfere with the world. Hence we have the 
separation, the positive exclusion of religion from politics 
the State, in truth, must dictate to religion what its rights 
and privileges are, as was only yesterday illustrated in Por- 
tugal. Religion must be separated from science the spirits 
of each are imcompatible. Religion must be separated from 
history. The best historian, it is thought by many, is the 
sceptic who believes nothing; for he "has no thesis to de- 
fend." Religion must be separated from charity work or 
charity work is to swallow up religion, and the only creed of 
future generations will be that of " social service." Religion 
must be separated from education. Religion must disappear 
from society. Never must we parade in any vulgar way our 
religious belief; we are to talk with one another and to act 
as if we had no religious beliefs. It must be a closet drama 
only, with the door of the closet firmly locked, and never be 
performed in public. Religion is to be separated from litera- 
ture of course it must be so since religion is not to be 
recognized publicly and officially as a necessary element in a 
nation's growth and life. 

This spirit and manner of looking at things will be recog- 
nized at once as a spirit and a manner common to many of 
our day. Both are reflected in our present-day literature, in 
book, in periodical, in the weekly and daily press. It is by 
such prevailing ideas and tendencies that men's lives are in- 
fluenced most. It is a spirit and a manner wholly foreign to 
Christianity. No Catholic soul can accept it for one moment. 
Whatever he has to accept of it he will accept with protest 
and he will renew his spirit continually in meditating upon 
the real truth of things the ideals and standards that Christ 
put up before the world and which alone are the true life 
of men and nations. 

To our regret we must register a criticism of this History 
of English Literature for Catholic Schools. It does not give to 
the Catholic these first fundamental principles which are neces- 
sary if he is ever to look upon literature as a Catholic should. 
It does not bring out clearly enough the first basic canons 
of appreciation and of criticism. In fact, though we do not 
like to say it, yet say it we must, it defends and champions 
the divorce of literature and of religion. And this not in a 
particular instance or particular author. If it were only this 



650 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Aug., 

we would have no complaint, for, as we have said, it is neces- 
sary for the Catholic pupil to know writers that do not 
champion Catholic teaching or Catholic morality. 

We might go further and say that in particular instances 
the author of this book does apply his Catholic sense ; he 
does warn the pupil against this author or that. But when it 
comes to the more important question of principle he does 
teach, that literature and religion are quite two distinct depart- 
ments of life. " Literature cares most for the art," he writes, 
that is, in opposition to sincerity and truth. He speaks of the 
view point of art as well as of morality. Writing of Princi- 
pal Fairbairn, he says : " It is not the province of the literary 
critic to follow him (Fairbairn) thither (into his advanced theo- 
logical doctrines), for art has been the fortunate or unfortunate 
handmaid of human error of all kinds, ever since Homer sang 
of divinities long since passed away, or Horace chanted of his 
mistress at the expense of any high moral standard." 

We do not say that it is the province of the literary 
critic to follow an author into his doctrinal errors ; we do 
not say it is his duty to correct every violation on the 
author's part of the moral law he is not a theologian, nor 
a moralist, nor an historian, nor a scientist ; but we do say 
that the principles which should guide his work ought to be 
Catholic principles, and that he should take care, particularly 
in a book for young girls and boys, to place the principles 
moral and religious that govern all art, plainly before them. 
This he does not do. In fact the general tone of the book; the 
critics taken as authorities; the utter absence of any warning 
comment where such comment ought to be; the ill-advised 
class reading such as : Robert Elsmere, and the works of Ian 
Maclaren for devotional reading; the almost sneering tone 
employed at times about writings that might be religious, for 
example, of Young, "that he was as sincere as most writers 
who bring their churchyard contemplations to market," and, 
"it was peculiarly characteristic of Goldsmith that the glories 
of art fade in his eyes before nature and virtue"; the pet 
use of the term "scientific" (and never religious) as one that 
of itself postulates an absorbing love of all truth e. g. " the 
scientific man who holds truth, absolute truth, as dear as his 
own soul 19 ; his ridiculous statement that the Bible might be 
greater literature if it did not so neglect art- form (p. 301); 



i9i i.] A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 651 

comparisons that join Emerson with Solomon and Thomas a 
Kempis ; the comparative neglect of the religious, devotional 
and moral element in English prose and poetry the failure 
to mention many a Catholic, who, though perhaps a "minor" 
author, has yet in his own [sphere done unequalled work in 
English, such as Crashaw, Habbington, Lionel Johnson, Emily 
Rickey; the insignificant treatment accorded to some Catholics 
who, after all, are masters of style, for example: Alice Mey- 
neil, Hilaire Belloc all these things point more clearly than 
words to a mind that has looked upon the art-form more than 
upon the soul, who has thought more of how a man is dressed 
than of his real worth, who in his work as a whole, has prac- 
tically left spiritual values out of the question and treated 
literature as something quite independent of them. 

" Art is human and not mechanical. ... Its function, 
its standard and its interpretation are all spiritual." We quote 
purposely a non-Catholic writer.* Since it is so essentially 
spiritual, it surely comes under the Christian law which has 
.not destroyed but fulfilled ail the things of nature. In Christ 
are all things created anew; every spiritual power of man has 
been reborn. The Christian soul cannot look upon anything 
that deals with life save from a Christian point of view, and 
the only positive content of Christianity, known to the world 
to-day, is Catholicism. 

The light that would bring home these truths to the Cath- 
olic student is absent from this book. No page of it is illu- 
mined by that which makes literature, like life, intelligible. 
The pupil who would take it as a text-book, a daily guide 
which he is to study page by page, would not only be with- 
out any knowledge of literature as a real art but he would be 
bewildered and confounded, lost in this maze of authors and 
works. For him it would be little more than a catalogue 
perhaps worse than a bare catalogue, of names and titles, 
dates and personages. 

We will give a number of quotations. Taking them all 
in all, what, we ask, would be the ultimate effect of them on 
a pupil just beginning the study of English literature ? What 
the effect on his character if he accepted some of them as 
guides to reading, to life and to conduct ? 

Let us take first this very striking passage on the Bible : 

* B. F. Westcott. Lessons from Work. Pp. 445 and 449. ' 



652 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Aug., 

One cannot help thinking that Hebrew literature might be 
very much greater if Hebrew artists had an opportunity to 
study, let us say, under classic Greek masters, like those 
barbarians from the West Cicero and Virgil. It will not do 
to say that the Bible is great literature because art form is 
neglected ; but rather in spite of this obvious defect, owing 
to the surpassing value of the content. So with the irregular 
poems of Riley (James Whitcomb) couched in homely, collo- 
quial phrase the idiom of the untutored man whose heart 
and soul with their simple, intense, spontaneous passions are 
faithfully mirrored therein. (P. 301). 

To give some other estimates: "The power of imagination 
exhibited in the first two parts of Paradise Lost cannot be 
duplicated in any literature sacred or profane. Milton leaves 
Dante and Homer and Virgil far behind in the race " (p. 115). 
" It was thus with St. Augustine and St. Thomas (Aquinas) 
and in our own time with St. George Mivart " (p. 336). 

William Blake is nothing more than a literary meteor or 
shooting star. Thomas Arnold wrote: "At its best the ex- 
quisite lyrical gift of Blake is hardly to be surpassed out of 
Shakespeare." Emerson is "The American Solomon." "He 
ranks among the great gnomic writers of the world, having 
for his literary associates such wise men as Solomon, Marcus 
Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Thomas a Kempis." Archbishop Spald- 
ing is also among the great "gnomic" writers. Well, indeed, 
has the author lived up to his boast, in the preface, of absolute 
freedom from religious bias. One wonders why he ever wrote 
a history for Catholic schools. 

Of Archbishop Spalding, it is said " that he is one of the 
very few American writers whose prose product is a perma- 
nent contribution to literature." Yet, " it is difficult to name 
another prose writer of America, if we except Lowell, who 
possessed such scholarship, such a refined style, etc., as Wash- 
ington Irving." Nathaniel Hawthorne " is the most gifted of 
American authors; both he and Irving are representative men 
of letters." Poe " stands first in American literature." Emer- 
son is a " master of prose;" Cooper is the "American Scott;" 
Charles Warren Stoddard's work is " crowned with immortal 
life." Holmes' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table "will always 
remain an English classic." Thoreau is " one of the bright 
minor lights of English literature." Prescott's style is "per- 



i9i i.] A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 653 

feet"; and Bincroft is "an historian of the first order." If we 
are to accept these estimates there are not a very Jew after all. 

"In all the literatures of the world there is no more beau- 
tiful character than Longfellow, no more inspiring and uplift- 
ing singer than Emerson, no more sympathetic painter of 
domestic felicity than Irving, no greater lover of democracy 
than Whitman" (p. 235), 

" Contemporary American verse in lyric form equals al- 
ready anything done in the Old World " (p. 236). Of Alfred 
Austin we get this searching criticism; "It is quite generally 
conceded that Alfred Austin is not so highly gifted as his 
predecessor Lord Tennyson." 

Of orators, it is said in one place: "It is doubtful whether 
a greater orator (than Daniel Webster) ever lived in any age 
or country" (p. 283). In another place it is said that "Ed- 
mund Burke shares with Daniel Webster the honors of first 
place among English orators, with the advantage slightly in 
favor, perhaps, of the English Demosthenes" (p. 161). On 
Father Thomas N. Burke, O.P., Lord O'Hagen is quoted to 
the effect that " No greater orator ever commanded with greater 
effect the immense resources of the English language" (p. 
291). Again, "the fire and strength of Archbishop Ireland's 
oratory link his name with Bossuet and Demosthenes and the 
great orators of every age" (p. 304). 

How will the bewildered pupil make his way out ? How 
will the Catholic pupil understand such a sentence as this 
concerning Mrs. Wilfrid Ward: "they (her works) will remain 
as milestones on the road over which the present generation 
makes almost unawares its great transition?" What meaning, 
save one of cheap contempt has this criticism: "still the 
cold-blooded realist cannot help thinking that if Wordsworth 
had followed the plow over his beloved landscape he might 
not have found in it so much of ecstatic loveliness or of the 
divine presence" (p. 176); or this bit of flippancy on Pat- 
more: " His domestic life was very happy, so full of happi- 
ness that he became the poet of domestic felicity" (p. 212). 
How will the pupil reconcile such statements as " Popularity, 
however, is not the test oi supreme artistic or poetic quality" 
(p. 238) and "the highest praise is her wide and increasing 
popularity," (p. 308); or this," comparisons are useless if not 
odious" (p. 246), yet the author employs a whole page in 



654 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Aug., 

comparing Newman and Ruskin, (p. 202); or statements like 
these : *' Dryden's Absolom and Achitophel is perhaps the greatest 
English satire,' (p. no), and "We have no satire to compare 
with it (Letters of Junius) in English literature " (p. 161). 

Of the Catholic poet, Father Tabb, this History of English 
Literature for Catholic Schools says in one place that " no 
one disputes Tabb's rank as a great lyric poet"; in another, 
five pages on, that Tabb's poems are "ephemeral." It also 
gives this extended comment: 

A question arises, however, as to the briefness of his 
lyrics. Will a poem of four or five lines satisfy the de- 
mands of immortality as well as it meets the demands of 
the editor in filling the corner of a magazine ? Will qual- 
ity alone suffice or must there be also some sustained effort ? 
Critics are apt to agree that Tabb made a serious mistake 
in giving this fragmentary character to his work. He 
should have left at least one piece of supfeme quality, 
which would prove to the world that he was capable of 
sustained effort (p. 307.) 

Now listen to a critic on Tabb whose judgment is well 
worth having: 

Every poem of Father Tabb's harbors or rather is a 
separate thought, and a thought " accepted of song." This 
is fertility of a most unusual kind ; it is not only quality in a 
little space, but more remarkably quantity in a little space. 
For Father Tabb's admirable things are not merely to be 
weighed ; they are, most emphatically, to be counted. They 
are many. Nay, they are so many, that I doubt whether one 
of the voluminous poets, even the great ones, would easily 
make up such a sum. Multum, non Multa has been said in 
praise of others. But that praise in no wise suits Father 
Tabb. It is for abundance that we must praise him the 
several, separate, distinct, discreet abundance of entire brief 
lyrics. Would a slower or longer- witted poet have made of 
each of these thoughts, these fancies, these images, a longer 
poem? I cannot tell, but I think the longer- witted one would 
not have had these thoughts.* 

Catholic poets and prose writers are, as a rule, inadequately 
treated, and our Catholic inheritance in English letters receives 

* Alice Meynell, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, February, 1910. 



19 ii-] ^ NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 655 

scanty justice. When we look for the phrase or the word of 
direction that would give the Catholic pupil the key to the 
right, comprehensive estimate, we do not find it. There is no 
word on the scepticism of Tennyson ; nor the anti-Catholic spirit 
of Whittier or Edith Wharton, nor the anti- Christian spirit of 
Mrs. Humphery Ward no special consideration is given to 
Catholic authors as such, but there is a special department 
devoted to " Anglo-Catholic " writers, in which the " Branch 
Theory" is most plausibly presented, and the Catholic pupil 
is informed that the Protestant Reformation accomplished very 
much good in England in advancing the standards of morals. 
He says nothing about the decay of learning subsequent to 
the Reformation, and his words on the improvement of morals 
are in strange contrast with those of Thomas Arnold concern- 
ing the same subject: 

The ancient Church, environed as it was with awe and 
mystery, spreading into unknown depths and distances in 
time and space which might be resisted, but could not be 
despised had passed from the land like a dream ; and the 
new institution which the will of the nation had substituted 
for it, whatever might be its merits, could not as yet curb 
the pride, nor calm the passions, nor dazzle the imagination 
of England's turbulent and gifted youth.* 

We read that Gasquet is a " glorified humanist." Pusey, 
on The Blessed Sacrament, receives most honorable mention. 
Bishop Hedley's notable work on the same subject is not men- 
tioned at all. Keble, in The Prerogatives of the Priesthood, is 
a monumental work. Manning's Eternal Priesthood, and Inter- 
nal Mission of the Holy Ghost are not permanent contributions 
to letters, because " the supreme artist is nowhere visible." 
The point to be remembered is that these books by non-Catho- 
lics are recommended to the pupil, not alone for their art- 
form (to use this author's favorite word), but also because 
"they furnish a solid foundation for the highest theological 
and critical claims" (p. 214). 

No mention is made in the volume of such authors as : 
Anthony Trollope, Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, Adelaide 
Procter, Christina and Dante G. Rossetti, Richard Blackmore, 
Edmund Campion, Nicholas Sander, Bishop Challoner, Richard 
B. Sheridan, and Bishop Milner. 

* A Manual of English Literature (p. 251). 



656 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE [Aug., 

Estimates of the religious value of Catholic writers are 
studiously neglected; but of Dr. John Watson, we read: "His 
firm faith in the Divinity of Christ and in the Divine Revela- 
tion is a splendid tonic wherewith to minister to the diseased 
spirit of our times and pluck from the heart of modern society 
its rooted sorrow." Is such silence on the one hand, and such 
speech on the other, fair to the Catholic student ? 

The promise of the literature of the future and think of 
what cheer it will give not only to the Catholic pupil, but to 
anyone with a reverent sense of letters is contained in such 
works as: If I Were King, David Harum t and The Garden 
of Allah. 

We have wondered in vain what plan the author followed 
in placing the different writers. John Talbot Smith precedes 
Du Maurier by fifty pages; Dr. Shahan precedes Cardinal 
Gibbons, and Walt Whitman follows some fifty pages later. 
Maurice Francis Egan appears before Charles Kingsley and 
Pater, and Father Benson before Thackeray and Dickens.' 

One author will be treated to criticisms from several pens; 
sometimes the criticisms vary, and the pupil must use, we sup- 
pose, his own judgment. Reading the volume one will recog- 
nize at times phrases from other authors not set in quotation 
marks. But the author prudently thought to safeguard himself 
from any conviction on the score of plagiarism. What may 
any critic say in the face of this childlike confession in the 
preface: "If the student discovers, as he is bound to do, on 
almost every page, a phrase or line or epigrammatic sentence 
without quotation marks, footnotes, or other marks of identi- 
fication, he is referred to the list of names appended to this 
preface." So what plumage was borrowed and whence let 
the reader find out for himself. 

So varied are the estimates at times, so plainly are some 
sentences (not marked by quotations) the thoughts of minds 
diametrically opposed, that it is evident that the author pos- 
sessed no standard of judgment. His work is without unity 
or harmony. He has picked from this man and that, and picked 
indiscriminately. We must regretfully take exception to his 
modest claim in the preface, that this, his text-book, is : "The 
most valuable yet published for the student of English litera- 
ture." 




DEVIL'S MONEY. 

BY ALICE DBASE. 

[HAN McGarragher and his wife stood together at 
the kitchen door, she, in the fawn shawl and 
velvet-banded petticoat that denoted Sunday, 
he, in his workday suit of mottled bainin. 

" 'Tis full early yet for you to be goinV he 
said, looking down at her, but she answered without raising 
her eyes. 

" It is so, but then its mission time." 

Her face, under the soft frills of her white cap was drawn 
and lined, but neither age nor illness were written upon it. 
Unlike her neighbors, Mrs. McGarragher had never had to 
battle with want and hardship, but unlike them, too, a cross 
heavier than poverty had lain upon her for many a year. 

Her husband looked at her once again, sharply, then 
turned away his head. He had staked everything, everything 
to his very soul, to win and make her happy and one glance 
at her face was enough to proclaim to all the world the 
measure of his success. There were moments like this one 
when he would have given all he possessed to see an answer- 
ing smile on the lips that he had loved too well for nigh on 
thirty years, and yet the joy of his possessions was the only 
joy that life held for him. 

He watched her for a moment as she went from him down 
the stony path, his eyes fixed mechanically on the hand that 
held her prayer-book, till the clean kerchief folded about it 
was only a speck of white against the crimson of her skirt. 
Then, whilst she still went on down, he turned and went up 
the steep mountain side. 

There, unseen from below, he could see not only his own 
thriving possessions, but also down into the valley where, on 
a road that wound like a ribbon through the green, the rest 
of the parish were wending their way to the Church, to which 
his own wife was bound. His eyes followed her, a solitary 
figure not only on the hillside but even also when she reached 
VOL. xcin. 42 



658 DEVIL'S MONEY [Aug., 

the road. He noted, with hands and teeth clenched in fierce 
impotence, how the others passed her by, some with scarcely 
a greeting, none with more than the barest " Good-day." And 
yet he knew, as well as if he had heard them speaking, that 
at sight of her two other words had come to them and that 
under their breath they had murmured " devil's money." 

Looking away from the church- going stream sharply, as he 
had just now turned from his wife, he fixed his eyes resolutely 
on his crops. The potatoes, whose stalks grew tall and green 
and healthy, gave promise of the fair crop that lay under the 
soil ripening for a rich harvest. There was no taint of blight 
here; it was a sight to do good to the heart of any farmer. 
Yet as Shan McGarragher looked, the wind came whispering 
through the plants and the sounds that it bore to his ears 
formed once again those two hateful words " devil's money." 

Far below, too far for any whispering voice to reach him, 
lay the corn field that was the pride of his heart. The heads 
were already heavy with grain, soft still, and of the tender 
grey green that must harden and darken before the gold 
comes. For a full minute the watcher forgot everything in 
calculating how many bags of grain that field would yield 
him. Then, from its edges, where the wild flowers grew 
amongst the tangled grasses of the headland, a bird rose up 
into the air, a lark who sang as it soared and whose joyous 
notes rilled and trippled as it rose higher and higher into the 
deep blue of the sky. 

"Devil's money," it sang; "devil's, devil's, devil's money." 

With a curse, McGarragher turned to the mountain ; there, 
where the sweet short herbage showed in green patches 
amongst the heather, some of his beasts lay lazily in the sun. 
Half a dozen cows and heifers with their children of this and 
previous years, fine healthy beasts whose glossy black coats 
told of care in the breeding as well as in the feeding of 
them. Further off a group of ponies showed that their owner 
was a man who could afford to keep a good beast till it came 
to its full value. 

There had been no forced sales of promising foals amongst 
this lot. Then, for no reason, they started off at a gallop, 
manes and tails streaming, chasing each other past the sleepy 
cows and hunting before them the little calves who joined in 
the frolic with awkward gambols and uncouth lowings, and the 



19 1 1.] DEVIL'S MONEY 659 

beating hoofs, and the lowing voices wafted back to the watcher 
by the rock, spoke yet again the selfsame words: "devil's 
money, devil's money." 

As the ponies footfall died away another sound made it- 
self heard. Looking down McGarragher saw a tall figure clad 
in brown toiling upwards. He understood who it was before 
his eye told him what his instinct already knew this brown 
figure was about his Master's business. 

From his hiding place Shan McGarragher could see him 
throw back his cowl and wipe his brow, for the sun was fierce 
on the steep stony path. He could hear Rory's low growl 
turn to a furious barking as a strange hand moved the latch 
of the kitchen door. He could almost have laughed to him- 
self, so safe did he feel in his place of vantage till, with a 
long look all about, around and below him, the Friar started 
to mount still higher. 

Was it coming then? After all these years must he give 
up his secret ? No thought of fearlessly meeting, of sending 
this seeker, who in point of fact was a trespasser, back to 
those who wanted him, came in that moment to the man. He 
knew that it must either be flight or capitulation; he could 
not, and would not, give in. Where he stood was the only 
place of hiding thereabouts, and yet any one coming up the 
path that led to the garden plot, must see him where he 
crouched, as clearly as though he had gone forward to meet 
them. Only at his feet the potatoes grew tall and thick and 
heavy laden with foliage. Between each ridge of them, dug 
by his own hands, there was a deep, black furrow. Down 
on his knees he fell, groping blindly with his hands, dragging 
himself under the thick green shelter. As he stretched him- 
self on the cool, black soil, and felt the earthy walls at either 
side of him, he remembered death, and the time when every 
man must lay himself down in just such a bed as this. 

The sandaled feet fell lightly on the soft turf, and it was 
only the swish, swish of the brown serge habit against the 
potato plants that told of the coming of the Friar. When he 
reached the rock where Shan had been standing he, too, stood, 
as the other had done; so, also, did he look down at the scene 
below him. Nearest of all was the trim homestead he had 
just visited. Everything about it spoke of the same pros- 
perity that the fields above it showed. Beyond the rich corn- 



66o DEVIL'S MONEY [Aug., 

field there was another house a medley of falling walls, of 
propping posts, and rotting roofs, showing green and brown 
and every color except the clear, rich gold of freshly laid 
straw. 

Further off were other dwellings, none so trim as the first, 
none so wretched as the last, and furthest of all, where the 
valley widened out and the road divided in two, a ring of 
brown rock, a circular stretch of sand, marked the head of a 
little bay, an offshoot of the wide, glistening sea that stretched 
out and out and away till at last it rose to the far horizon. 

The Friar gazed around him leisurely and long. It was a 
scene of peace and beauty, and yet he sighed. The thought 
of a soul that shunned and neglected God in the midst of such 
surroundings was a blot upon the landscape. And where was 
the man who owned this soul ? His wife had said that he 
would surely be in one or other of his fields. Perhaps he 
had gone up the mountain and might yet return. The Friar 
opened his breviary and laid it on the rock before him. 

So thick were the plants that the light came dimly through, 
but the sun, coming out from behind a cloud that had drifted 
across it for a moment, sent a long, slanting shaft between 
the stalks. Outside, where there was no shade, it played up- 
on a strange looking object, oblong in shape and whitish in 
color a human foot. The foot of a strong, young man, bare 
except for the strap of leather that lay across the instep from 
sole to sole of the sandal. Its owner was a young man, strong 
of limb, well educated, a priest. And he thought he knew 
that God was worth the choice he had made. The office 
was only half said when something impelled the reader to 
turn his head. There, close beside him, so close that by 
merely stretching out his arm he could have touched the up- 
turned face, was the head of a man. His body was crouched 
amongst "the furrows. One hand held apart the plants that 
would otherwise have kept his secret. For one second their 
eyes met, the priest's and the fugitive's. A moment later 
Shan McGarragher was on his knees, the plants all crushed 
and broken round him, his face hid closely against the rough, 
harsh serge of his companion's habit. 

. 

Early as was his mother in starting for the mission, Johneen 
had been earlier still. When he came to an angle wall of 



i.] DEVIL'S MONEY 661 

the ruined outhouse that sheltered the crumbling dwelling which 
was the next to their own, he turned off the path, and stand- 
ing where no passer-by could see him, he called gently, " Ailes," 
and again " Ailes." 

No further repetition was needed, for at the second sound- 
ing of her name, a girl came quickly to the door of the hovel. 
From the crown of her glossy head down to her bare, brown 
feet, she was spotlessly neat and clean. Hopeless poverty had 
made the outside of her dwelling what it was, but inside, de- 
spite its bareness, there were more signs of cleanliness and 
care than could be found in half the kitchens of the parish. 

" I'm not comin' the day, avick," she said, going over to 
Johneen and speaking low. "Oh, he's terrible bad on me; I 
doubt but he'll be gone by sundown." And the tears sprang 
into her eyes at the thought of her father's flickering life. 
"But amn't I the happy girl after he had the Missioner, and 
since ever then, he's that contented. Only waitin' on the will 
o' God to go. Johneen, avick, you well know the bad hate 
he had to your father ? " 

Johneen nodded. That there had been something between 
the dying man and his father he had known for years, and 
lately, since the girl Ailes had grown up, he had guessed that 
the hate was not one-sided. 

" Well, then, 'tis gone." There were mingled notes of sor- 
row and of gladness in the girl's rich voice. Sorrow for her 
coming loneliness, gladness at so peaceful an end to the poor, 
wasted, ill-spent life. 

" What matter now agrah," says he to me. " Rich or poor, 
mustn't we all come to be the same before God's judgment ? 
Him an' me, one an* t'other. 'Tis the sins of us an' not the 
cattle or the crops that God Almighty will be askin' us for." 

" Then," said Johneen, " he'll not be troublin' that 'tis me 
as will be mindin' you, an' him gone ? " 

The girl looked up in quick surprise. 

"But your father avick?" she questioned. 

"Look here asthore. " Johneen pulled a steamship envelope 
from under his jersey. " I've worked these years for my father, 
but I'm a man now an' 'tis you as needs me most. I've 
two tickets here, one for you an* one for me. There's many 
another who's made his fortune over the water with no more 
than the work of his two hands for commencin*. When when," 



662 DEVIL'S MONEY [Aug., 

he looked towards the cabin door, "we'll get married please 
God, I'll make you a home in America better even than what 
my father would forbid me bringin' you to here." 

The girl began a feeble protest. Was she worth to him 
all that he was willing to give up. Father, mother, home, 
comforts, rough may be, yet plentiful ? He would have said 
yes, yes, a thousand times for he loved the daughter of his 
father's enemy with the same strong love that had bound his 
father all these years to his own wife, but there was no time 
now for protest or reply. A feeble moaning voice called the 
girl back to her post of duty, and with the chapel bell warn- 
ing him that Mass time was drawing near, Johneen went out 
to the bohreen and away down to join the stream of church- 
goers on the public road. 

. . 

Ailes had moistened her father's lips, had settled his tossed 
pillows, and time and again she had replaced the beads in the 
weak, nerveless fingers. He lay in the fourpost bed beside the 
open hearth and for all his weakness it was he, and not Ailes, 
who first saw the coming of a visitor. A tall man, but bent 
now and bent with what ? age ? sorrow ? shame ? A figure, 
that for eight-and-twenty long years had never crossed that 
threshold. A figure that the dying man had hated with deep, 
jealous, unreasoning hate, until the mercy of God and the 
light of death had drowned or burnt that hate away. The 
newcomer bared his head, and two steps across the poor 
kitchen brought him to the bedside. 

" Are you livin' yet, an' can you tell who's this I am 
Andy Leary ? " 

" Aye." The hate was dead, but at sight of the face and 
figure round which it had raged so long, the freshly-healed 
wound of it gave a throb as though of returning life in the 
dying man's heart, and he clutched the cross of his beads as 
his defence. 

Deliberately, then, Shan McGarragher knelt on the earthen 
floor, as just now he had knelt upon the mountain side; but 
here he knew he had two listeners. It was to Ailes, the gitl 
who would live, as well as to the man with death upon his ace 
that he made his confession: 

" I've come to tell you that 'twas me as stole the money 
you lost comin* from the fair o'Glanorena; 'twill be eight an 



i9i i.] DEVIL'S MONEY 663 

twenty year come Holland-tide. 'Twas true then as now as 
I'd never been next or nigh the town that day, but comin* 
home from heapin* the seawrack there below I crossed the 
main road by Canalty's mearin'. There was a lump o' paper 
lyin' in the dust. I took it up an* there was twenty gold'eri 
pounds within in it. I looked up an' down an' not a soul 
was on the road. 'Twas late an* a long piece in to the bar- 
racks an' I took the money home with me an' never a thought 
but to bring it to the police in the mornin'. Then, goin' 
home the devil himself came to me an' says he: 'If you'd that 
bit o' money to buy Shamus Mor's plot o* tillage you'd get 
the loan upon it of what'd raise a cow an' a couple o' calves 
to eat the grass that's wastin' on the mountain above. An' 
with that why wouldn't Daniel Morrisroe take back the an- 
swer he's given you time an' again an' you askin' for Mary.' 
'Twas that what done it. Just for Mary I took it, an' they 
say well who called it ' devil's money, ' though never a one at 
all went nigh to fixin' your loss on me. They thought 'twas 
me immortal soul I'd sold, an' faith they were like to be 
right. 'Twas yourself told me in the mornin' how they got 
you in the ditch below an' you with no more thought in your 
mind but what the drink had taken from you. Aye, you told 
me that, an' me with the twenty pounds the police had the 
country searched for, lyin under me own hearthstone. Aye, 
'twas ' devil's money ' an' it prospered as the devil's work 
does thrive. You lost heart after that money went from you 
an' the taste for the drink had you fair destroyed. I ruined 
you body an' soul. I killed the wife on you. I made this 
lassie here know want an* hardship before she ever grew to 
be a woman. As you got poor, I got rich. I bought the 
land you had to sell an' we hated each other, you, because 
you was poor an' I was rich. Me because I knew well your 
money had made a thief of me, an' the devil had me immor- 
tal soul because of what I had done. An' now with you dyin* 
I've come to ask you to forgive. No livin' man without he 
was a saint, would do what on me two knees I'm askin' you, 
but if the love o' God who'll judge us both, you an' me, is 
in your heart, for His sake, for God sake I'm askin' " 

There was silence unbroken in the dark, bare room. Had 
the dying man heard and understood ? The one who knelt 
never looked at the girl, and the dim eyes, the only sign that 



664 DEVIL'S MONEY [Aug., 

life was still in the prostrate figure on the bed said nothing to 
him. There was no hate in them, nor anger, but neither could 
he read forgiveness. Then McGarragher thought his story had 
not reached the tired, worn out brain, but in truth that was 
not the reason for the silence. It was so wonderful, such an 
easy and yet such an unthought of solution to this eight-and 
twenty- year-old mystery. It was the tragedy of four lives 
Shan himself and his own wife, who had never guessed his 
secret, and O'Leary whom he had robbed, and O'Leary's wife 
who had died from want and misery a tragedy so baldly 
expressed that the power of speech had gone from the dying 
man as he listened. 

" 'Tis not for nothin' I'd be askin' you this," went on Me- 
Garragher, and a listener might have noticed from his voice 
how nearly he himself was spent. " The girl there shall have 
every penny. The house an' bit that was my own before, 
that will do the old woman and me. Johneen must go." And 
here his voice failed him. " He's not the only one the sins 
of a father has driven over seas. An' the rest, the fields, 
the beasts, your own farm, all that'll be for Ailes. Andy, 
Andy, an' you goin' before God's judgment give me the word, 
the one word ". 

He broke off and the girl, looking in dazed astonishment 
from one face to the other, saw the bitterness of death on the 
living face, but on the other only peace. 

" Father," she bent low over him and raised his head, but 
even in her own ears her voice sounded strange. "Father, avick, 
won't you speak. Tell him what you're after tellin' me. Say 
the hate is all gone. Say you forgive." 

He moved his hand, it was nerveless now, and even the 
weakest movement was labored. Ailes put out her own firm 
fingers and his closed weakly around them. Again he moved, 
and the girl's hand went with his. His enemy, kneeling be- 
side him had stretched out his own hands in passionate appeal. 
A third effort and the three hands touched. He could not speak, 
but now there was full understanding in the dim eyes, and 
Ailes, raising her hand, with his above it, laid them both on 
those of Shan McGarragher, but even as she did so she felt 
the tiny pulse of life under her fingers weaken, and the dying 
lips moved : 

" Mercy." 



19 1 1.] DEVIL'S MONEY 665 

That was all. Mercy for them both, the dying and the 
living. But as Andy Leary's ill-spent life flickered out, his 
hand lay in his enemy's clasp, and between them was the 
hand of the girl who had witnessed all, the confession and 
the promise of restitution, the entreaty and the fulfillment of 
forgiveness. 

The girl laid down her father's head and closed the eyes 
that were now dulled forever. She moved quietly to and fro, 
working mechanically, too dazed as yet to realize the truth 
of what she had heard, and all the while Shan McGarragher 
knelt on, motionless, at the dead man's side. He had come 
straight down from the mountain, fearful of a moment's delay 
lest at the last his courage should give way. Up in the 
potato field he had, at last, asked forgiveness for what he had 
done and the answer had been: "first go and be reconciled 
to your brother." And now, as the softening power of death 
had brought him so easily the forgiveness he had scarcely 
dared to hope for, he knelt there whilst the floodgates of bitter 
regret and unavailing remorse swept over him and took from 
him all power of thought or speech or movement. Then, at 
length, Ailes came to him. She spoke, but what she said con- 
veyed no meaning to his brain. She laid her hand upon his 
shoulder, and then, mechanically obeying her, he staggered to 
his feet. He had not paused before to think how this resti- 
tution could be made. He had not thought what it would be 
to live in poverty where he had been a rich man, to be 
known as a thief by all the neighbors, maybe and now a 
shudder of horror ran through him at the idea maybe to go 
to jail for robbery. 

"Shan," the girl's voice was soft, but so decided that he 
had to make the effort to listen to her words, "do you 
mind that I was in it whilst you told him all ? " 

Even yet he could not speak but his head moved in sign 
of assent. 

"You told him," went on Ailes, with a gesture towards 
the bed, "that I would have it all, the farm above, the 
beasts, the crops. Well, listen here. I wouldn't take one 
penny piece that'd tell the neighbors how how Johneen's 
father was a thief." 

Her voice sank low, but in her listener's ears it rang clear 



666 DEVIL'S MONEY 

and firm and her words smote him hard, and cut him like a 
knife. 

"No one knows this thing but only me an' you?" 
It was a question, and in silence again McGarragher an- 
swered " no." 

"Then let it be," went on the girl. " 'Twas twix you an* 
him it lay. Let it go where he has gone ; may the Lord have 
mercy on his poor soul." 

The man was stupid still, and stupidly he turned his eyes 
on Ailes. 

"I've got to give it back " he said in the tone of one who 
had learned a lesson. " I stole the money an* the missioner 
said" 

"Give it to Johneen then," whispered Ailes, and now her 
eyes fell and she looked away as she spoke. 

" To Johneen ? " McGarragher knew nothing of what there 
was between his son and the daughter of the man he had 
so deeply injured. 

" To Johneen and me," she said, and looking up he read 
the truth in the rich, red color that flooded her bent face, 
in the shy eyes that now looked for a moment in his own. 

"You and Johneen?" he faltered, scarcely daring to un- 
derstand aright. 

"Johneen and me," replied Ailes, and she saw that at 
last her meaning was made plain. 

"God of Mercy!" cried the man, and he staggered for- 
wards, stumbling so heavily that, strong and quick as Ailes 
was, she could not stop him before he fell. 

For eight-and -twenty years his life had been one long 
offence to God, only without ceasing his wife had prayed for 
him, and this was what he got in place of punishment. 

To Ailes it was horrible to see the anguish of the sobs 
that rent him as he lay, prone and helpless across the feet of 
the dead man whom he had wronged, but Shan himself 
knew that there was a sweetness even in the bitter spring 
of his anguish, and this touch of sweetness was a reflex ot the 
mercy of God. 




THE AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES: 
ITS VALIDITY IN STATE LAW. 

BY JAMES M. DOHAN, A.M., LL.B. 

|HE article in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for June, 
1911, by Mr. Charles O'Sullivan, on The Agree- 
ment Prior to Mixed Marriages: Is It Valid in 
Law? has attracted my attention; first, be- 
cause I was of counsel in the case of Brewer 
v. Gary the only American case noticed by Mr. O'Sullivan, 
and, secondly, because I do not and cannot agree with Mr. 
O'Sullivan's statement of the law. 

Mr. O'Sullivan's conclusions are startling. On page 349 
he says: "It is evident that the pre-nuptial agreement as 
now drawn is invalid." The only American case he cites to 
support such a broad statement is Brewer v. Cary, now re- 
ported in 148 Mo. App. 193, and decided in 1910. Without 
further exposition at this point, surely Mr. O'Sullivan is law- 
yer enough to know that the law of one State cannot be said 
to be the law of all the United States. 

Then, to Mr. O'Sullivan "occur" three ways in which may 
be made legally binding the ante-nuptial agreement wherein 
the non-Catholic party promises to bring up as Catholics the 
children of the marriage. But these three ways were merely 
"occurrences" to Mr. O'Sullivan, for he finally admits that 
there are fundamental legal objections to his suggestions. 

The subject is of such importance in this country that the 
writer may be pardoned for reviewing both the American and 
English decisions. The former have not been examined by 
Mr. O'Sullivan ; the latter have not been summarized by him. 

THE PRESENT SITUATION IN THB'. UNITED STATES. 

Beyond a doubt marriages between Catholics and non- 
Catholics should not be encouraged, if tolerated at all. How- 
ever, since they are at times bound to occur, the rights of the 
Catholic party, the Church, and the future children of the 
marriage, should be cared for. To accomplish all this, certain 



668 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

promises are required of the non-Catholic party. A formula 
in use in a neighboring diocese is given below: 

Formula which the clergy of this diocese must oblige the no*i- 
Catholic party in mixed marriages to subscribe to : 

"I, the undersigned, not a member of the Catholic Church, wish- 
ing to contract marriage with . . . . , a member of the Cath- 
olic Church, propose to do so with the full understanding that the 
marriage bond thus contracted is indissoluble, except by death; and 
I promise on my sacred word of honor that . . . shall be per- 
mitted the free exercise of religion according to the Catholic Faith, 
and that all children of either sex, born of this marriage shall be 
baptized and educated in the Catholic Faith and according to the 
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, even if ... should 
happen to be taken away by death. And, furthermore, I promise that 
no other marriage ceremony than that by a Catholic priest shall take 
place." 

(Blank spaces are left for the signature, the date and the signatures 
of two witnesses.) 

The objection to this formula is that it is unilateral, and 
that the consideration is implied. 

THE ENGLISH LAW ON THE RIGHT OF THE FATHER TO CONTROL 
THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF HIS CHILDREN. 

The following cases have not been cited by Mr. O'Sullivan : 
In Skinner v. Orde (R. 4. P.C. 60, 1871), it was held that 
the child of a Christian father must be brought up a Chris- 
tian, although the mother, the custodian of the child, was a 
Mahometan, and there had been no expression of the father's 
will in the matter, nor did he make any testamentary disposi- 
tion of the child. In Re Gyngall (62 L. J. Q. B. 559, 1893), the 
mother, the only surviving parent, had deserted her child, and 
was not subsequently allowed to regain control of her and 
change her religion from the Protestant to the Catholic faith. 
In Re Scanlan (57 L. J. Ch. 718, 1888), while the father at first 
allowed his children to be brought up Catholics, he changed 
his mind before his death, and the court respected his last 
wishes and allowed them to be brought up Protestants. In 
Re Newton (65 L, J. Ch. Div. 641, 1896), the father, a drunk- 
ard, allowed his daughters to be brought up Protestants. When 
they were, respectively, 15 and n years of age, he changed 
his mind and his behavior, but it was too late to have the 
court order a change in his children's religion. 

This whole subject is well treated in the latest English 






i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 669 

work on "Domestic Relations/' written by Eversley, the third 
edition of which was published in 1906, He says (Part II, 
chapter 2, page 547): 

But under special circumstances the courts have power to 
interfere with and control this parental right (the right to 
dictate the religion of the children). Where the parent, by 
his conduct, evidenced by his assent or non-dissent, has 
abandoned, forfeited or waived this right, whether in pur- 
suance of an agreement or not, and allowed the child to be 
reared in a faith not his own, the court will consider only the 
happiness and* benefit of the child, though it may not have 
imbibed so thoroughly the doctrines in which it has been 
raised up as to make it dangerous to change its religious 
training. So where the acts of a deceased Protestant father 
indicated that he had not only abandoned his right to have 
his child brought up in his own faith, but that he intended 
that it should be brought up in the Roman Catholic Faith, 
and the courtjwas of opinion that it would be most for the 
benefit of the child to be brought up in the latter faith, its 
education in it was continued. 

Re Clarke,(2i Ch. Div. 817, 1882), where there was an ante- 
nuptial agreement [in writing that the children should be 
brought up as Catholics: 

But where the parent has not abandoned or forfeited his 
rights, the court has no power to inquire whether the en- 
forcement^of his rights would or would not be for the happi- 
ness or benefit of his child. No definition can be framed 
of what is\a forfeiture or abandonment by the parent ; but it 
is a question\on which the court must pronounce from the facts 
Proved in evidence before it* 

In support of this statement, Eversley cites A gat- Ellis v. 
Lascelles, Re Meades, Andrews v. Salt, all discussed by Mr. 
O'Sullivan, and Re Garnett (20, W. R. 222), Hill v. Hill (31 
L. J. Ch. 505) and Re O'Malleys (8 Ir., Ch. Rep. 162). 
Our authority proceeds to say: 

An ante-nuptial agreement, by a father waiving his rights, 
which had been acted upon by him would, after his death, 
though not legally binding on him, be taken into consid- 
eration as affording evidence of such abandonment or waiver. 

* Italics are ours wherever found. 



670 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

At p. 547 of his work, Eversley thus summarizes this 
branch of his subject: 

If the father has abandoned or forfeited or waived his 
rights (whether in pursuance of an agreement or not), the 
court will consider only the happiness and benefit of the 
child, and order it to be continued to be educated in the reli- 
gion in which it had been brought up, and the child need not 
have imbibed so thoroughly the doctrines inculcated into it as to 
make it dangerous to change its religious training. 

To an American lawyer the whole line of English cases is 
based on (i) the fact that the Church of England is an estab- 
lished Church, and this leads to (2) a prejudice of the English 
judges in its favor. These judges went out of their way to 
make a Mahometan a Christian {Skinner v. Orde, supra) and 
to make a Catholic a Protestant in defiance of a written 
agreement based on a most solemn consideration, that of 
marriage, (Agar- Ellis v. Lascelles, supra). Indeed, in Re 
Clarke, supra, Kay, L.J., is honest enough to say that he 
wants to carry out the wishes of a father who allowed his 
son in pursuance of a written ante-nuptial agreement to 
be brought up a Catholic, " trying, of course, to divest my 
mind of the bias which it naturally has in favor of the bring- 
ing up of an English boy, who is to succeed to an English 
estate, inherited by him from his father's Protestant family, in 
the Protestant faith." 

THE LAW OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In the United States, where many legislatures and equally 
as many judges take widely varying views as to what the law 
ought to be or even is, the decisions are hopelessly in con- 
flict, as might well be expected. A thorough examination of 
these cases is not out of place, particularly because Mr. 
O'Sullivan is in error when he states that Brewer v. Cary is 
the only case wherein the agreement we have been discussing 
was passed on by an American Court of Appeal. 

In Janes v. Cleghorn (54 Ga. 9, 1875), it was the dying 
wish of the mother of an infant that the wife of the plaintiff 
in error should raise and educate it as her own child. This 
wish was acquiesced in by the father of the child. Upon the 
death of the mother the plaintiff in error and his wife were 
in possession of the child under this arrangement when the 



i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 671 

defendant in error induced the plaintiffs in error to allow the 
child to visit his relatives in an adjoining county, promising 
to return the child within ten days, Upon his failure to do 
so, the plaintiffs in error took out a writ of habeas corpus 
upon which the lower court awarded the custody of the child 
to its father. On appeal, the lower court was reversed, War- 
ner, C.J., holding that where parental authority over an infant 
child is released to another, such release is not revocable 
without some sufficient legal reason, " such as bad treatment, 
want of social standing and the like." This case and a long 
line of similar decisions, was followed in Lamar v. Harris 
(117 Ga. 993, 1903), wherein Washington released to Lamar 
and his wife (his parents-in-law), by a written agreement, all 
his parental power, custody and control over his minor son. 
The Supreme Court of the state held that in Georgia a father 
might release to another the right to the custody and control 
of his minor child. 

In the very recent case of Purinton v. Jamrock (195 
Mass. 187, 1907), the Supreme Court of Massachusetts laid 
down the principle that parents have no absolute right of 
property in their minor children of which they cannot be de- 
prived without their consent. This principle was enunciated 
some years ago by Mr. Justice Brewer, recently of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, in the case of Chapsky v. 
Wood (26 Kan. 650, 1881), in a strong and sympathetic opinion. 

As early as 1830, there is a decision in point in New 
England. The case is that of State v. Smith (6 Me. 462), 
where a husband and wife, having separated, pursuant to ar- 
ticles previously entered into, in which he had stipulated that 
in the event of such separation the children should remain 
with her; the court, per Parris, J., on writ of habeas corpus 
sued out at his request, ordered the children into the custody 
of the mother, giving specific effect to the articles of separa- 
tion. And the court said further that the J at her had no vested 
right, in any case, to the exclusive custody of his children. 

In Fletcher v. Hickman (50, W. Va. 244, 1901), the court 
held that where the father has committed the custody of his 
infant child (even) by verbal agreement to another person to be 
maintained and cared for, which agreement has been acted 
upon by such other person, such agreement will bind the 
parent and prevent his reclaiming the custody of the child 



672 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

unless he can show that a change of custody will plainly 
promote the child's welfare, moral or physical. 

In Clark v. Bayer (32 Ohio State 299, 1877), Ashburn, 
J., laid down the general principle that "a father's right" to 
the custody of his minor children "is not absolute under all 
circumstances. He may relinquish it by contract, forfeit it by 
abandonment, or lose it by being in a condition of total in- 
ability to afford his minor children necessary care and sup- 
port." 

In Ward v. Goodrich (34 Col. 369, 1905), a contract be- 
tween a man and his wife for the support of a child in the 
wife's custody during the pendency of divorce proceedings, 
was declared legal and binding. This seems to be a case of 
first impression, not only in Colorado, but also in the United 
States. 

In 1898 Judge Jones, in deciding the case of Anderson v. 
Young t (54 So. Car. 388,) held that the custody of a minor by 
a fair agreement with the parent, not prejudicial to the wel- 
fare of the minor, is not unlawful, or against public policy, 
and is not such illegal restraint as a court must relieve at the 
will or caprice of the parent. 

In State v. Barrett (45 N. H. 15, 1863), it was held that 
a father may by deed part with his parental rights to the 
custody and services of his infant child. In this case Justice 
Bellows is careful to point out that by such a deed the father 
may bind himself, although if the instrument (e. g. t of appren- 
ticeship) does not conform to the statute he may not bind 
his child. On this ground many of the cases which do not 
uphold the validity of the agreement we are discussing, par- 
ticularly the New Jersey cases, may be distinguished. 

We have seen thus far that an ante-nuptial agreement be- 
tween the parties to a promised marriage with regard to the 
control of the custody and religious education of future off- 
spring are legally valid and binding, and may be specifically 
enforced in Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maine, New 
Hampshire, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia. 
Other states whose decisions favor the validity of such agree- 
ments are Delaware, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Wisconsin. Many of these decisions I have not cited, because 
though of record, they were not rendered by courts of last 
resort. 



i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 673 

The courts in the following states have decided against the 
legality of such an agreement: Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, In- 
diana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North 
Carolina, Texas, and Washington. 

States where the question has arisen, but where the deci- 
sions are not in harmony, are Iowa, Rhode Island, and Mis- 
souri, despite the case of Brewer v. Cary. 

It is admitted that most of the Western states are against 
the writer's contention that these agreements are valid at law, 
while most of the Eastern states are in our favor. On the 
whole, however, I am of opinion that we are favored by the 
majority of the American authorities, and particularly by the 
decisions of those courts which have the greatest weight with 
the bench and bar of other states. The cases just outlined 
are squarely in our favor, while the cases against us may be 
distinguished as by Justice Bellows, in State v. Barrett, supra, 
or on the ground that they were decided on their own particu- 
lar state of facts. Moreover, the cases involving an agreement, 
whether verbal, as in Fletcher v. Hickman, or written, as in 
State v. Smith and Ward v. Goodrich, between the parents 
themselves, are certainly in our favor. 

THE CASE OF BREWER V. GARY. 

Mr. O'Suilivan has well outlined the facts and the decision 
in this case. But he has underestimated its importance, though 
not the attention it attracted. I had the honor and pleasure 
to be associated with the complainant, an eminent member of 
the St. Louis bar, and on first examination, found five Mis- 
souri cases in point, of which Weir v. Manley (99 Mo. 484 
1889), and in Re Blackburn (41 Mo. App. 622 1890), were 
against us; those in favor of our contention beirg in Re 
Doyle (16 Mo. App. 159 1884), and in Re Clements (78 Mo. 
352 1883). For the lay reader I will explain that Mo. App. 
reports are those of the intermediate courts of appeal in St. 
Louis and Kansas City; and Mo. the reports of the decisions 
of the Supreme Court of the State. 

But the best case of the five was in our favor. It will re- 
pay examination for a moment. In Nowack v. Berger (133 
Mo. 24 1896), the defendant made an oral ante-nuptial agree- 
ment with his intended wife that, in consideration of their fu- 
ture marriage and his having charge of their (illegitimate) 
infant son, the plaintiff, during his minority, he would in his 
VOL. xcm. 43 



674 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

will devise to this son and any children of their marriage in 
equal shares. The marriage was consummated, and the husband 
took control of the boy. Three children were born of the 
marriage. The husband died, making no provision for the 
plaintiff, who thereupon brought this action for a specific en- 
forcement of the contract. The court held that marriage was 
a sufficient part performance of the contract to render it en- 
forceable in equity. Commenting on this decision, which at- 
tracted much attention at the time, The Harvard Law Review 
(Vol. X., p. 61), under date of April 25, 1896, said: 

The court might have found other grounds on which to 
rest their decision, but they base it squarely on the sufficiency 
ot the marriage. This is contra to the entire weight of au- 
thority, the opposite doctrine prevailing, though much regret 
is expressed that it should be law. See Ungley v. Ungley 
(I,. R. 4 Ch. D. 73) ; Browne on The Statute of Frauds (4th 
Edition), No. 459. This case is one of first impression in 
Missouri, and a step in the right direction. 

It has since been followed elsewhere, as we have shown. 

What binding effect, therefore, can a decision have which 
is directly opposed to judicial decisions, correct in principle, 
not only to decisions of a supreme appellate court of its own 
state, but also to prior decisions of the same appellate court ? 
The decision is also in conflict with the Bill of Rights of the 
Constitution of Missouri, for Section 6, Bill of Rights, Constitu- 
tion of Missouri (R.S. '99, Vol. I., p. 63), specifically states that : 

No person can be compelled to erect, support, or attend 
any place or system of worship, or to maintain any priest, 
preacher, or teacher of any sect, church, creed, or denomina- 
tion of religion, but if any person shall voluntarily make a 
contract for any such object , he shall be held to the performance 
of the same. 

As a point of information, I might close this section by 
saying that the father of the children is now dead, and Mr. 
Brewer has the custody of his grandchildren and controls their 
religious education. 

SUMMARY. 

i. "The foundation of a republic is the virtue of its citizens." 

Mr. Justice Grier, of the Supreme Court of the United 

States, speaking for that great Court in Marshall v. B. & O. 

R. R, Co. t (16 How. 314,) uttered the above sentence, and then 

went on to say: "They are at once its sovereigns and its 



IQII.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 675 

subjects. As the foundation is undermined the structure is 
weakened. When it is destroyed Jthe fabric must fall. Such 
is the voice of universal history." As was well said by Mr. 
Gardner, arguing for the complainant in the Brewer case: 

Into the rationale of juridical construction must the webs 
of moral advancement be woven, and, in an age of such evi- 
dences of moral decay, must this be emphasized by every 
court upon every occasion where the opportunity presents it- 
self, and particularly so where the moral welfare of children 
is concerned, who are to become the future sovereigns of a 
nation which stands in the position towards the nations of 
the world and the world's future as does the United States. 
A government and its agencies, flagitiously disregarding 
moral laws, and a sound sense of natural right and justice, 
soon perishes from the earth. 

(See Oakley v. Davies (58 Tex. 141); Windsor v. McVeigh (93 U. 
S. 274); People v. Ruggles($> John. 290), a decision by Chancellor 
Kent.) 

In the case of the Holy Trinity Church v. United States 
(143 U. S. 457), Mr. Justice Brewer, showing "from the first 
voyage of Columbus to the present hour that this is a religious 
people," says : " there is a single voice making this affirma- 
tion. The commission to Christopher Columbus, prior to his 
sail westward, is from Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace 
of God King and Queen of Castile," etc.; and recites that "it 
is hoped that by God's assistance some of the continents and 
islands in the ocean will be discovered," etc. The Declaration 
of Independence recognizes the presence of the Divine Ruler 
in human affairs. . . . Every constitution of every one of 
the (then) forty-four states contains language which either di- 
rectly or by clear implication recognizes a profound reverence 
for religion, and an assumption that its influence on human 
affairs is essential for the well-being of the community. . 
If we pass beyond these matters to view American life as ex- 
pressed by its laws, its business, its customs and its society, 
we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. 
Among other matters note the following : 

The form of oath universally prevailing concluding with an 
appeal to the Almighty ; the custom of opening sessions of 
all deliberate bodies and most conventions with prayer ; the 
prefatory words of all wills, " In the name of God, Amen ; " 
the laws respecting the observance of the Sabbath with a 



676 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

general cessation of all secular business, and the closing of 
courts, legislatures and other similar public assemblies on 
that day ; churches and church organizations which abound 
in every city, town and hamlet ; the multitude of charitable 
organizations existing everywhere under Christian auspices ; 
the gigantic missionary associations, with general support, and 
aiming to establish Christian Missions in every quarter oi the 
globe ; these and many other matters which might be no- 
ticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of 
organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. 

We are all familiar with the stately phrases of Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address. Not less well-known should be the 
speech of Erskine for the prosecution of Williams for blas- 
phemy in publishing Payne's Age of Reason, The circumstance 
of Paine's having written largely upon public liberty and gov- 
ernment, he says: 

renders a public attack upon all revealed religion from such 
a writer infinitely more dangerous. The religious and moral 
sense of the people of Great Britain is the great anchor which 
alone can hold the vessel of the State amidst the storins which 
agitate the world. 

These words have their application to our great common- 
wealth, and are a fitting answer to Mr. O'Sullivan's statement 
that ours is a godless government. Our national morality is 
founded on religion, and rash, indeed, is the court which fails 
to give effect to a contract entered into for a religious pur- 
pose or object. 

2. " Marriage is the highest consideration known to the 
law, either to raise a use, found a contract, gift or grant." 

On all hands it stands confessed that marriage is a valu- 
able consideration," says Lord Coke, the great English Com- 
mon-Law Judge and commentator, at page 96 of his notes 
on Littleton. Old English cases to the same effect are Holder 
v. Dickson, Fellman, 96; Smith v. Stafford (Hob. 2i6a); Waters 
v. Howard (8 Gil., 262. See also 4 Kent's Commentaries 465). 

In the case oi Hammers ley v. Baron de Biel (12 Cl. & Fin. 
45, at pp. 78 and 79), Lord Cottenham, L.C, very ably pre- 
sented the equitable grouad in the following language : 

The principle of law, at least of equity, is this that if a 
party holds out inducements to another to celebrate a mar- 
riage, and holds them out deliberately and plainly, and the 
other party consents and celebrates the marriage in conse- 



i9i i.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 677 

quence of them, if he had good reason to expect that it was 
intended that he should have the benefit of the proposal which 
was so held out, a court of equity will take care that he is not 
disappointed, and will give effect to the proposal. 

" Equity will not suffer the intention of the parties to be 
defeated by the very act which is to give effect to the con- 
tract"* 

In Nowack v. Berger, a Missouri case cited above, and for 
some unknown reason disregarded by a lower court in Brewer 
v. Cary, Judge Sherwood cogently says: 

Now it would seem that marriage being such a valuable 
consideration, its celebration in conformity to a previous parole 
promise made, placing especially, as it does, the female con- 
tracting party in a situation where she cannot be restored to 
her former condition, ought to be regarded as such a heinous 
fraud upon her, if such promise be not performed, as a court 
of conscience should not tolerate but acting upon principle 
rather than precedent, should decree the complete enforcement 
of such an agreement, notwithstanding the statute (of frauds). 
. . . Indeed, more cogent reasons appear to exist in favor 
of disregarding the statute in instances like the present, than 
in ordinary cases. This view of the matter is entertained by 
the learned author heretofore cited (Browne on the Statute of 
Frauds , Sec. 459). Instances are by no means infrequent 
where contracts between husband and wife entered into before 
marriage will be enforced in equity, although they should be 
avoided in law.t 

The recent case of State ex reL Harrison v. Osborne (42 
N.E. Rep. Indiana 921, 1896), shows that contracts between 
husband and wife, entered into before marriage, and on the 
strength of the promise of marriage, will be enforced, although 
such enforcement may be subversive of the rights of innocent 
third parties. In that case the defendant, before bis marriage, 
and in consideration thereof, in pursuance of an oral agree- 
ment, conveyed his real estate to a third party, in trust to 
reconvey it to himself and his wife after marriage, this being 
done by him to defraud his creditors, but the wife being in- 
nocent. This action was brought by a creditor to have the 
conveyance set aside. It was held that marriage was a suffi- 
cient consideration to support the grant. However undesir- 
able it may seem, it is undoubtedly law that marriage is a 

* 2 Story's Equity Jurisprudence (Sec. 1370) and the cases there cited. f Ibid. 



678 AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES [Aug., 

valuable consideration and will support an ante-nuptial grant 
to the woman, even if made to defraud creditors (i Bishop's 
Law of Married Women $ 780-782 and cases there cited). 

3. An ante-nuptial agreement, wherein the non-Catholic 
party to a promised marriage, agrees, in consideration of that 
promise of marriage, that the future children of the union will 
be brought up in the Catholic religion, will be enforced in the 
majority of our State Courts. 

This agreement need not be in writing, but parties who are 
careful in such matters will advise a written agreement, for it 
is t better evidence in a court of law. The decree of the 
Church with regard to reducing to writing the engagement to 
marry should also be strictly observed. 

The Church decrees that every pre-nuptial contract is 
void unless it is written and duly dated and attested.* In case 
a Catholic wishes to become formally engaged to a non- Cath- 
olic (baptized or non - baptized) a dispensation mixtae religionis 
or disparitatis cultus must be obtained before the engagement 
contract can be validly signed, f 

As to mixed marriages generally they are (a) reprobated 
in the Old Testament (Gen. xxiv-2-4; Deut. vii-s). 

(b) They are reprobated in the New Testament (I Cor. 
vii-39 ; II- Cor. vi-i4-i8). 

(c) They are reprobated by the Fathers and the Ancient 
Councils of the Church. | The Council of Verona forbade 
them, and excommunicated for five years the parents who 
permitted their children to contract them. The Council of 
Aries, the Third Council of Carthage, and the First General 
Council of Chalcedon excommunicated the Catholics who mar- 
ried non-Catholics. The Council of Toledo, in 634 made mar- 
riages of Catholics with unbelievers null and void. From the 
Council of Laodicea, A.D. 372, to the Council of Bordeaux, 
A.D. 1583, animadversions have been passed on mixed mar- 
riages. 

(d) They have been reprobated by such popes as Clement 
XI., Benedict XIV., Pius VI., in 1782, Pius VII., in 1813, Pius 
VIII., in 1830, Gregory XVI., in 1832, 1834, and three times 
in letters to various bishops in 1841, and Pius IX., in 1858. 

(e) They are reprobated to-day by the Church, because 

* Ecclesiastical Review Year Book, 1911, page 145. flbid, p. 146. 

\ We refer the reader to the writings of Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, 
St. Ambrose, and St. Zeno of Verona. 

See on this subject Hefele, History of the Councils. Vol. I., p. 144. 



191 1.] AGREEMENT PRIOR TO MIXED MARRIAGES 679 

they are undoubtedly contrary to the essence of Christian mar- 
riage. (Council of Trent, Sess. 24, can. i; Second Plenary 
Council of Baltimore; Third Plenary Council of Baltimore 
(1884), Titulus IV De Sacramentis and No. 133 ; Pastoral 
of the Fathers of the Third Plenary Council oj Baltimore; 
Pastoral Letter of Rt. Rev. Francis Silas Chatard, D.D., Bishop 
of Vincennes, 1880; Sermon of the Rt. Rev. M. J. O'FarrelJ, 
D,D., Bishop of Trenton, delivered at the Third Plenary Coun- 
cil of Baltimore ; Pastoral Letter on " Christian Marriage," by 
Rt. Rev. James A. McFaul, D.D., Bishop of Trenton, circa 
1906; "The Church and the Marriage Tie," by James Cardi- 
nal Gibbons ; " Marriage and Divorce/' by the same, The Sun- 
day Magazine for June 23, 1907 ; Pastoral Letter of the Bishops 
of the Cincinnati Province, Lent, 1908). (On the subject gen- 
erally, see " The Sacred Scriptures on Mixed Marriages," by 
Very Rev. Peter Meagher, P.P., Singleton, New South Wales, 
Australia, in The Ecclesiastical Review for October, 1910, Vol. 
XLIII., p. 385 ; and by the same author, " St. Paul on Mixed 
Marriages," in the same review for November and December* 
1910, Vol. XLIII., p. 669, etc., these three articles have now 
been published in pamphlet form, by the Dolphin Press, Phila- 
delphia). (See also " A Manual of Law Specially Affecting 
Catholics," by W. S. Lilly and J. P. Wallis.) 

I may fittingly conclude with a brief statement made by 
Mr. Brewer in a recent communication to The Western Watch- 
man: 

The (ante-nuptial) agreement (which we have outlined 
above) is valid in law, because : 

(a) The object and purpose of such an agreement is to 
promote the welfare and happiness of the parties thereto, and 
their offspring ; 

(b) The agreement is in perfect harmony with the Federal 
and State Constitutions ; 

(c) The agreement, when made by competent parties, has 
for its support the best possible^ consideration, if marriage 
thereunder be consummated ; 

(d) Public policy upholds such an agreement, under our 
system of government, under our organic law ; 

(e) Our public policy denounces deceit and fraud, and the 
wiliul breach and violation of such an agreement is a per- 
petration of the most heinous fraud, which equity cannot 
tolerate. 



Iftew Books* 

LEAVES FROM MY DIARY. By Rt. Rev. Abbot Gasquet, 
O.S.B. St. Louis: B. Herder. 75 cents. 

We are, indeed, glad that Rev. T. A. Lacey published lately 
his very false and inaccurate account of what happened in 
Rome, some fourteen years ago during the sittings of the 
Commission on Anglican Orders. It proved to every un- 
biased reader how impossible it was for an Anglican contro- 
versialist to write impartial history. It has, because of its 
many misleading statements and what its author himself 
styles its " unpleasant indications of ignorance " forced two 
scholarly members of the Papal Commission, Canon Moyes 
and the Abbot Gasquet, to give us the facts at first hand, in- 
stead of relating the gossip, the guesses, and the unjust sus- 
picions of outsiders. 

The Abbot Gasquet's little brochure is even more valuable 
than the careful articles of Canon Moyes that appeared in 
the London Tablet some months ago, for, it is made up of ex- 
tracts from his diary, kept with no idea of publication during 
the period of 1894 to 1896. He tells us himself: "The en- 
tries in my diaries were obviously written without the least 
idea of their ever being made public, and since 1896 they 
have been locked away and not even read since they were 
written, until, in view of Mr. Lacey's Diary, I brought them 
out and examined them " (p. i). 

We learned from Mr. Lacey's book, that some members of 
the papal commission were constantly breaking their promise 
of secrecy, and from Canon Moyes that frequently this in- 
formation was misconstrued or garbled by zealous and preju- 
diced Anglican partisans. The Abbot Gasquet confirms both 
facts. For example, when Mr. Lacey asserted "that the pro- 
ceedings of the commission were private, but that their friends 
had asked and obtained permission to show them all docu- 
ments and to talk over the discussions with them," the Abbot 
was assured at the Vatican on the highest authority "that no 
permission had been asked and no leave granted to break the 
Secretum Pontificium^ (pp. 60, 61). 

That the Barlow case occupied but little time in the dis- 
cussions is also clear. In fact only two hours were spent dis- 
cussing it on April 21, and less than one hour on April 25. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 681 

Instead of being "all about Barlow" as Mr. Lacey pretended, 
the members of the Commission regarded even this brief dis- 
cussion as useless, and possessing a mere academic interest 
(p. 58). 

One thing is very clearly brought out by the Abbot. 
Pope Leo XIII. had been utterly misled by the Abbe Portal 
and others with regard to the hope of reunion of England 
with the Holy See. " The Holy Father did not seem to have 
any idea of the difference between Ritualists and others, or 
indeed any real knowledge of the actual state of religious 
feeling in England" (p. 8). 

Cardinal Vaughan made it very clear to him as did later 
the Abbot Gasquet that there was no likelihood whatever 
of the English people coming over to Rome en masse, as some 
enthusiastic Frenchmen had told him. In fact the vast ma- 
jority in England were thoroughly Protestant in every sense. 
The Pope was surprised to learn that certain zealots had 
drafted a letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 
and had sent it to various people to know whether such a 
letter would meet with their approval */ wiitten by the Pope 1 

The Abbot speaks of the difficulty he had in obtaining 
access to the archives of the Holy Office : 

I had for weeks been waiting to get access to the papers of 
the Holy Office, for which I had obtained his (Pope L,eo's) 
permission. For one reason or another I had been constantly 
put off, and, somewhat losing patience, I had written to the 
Vatican to know whether the Pope wanted me to see the 
papers or not. The reply came in the form of an order to 
come to see the Pope. He had himself, on reading my letter, 
sent for the papers, etc. (p. 33). 

This incident also tells us how lightly some scholarly 
ecclesiastics view their office as papal consultors. For while 
the Abbot was for weeks trying to consult the necessary 
documents in the archives of the Holy Office to prepare a 
careful opinion on the subject, others had sent in their opin- 
ions to the Pope without even attempting to consult them. 
" I cannot say," said the Abbot in answer to the Pope's in- 
quiry, " how others can give any opinion of value without 
knowing the facts, but I can't." The Holy Father answered: 
''Bravo! that is quite proper" (p. 34). 

This little book is well worth reading, for ,it is calm, ob- 



682 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

jective, and utterly devoid of the trivial gossip and tendencies 
of bad temper that disgrace the pages of the Anglican diar- 
ist of the same Commission. 

THE THIRTEENTH, THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES. By 
James J. Walsh, M.D. New York: Catholic Summer 
School Press. $3.50. 

Additional interest is given to this, the third edition of 
Dr. Walsh's book by the insertion of many valuable illustra- 
tions. The author sets out to prove that of all the centuries, 
even including our own nineteenth and twentieth, the thir- 
teenth has proved to be the greatest. In it arose those uni- 
versities which, in after ages were to become so renowned 
throughout the world. Preparatory schools, law and medical 
schools came into existence under the fostering care of Popes, 
bishops, and the clergy in general. These recognized the 
value of learning, and instead of doing what the ultra- Protes- 
tants of our day imagine suppressing all attempts at enlight- 
ening the people, they were continually acting in just the op- 
posite manner by issuing decrees for the establishment of, 
centres of education. That there was a response on the part 
of parents by sending their children to these schools is shown 
by the large numbers in attendance. Thus at Bologna there 
were between fifteen and twenty thousand students, some thirty 
thousand at Oxford, more at Paris than at any time in the 
nineteenth century, and about five thousand at Cambridge. 
They came from all lands, and studied medicine, law, philoso- 
phy, theology, languages, and science. 

In the thirteenth century also arose those miracles of 
architecture, the cathedrals of Europe with their wondrous 
work in earring, statuary, and stained glass. Then arose also 
the art of such men as Giotto, Cimabue, Gaddi, Guido, Ugolino, 
Segna, Duccio and Berlinghieri. Then there were libraries to 
spread learning among the people. Even that form of library 
which is looked upon as peculiar to late years, the circulating 
library, was by no means unknown in the thirteenth century. 
Many valuable collections of books were made by bishops and 
abbots, and the lower clergy. Louis IX. gave the example to 
the laity, but the knightly classes seem to have had a mild 
contempt for all kinds of book-learning. 

The thirteenth was also the age of the great romances, of 
the Meistersingers, Minnesingers, Trouveres, Troubadours; of 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 683 

those Latin hymns which arouse the admiration of men to- 
day, the Dies Irae t Stabat Mater, and those of St. Thomas ; of 
the chroniclers Jocelyn, Joinville, Matthew of Paris, and Vin- 
cent of Beauvais; of such saints as Francis of Assisi, Thomas 
Aquinas, Louis IX., Clare, Elizabeth of Hungary ; of Innocent 
III; of Dante; then were founded hospitals under Innocent 
III., whose Santo Spirito of the Borgo became the model of 
all European hospitals. Magna Charta was signed, and courts 
of justice (in our modern sense) began to flourish. 

We must again express our gratitude to the author for this 
work, which, besides being well done will prove of consider- 
able value to Catholicism. Only on one point would we feel 
like taking issue with Dr. Walsh, where (p. 138) he praises 
in unqualified terms a series of French art manuals. There 
is certainly one volume in that series which is anything but 
perfect notwithstanding that it was couronnee, 

We have noticed some misprints; a bad one in the Stabat 
Mater (p. 200), one on page 380, " that its business meetings," 
and a few minor ones, including "Boniface VII " in the index, 
which could have been made more perfect for such an impor- 
tant book. 

THE WEST IN THE EAST. FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF 
VIEW. By Price Collier. New York : Charles Scribner's 
Sons. $1.50. 

There is a great deal of truth in Edward Candler's con- 
tention, quoted by Mr. Collier, that the best books on foreign 
countries have been written by travelers, "by people who 
pass through seeing everything with a fresh eye." The first 
coup a" ceil generally gives the salient feature which more 
laborious investigation subsequently obscures. And in gen- 
eral it may be said that Mr. Collier's own book on Eastern 
life bears out the theory. It is written, for the most part, with 
that instinct for the essential which belongs to the assimila- 
tive mind. A traveler, sketching an outline, as he does, has 
no business to be trivial or irrelevant, and Mr. Collier is 
never trivial or irrelevant. The secret of his penetration con- 
sists in his ability to dispense with the fixed standard which 
most representatives of the West carry into the East with 
them. 

"The almost universal belief in the West," he writes, 
" that we are admired, envied, and looked upon as superior 



684 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

by the East, and that our type of civilization is the goal to- 
wards which the East is striving, is not only ludicrously false, 
but is at the bottom of our misunderstanding of the whole 
situation." The traveler who has realized that, and who can 
go on to say that " no Indian prince, no Chinese mandarin, 
no Korean courtier, no Japanese noble envies, admires, or 
looks upon us individually or nationally as superior," and 
that, "as for the masses of the people, their attitude is a 
mixture of dislike and contempt," is in a position to see his 
subject as it is and to deal with it justly. 

And on the whole, Mr. Collier does this nothing is more 
desirable, tor instance, than his chapters on China and Japan 
and his appreciation of the weight of character of the former 
people and the imitative dexterity of the latter but his gift 
is not infallible and there is one serious exception. The 
chapters on India are disappointing. On page 366 a group is 
imaged of a European administrator and his wife, fine types 
of their race, " and not far away an Indian faker naked, 
painted, covered with dust and vermin, illustrating the dis- 
orderliness of fanatical ignorance*" 

Ttie passage, perhaps, has a descriptive accuracy, but it is, 
we think, quite certain that no man who had ever really sym- 
pathized with, and understood the spiritual attitude and aspir- 
ations of India, would possibly have written it. Nor does it 
appear from Mr. Collier's treatment of the subject that he ever 
has appreciated this side of it. He has something to say 
about Indian religions. But India has no religion. She has 
a philosophy, the daring thought at the root of which is and 
always has been that the atman, or soul, or spiritual con- 
sciousness in a man is the one and only source of all knowl- 
edge or possible apprehension of the truth. There is nothing 
religious in the idea at all. It deals not with what a man be- 
lieves, but with his power of believing. It is directed simply 
to developing and nourishing the spiritual faculty, a faculty 
which takes cognizance of spiritual affairs and enables human 
nature to respond to spiritual suggestions. Hence, in all great 
ages of faith, and more especially during the first centuries of 
our own era, the admixture in the West of Eastern thought 
and sentiment is the obviously indispensible factor, and even to 
this day the escape from the finite intellectualism of the West 
still lies in the acceptance of the Eastern idea of the soul as 
the " Knower." 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 685 

The subject is too large to enter on here, but not to have 
entered on it is a grave flaw in Mr. Collier's book. For this 
is that famed Wisdom of the East by the side of which all 
Western knowledge fades into unreality. This or nothing 
the traveler must return with, for this is the only thought that 
India has ever had. 

THE LADIES' BATTLE. By Molly Elliot Seawell. New York : 
The MacMillan Company. $i. 

Miss Seawell writes as a strong opponent of woman suf- 
frage. Her own words are : " I believe woman suffrage to be 
an unmixed evil." 

She treats of the question of woman suffrage in the United 
States; its phase in England being merely introduced to empha- 
size some of the statements which the author makes. She 
claims that in the suffrage states of the Union matters are in 
a worse condition than in the non- suffrage states; that woman 
suffrage and socialism go hand in hand; that divorce increases 
in direct ratio to the success of the suffrage movement; that 
race-suicide, polygamy and suicide have been openly promul- 
gated by suffragettes from the platform. She claims further 
that in the suffrage states women have suffered a curtailment 
of privileges instead of increasing their exceptional favors. 

It will be seen that Miss Seawell uses strong language and 
makes rather drastic charges. The book will undoubtedly 
arouse much discussion. One sentence, the last one on page 
34, grates on our Catholic ear, and we sincerely hope it will 
be dropped from any future edition. 

THE TOLL OF THE ARCTIC SEAS. By Deltus M. Edwards. 
New York: Henry Holt & Co. $2.50. 

Here we have an interesting, if somewhat rapid history of 
the attempts made to reach the North Pole. In eighteen 
chapters the various expeditions are described in a pleasant 
and popular style. According to the author, the first expedi- 
tion was that of Pytheas of Marseilles who set out in 330 
B. C. to fathom the mysteries of the unknown north. Then 
came the Vikings, and quickly in turn the several nations of 
Europe entered in the lists. What may be termed the first 
important expedition was that of William Barents, of Amster- 
dam, who sailed in 1594, and reached Orange Island, the most 



686 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

northerly point of Nova Zembla. After a safe return, another 
expedition was fitted out in 1596 with Barents as pilot but 
actually, as it turned out, as navigator of one of the ships. 
Spitzbergen was now discovered, and Barents sailing again 
around Orange Island was caught in the ice, and had to put 
up in winter quarters. After enduring great hardships he died, 
trying to reach southern lands. From that time until 1871 no 
other white man ever set foot on Nova Zembla. 

The expeditions of Hudson, Bering, Franklin, Kane, Hall, 
Nordenskiold, De Long, Greely, Nansen, Andree, Sverdrup, the 
Duke of the Abruzzi, Amundsen, Erichsen, and Peary are 
treated of in separate chapters. And in another chapter de- 
voted to several voyagers such as Cartier, Sir Humphrey Gil- 
bert, Davis; Mayen, Baffin, Knight, Hearne, Ross, Parry and 
many others the history is completed. 

The stories told in the book are full of interest, and in 
places are not devoid of excitement. That of Peary's recent 
expedition is perhaps the least successful, but the reasons for 
this are obvious. We note that the author accepts at its face 
value Peary's account of reaching the Pole with the negro 
Henson. Both for its interest and usefulness we commend the 
book, for here are gathered together the histories of man's 
endeavor to overcome the obstacles nature has placed in his 
path towards the north. To read of the heroic endurance of 
great privations which the explorers had to undergo will act 
as an antidote to the increasing love of ease and pleasure in 
our every-day life. The toll of the Arctic has not ended yet; 
lives will still be given to learn all the secrets contained in 
those regions. 

The volume is enriched with illustrations, a useful map, 
and a passable index, and is well worth the price asked by 
the publishers who have done their part well. 

THE PASSING OF THE AMERICAN. By Monroe Royce. New 
York: Thos. Whittaker. $1.20. 

In a happy, free and easy style, the author sets himself 
the task of saving the native American (by whom he means 
the New Englander) from total extermination. The task is 
great, but he faces it smilingly. His attention was first at- 
tracted to this awful national danger by a circular written in 
Italian and distributed in New York during the Protestant 



I9H-] NEW BOOKS 687 

Episcopal Church Convention of 1910, The object of the cir- 
cular was to draw some of the poor benighted Italian immi- 
grants into the light of Protestanism. This luminous docu- 
ment stated that there were about nine hundred thousand 
Italians in Greater New York. This figure with the statistics 
of other foreign immigrants caused Mr. Royce to become 
greatly alarmed : "For it is perfectly plain that if one- half of 
these non- American peoples should get together and agree as 
touching any matter whatsoever, they could easily accomplish 
their purpose." To prevent such an indescribable calamity 
this book was written. 

It must be remembered, first of all, that the author is 
an Episcopal clergyman, and that he spent twelve years in 
Europe. What, then, is more natural than that he should 
compare European countries with his own which he is trying 
to snatch from the burning ? In thirteen chapters he covers 
considerable ground. Beginning by denouncing the American 
as a Jack-of-all trades he ends by condemning immigration. 
Throughout, he is by no means complimentary to the Ameri- 
can ; neither does he travel very far in his jeremiad before he 
loses sight of his salutary object, and proceeds to deal roughly 
with the nation in general. 

A few of his dicta will show both his style and forceful 
manner. " We (Americans) are the stupidest nation on the 
face of the globe." " We are actually a nation without man- 
ners." " Is there anything in the shape of a humbug or a 
fraud that we as a nation will not eagerly swallow?" "Our 
inefficient business methods are at the bottom of all our econ- 
omic troubles, and reckless extravagance is the chief source of 
our inefficiency." "The American wife is a luxury that only 
a rich man can afford." "The prayer of the New England 
deacon 'O Lord, if you will keep our Pastor humble, we 
will keep him poor' is the spirit which prevails throughout 
the (Protestant) churches." " Go into the United States Senate 
and House of Representatives, and have a look at our national 
legislators, and you will not, I think, be overcome by the 
marks of greatness written upon their faces." "The football 
of the American college and the duel of the German university 
about balance each other in brutality." 

Thus he forges on slashing right and left, but at the end 
he has not pulled back the poor Yankee from the abyss. 



688 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

THE LIFE OF BLESSED JOHN RUYSBROECK. By Dom Vin- 
cent Scully, C.R.L. London : Thomas Baker. 75 cents. 

SERMONS AND LECTURES. By Monsignor Grosch. London: 
Thomas Baker. $1.10. 

The Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) was ordained 
priest in 1317 and became vicar of St. Gudule, Brussels. For 
twenty-six years he continued as a secular priest, and steadily 
advanced in the way of holiness. In 1343 he withdrew with 
a few companions to Groenendael, and, their little community 
increasing in numbers and sanctity, they were constituted as 
Canons Regular in 1349. He soon acquired a more than local 
reputation, and many distinguished penitents came to him 
for direction, among them, it is said, John Tauler. Gerard 
Groote, the founder of the Devout Brothers and Sisters of the 
Common Life, also came under his direct influence. Ruys- 
broeck made it his chief study "to meditate upon the life of 
Jesus Christ." " Let the fountain head of thy study and thy 
mirror of life be first the Gospel of Christ, for there is the 
life of Christ." He held that the Scriptures should be read 
rather than the Fathers, and the New Testament more than 
the Old. Attempts have been made to name the saint as one 
of the precursors of the Reformation, but when we remember 
his devotion to authority, his entirely orthodox views on the 
subject of grace and the sacraments, his great devotion to 
the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady we can easily refute 
the calumny. Dom Scully gives a list of sixteen treatises 
which can be attributed to Blessed John Ruysbroeck and a 
short description is given of each. There follows an excel- 
lently simple chapter on his teaching. Ruysbroeck held that 
"the soul finds God in its own depths," and notes three 
stages in the progress towards perfection. Many learned and 
holy men have been a little alarmed at what they suspected 
to be a pantheistic tendency in his writings, but he has been 
successfully vindicated on this head. 

The Sermons and Lectures of Monsignor Grosch are sound, 
clear and solid, but they seem to lack attractiveness. The 
method, adopted by some Catholic preachers, of treating 
their brethren outside the fold too harshly, didactically and 
dogmatically and with far too little sympathy and under- 
standing, is evident in these sermons. Another point against 
them is their rhetorical exaggeration. If the world is so at- 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 689 

tractive, the Church in all her winsomeness should be set 
over against it. Man is made for beauty as well as for truth, 
but the feet of those that carry the holy message are often 
hard and crushing in their tread. 

THE CHILD LABOR POLICY OF NEW JERSEY. By Arthur 
Sargent Field, Ph.D. Cambridge, Mass.: American Eco- 
nomic Association. $1.25. 

This is a careful presentation of one chapter of the history 
of American labor legislation. It traces step by step the prog- 
ress in clarity of conception and the consequent progress in 
standards and in policies by which the State of New Jersey 
has gradually attained its present position of fairly stringent 
regulation of the employment of children. Detailed, well doc- 
umented, comprehensive, outspoken, clearly interpreted, this 
study might well be chosen as a model for monographs of the 
type. 

THE JEWS. A STUDY OF RACE AND ENVIRONMENT. By 
Maurice Fishberg. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 
$1.50. 

As the author tells us in his preface: " This volume is an 
attempt to present the results of anthropological, demographic, 
pathological and sociological investigations of the Jews. 1 ' It 
is the only book in English treating of the race-traits of the 
Jews." Mr. Fishberg's thesis is a protest against the utter 
impracticability of the modern Zionistic movement on the one 
hand (chap, xxii.) and against the deeply rooted political and 
social persecution of the Jews on the other. He claims to 
prove that "the alleged purity of the Jewish race is vision- 
ary and not substantiated by scientific observation," (p. 474). 
Political conditions and persecution have in the past kept 
them a people apart, but to-day, with the intermarriage of 
Jew and Christian (chap, ix.), and the many conversions either 
from conviction or the desire to escape social ostracism (chap, 
xxi.), the process of assimilation is becoming more and more 
easy. He asserts that 224,000 Jews were baptized in Europe 
the past century, 84,000 of whom joined the Orthodox Church 
of Russia. 

The chapter on the political conditions of modern Jews 
VOL. xcm. .44 



690 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

(chap, xx.) gives us the reason of the great influx of Russian 
Jews into the United States. Since May 3, 1882, in Russia 
"the Jews have no right to live outside the so-called Pale of 
Seidement. This Pale is, on the whole, not Russia at all, but 
consists mainly of provinces which Russia has annexed within 
the last 200 years, and where Jews had lived for centuries 
before that annexation. . . . Outside the district only 
some special privileged classes of Jews may live, such as mer- 
chants of the first guild, who pay about 1,000 roubles an- 
nually for a license; Jews who have graduated from the high- 
est educational institutions ; and some Athians," (p. 427). 
This means that about 6 per cent of the 5,110,558 Jews (census 
of 1897) are allowed to live outside the prescribed district. 
Even in the Pale there are many restrictions. They are not 
allowed to live in the rural districts, in health resorts, in 
harbor cities like Sebastopol, etc. They are not allowed to own 
or lease land outside the Pale, a hardship, when we remember 
that agriculture is the staple industry of 75 per cent of 
the Russian people. They cannot teach in the public schools 
or hold any academic position in high schools or universities, 
etc., etc. Russia is still the persecutor of the Jew as she al- 
ways has been of the Catholic. 

We learn many interesting items, some of which we take 
cum grano salts, from Mr. Fishberg's book: that there never 
were so many Jews in the world as there are at the present day 
(p. i); "that of the twelve million to-day, 75 per cent are in 
Europe, 17 per cent in America, and 8 in Asia and Africa," 
(p. 10) ; "that the Jewish type cannot be distinguished by 
separate physical traits, such as stature, complexion, head, 
form, nose," etc. (p. 90) ; " that only one Jew in six has an 
aquiline or hook nose," (p. 83); "that mixed marriages are 
on the increase," (p. 209) ; " that missions to the Jews are 
very costly (603 to 3,000 a convert, he asserts) and not 
successful," (p. 218); "that the main causes of baptism are 
marriage and advancement," (p. 460); "that the Jews of to- 
day cannot be considered a nation," (p. 480) ;_" that language 
is not always a safe criterion of nationality," (p. 482); "that 
Zionism, based as it is on the erroneous notion that the Jews 
are a nation, fails at the outset because it is founded on false 
premises," (p. 492) etc. 

Tne illustrations introduce us to rather novel Jewish types: 



I9H-] NEW BOOKS 691 

the Black Jews of India, the Chinese Jews of K'ai Fung Foo, 
the Sahara Jews, the Falashas of Abyssinia, etc., (p. 134-147). 
The bibliography is quite complete, and the index of subjects 
and authors fairly well done. 

THE BIG LEAGUE. By Charles E, Van Loan. Boston : Small, 
Maynard & Co. $i. 

All real patriots, to whom the ball and bat are as sacred 
as the Stars and Stripes, the eagle and the goldenrod, will 
enjoy a new book by Charles E. Van Loan, called The Big 
League. The author's belief is evidently that 'tis baseball 
makes the world go round, and his book consists of nine 
stories of the diamond nine being, of course, no longer the 
mystic number of Parnassus, but of something far more up- 
to-date. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE PRIEST'S PARLOUR. By Genevieve 
Irons. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.60. 

An interesting story is Ike Mystery of the Priest's Parlour, 
by Genevie've Irons. The mystery is complex and tragic, and 
the hero a real hero ! is the young priest in whose parlor 
a man is found murdered. Circumstances are strong enough 
to condemn the young priest, and, although be knows and 
has heard the confession of the real criminal, yet rather than 
violate the seal of the confessional, he serves a sentence of 
sixteen years in prison before his innocence is at last estab- 
lished. The story is very human, and very interesting. 

GEORGE THORNE. By Norval Richardson. Boston: L. C. 
Page & Co. $1.75. 

Mr. Norval Richardson, the author of The Lead of Honor, 
has published a second and quite different book, George 
Thorne. Though neither as careful nor as able as The Lead 
of Honor, this second story has undoubted merit. In the 
beginning George Thome is a young man, poor, hitherto 
honest, but coldly and ruthlessly ambitious. By a simple 
fraud he imposes himself as the long-lost, only son of the 
wealthy, aristocratic Mr. and Mrs. Livingstone. After travel- 
ing for two years at their expense, improving in education 
and in refinement, he returns home to take his place formally 



692 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

as their son. But an unexpected conflict soon begins : his am- 
bition has been to struggle against his long dormant honor, now 
roused by the influence, not of the woman he loves (oh, re- 
lieving variation !) but of her who fondly, passionately be- 
lieves herself his mother. Her love and trust unconsciously 
force him to clear his honor by confessing the whole fraud. 
The story is well written and interesting throughout. 

Incidentally, we wonder if George Thome expresses his 
author's views when he says : " There are thousands of social 
classes. The strata are unlimited one mounts and mounts 
eternally. And the tremendous part of it all is, that as one 
mounts, the influence is not alone working on you externally, 
I mean in your appearance, your manners, all the little de- 
tails but it is working inside of you. As the body becomes 
better cared for, the mind becomes cleaner. One gets an 
irresistible desire to throw off bad thoughts, bad ideas, bad 
morals, with one's bad clothes." 

Surely the true and contradicting sentiment is Mr. G. K* 
Chesterton's, when, after a comment on the luxury of soap, 
he exclaims : " As if we did not all know that whenever 
God's thunder cracks above us, it is very likely indeed to find 
the simplest man in a muck-cart, and the most complex black- 
guard in a bath ! " 

THE MISSION OF PAIN. By Pere Laurent. Translated from 
the French by L. G. Ping. New York : Benziger Brothers. 
75 cents. 

This short but well-constructed treatise on pain deserves 
the attention of Catholics. Pere Laurent divides his work into 
two main parts, each containing a number of chapters on va- 
rious aspects of pain. In the first part, devoted to a conside- 
ration of the divine office of pain, there are two chapters of 
great value to every Catholic. Nowadays one of the cheapest 
objections against the existence of God is taken from the ex- 
istence of pain and evil in the world. The would-be philoso- 
phers who are running riot all over the world are continually 
advancing this fallacy. The Catholic Church teaches very 
clearly on this point, and that teaching Pere Laurent here 
sets forth in a most lucid and convincing manner, particularly 
in his chapters entitled, "The Impunity of the Guilty," and 
" The Prosperity of the Wicked." 



.] NEW BOOKS 693 

One of the most pleasing things about the book is its sensi- 
ble tone; the doctrine of pain, its value, benefit, and consequences 
being stated in simple language. After reading The Mission 
of Pain a Catholic will feel stronger and better, and will find 
himself looking back into the past and there discovering the 
hand of God in a trial or sorrow which at the time he thought 
brought him unnecessary and . cruel pain. "The mission of 
pain," writes the author, "in the world is two- fold. Like 
God, Whose ready and vigilant messenger she is, Pain strikes 
and she protects, she wounds and she heals, she afflicts and 
she consoles. . . ." 

We heartily commend the book, and hope that it will find 
a place in many a Catholic's library. It is easy to read, is well 
printed, and convenient in form, though we think it is some- 
what expensive for its size. Towards the end of page 87 we 
have noted a very awkward misprint which should receive at- 
tention from the editor. 

ROUGH RIDER TO PRESIDENT. By Dr. Max Kullnick. Trans- 
lated from the original German by Frederick von Reith- 
dorf, Ph.D. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.50. 

This biography and appreciation of Theodore Roosevelt, 
written by an eminent German, Dr. Max Kullnick, has been 
translated into English by Frederick von Reithdorf of Mon- 
raouth College, Illinois, and will be greatly enjoyed by Mr. 
Roosevelt's admiring compatriots. The unadmiring will do 
well to leave its pages uncut, for it is as frankly enthusiastic 
in tone as a schoolboy's composition on Lincoln. Though 
laudatory throughout, the author gives, however, a careful and 
scholarly criticism of Mr. Roosevelt's personality, of his theories 
and attitudes, and of the reforms he has achieved or inaugu- 
rated. The German point of view will make the book doubly 
interesting to American readers. 

L^FLfiAU ROMANTIQUE. Pat C. Lecigne. Paris: P. Lethiel- 

leux. 3 fr. 50. 

This series of nine lectures delivered in Lille, by one es- 
pecially well fitted both by profession and life work, to speak 
with authority on all that pertains to French literature, gives 
us a history of Romanticism in France, in which is neces- 
sarily included some account of the authors of that school and 



694 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

their writings, thus bringing within the scope of the book one 
of the most fruitful and important epochs of French thought. 

The lectures deal with the origin of romanticism, the evil 
done by Rousseau, its sponsor in France, its want of balance, 
and its religious and moral aspects, and to these are added 
two chapters which the author calls " Studies/' which are in- 
ferior in style and interest to- the lectures, and should have 
been omitted. 

Romanticism was not merely a literary school, distinguished 
by an especial softness and charm of style, but it was a per- 
sistent distortion of the moral code and the very apotheosis 
of the ego. Turn to the pages of Rousseau, Chateaubriand, 
Hugo, De Musset, Maupassant, and other writers of that like, 
and see how morbid and exaggerated are the characters they 
hold up to our admiration, how unreal their sentiments, how 
false their standards. Romanticism is bad enough in the novel 
and drama, but it is still worse when applied to the writing 
of history. Take, for example, Michelet, he has subjected Joan 
of Arc to this process, and she emerges from his treatment, 
distorted beyond recognition. 

We know of no other work that covers just the ground M. 
Lecigne has gone over, and while he is sometimes betrayed 
into too severe condemnation of some authors, his judgments 
on the whole are just, and we are indebted to him for an 
excellent book which is at once entertaining and full of in- 
formation. 

HERO-HAUNTED. By David Bearne, S. J. (New York, 
Benziger Bros. 75 cents). This story of the Sussex 
Downs may attract English boy readers, but we are sure that 
in its present form it is too quiet and too sober to please 
American youth. Our boys look at the very beginning for 
action and adventure or something that fortells either. If 
the first chapter does not attract it is not likely that they 
will read a book through to the end. Father Bearne has done 
great work for Catholic juvenile literature, and while it would 
be good for many boys to know "Alfie" of whom the pres- 
ent story tells, we feel that they will not read the tale with 
anything like zest. The photo illustrations cf the book are 
excellent. 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 695 

lif EDITATIONS ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN. From the 
"! German of the Rev. Francis Gabrini, S. J. New edition 
revised by Rt. Rev. Alex. MacDonald, D.D. (New York: 
Christian Press Association. $i). Books treating of the 
Blessed Virgin come to us frequently. Some of these are 
estimable publications ; others are disappointing and unworthy. 
The present volume has long since won a place as an excel- 
lent book of meditations on the Blessed Virgin suited to indi- 
viduals of every class. The author's love for his subject re- 
veals itself on every page, and his plain, direct style is always 
pleasing. We wish the volume all success. 

CHRIST'S SOCIAL REMEDIES. By Harry Carl Mont- 
^ gomery. (New York: G. P. Putnam Sons. $1.50.) Mr. 
Montgomery's book deals with citizenship, socialism, divorce, 
crime, labor, Sunday observance, war, and several kindred ques- 
tions. The author considers each in the light of Christ's teach- 
ing, and draws largely on quotations from the New Testament 
and from contemporary writers of whom he cites a great 
number. 

''PHREE musical publications come to us from Oliver Ditson, 
-*- Boston, Mass. Mass in A by Josef Rheinberger illustrates 
the truth that fine musical effect does not entail repetition of 
text, and altogether it is what might be expected from so ex- 
cellent a composer. Mass in B by J. G. Zangl recommends 
itself for its simplicity. The Agnus Dei is particularly beauti- 
ful. The Shepherd's Vision by Irenee Berge is a Christmas 
Cantata and a delightful musical inspiration. 

THE lona Series is the name given to a library of new 
books by Irish writers. For the most part the eight 
volumes already issued are story books, and excellent stories 
they are, too. Those now before us are entitled: A Life's 
Ambition by M. T. Kelly, The Making of Jim O'Neill by M. 
J. F., The Golden Lad by Molly Malone, and The Isle of 
Columbcille. This last tells of a pilgrimage to the isle of lona 
and sketches the life of the glorious Columbcille. Perhaps 
the most remarkable thing about these little books is the 
very low price at which they are issued: 35 cents per copy. 
(B, Herder, St. Louis). 



696 NEW BOOKS [Aug., 

A SOLDIER OF VALLEY FORGE. By Robert Neilson 
" Stephens and G. E. Theodore Roberts. Boston: L. C. Page 
& Co. $1.50. A Soldier of Valley Forge is a book that appears 
with the two signatures given above. It was left in rough 
draft at the time of Mr. Stephen's death, and has been com- 
pleted by Mr. Roberts. The story is built on the usual lines 
of Revolutionary novels, with the patriotic hero, the heartless 
villain, and the demure heroine who gets the usual warning to 
Washington in time to save the battle. It is not tritely told, 
however, but will interest and entertain. 

A COMING BOOK that will be of the greatest interest to 
Catholics, is one announced by the John Murphy Com- 
pany of Baltimore, and entitled, The Lije of Cardinal Gibbons. 
The book will be one of particular importance and timeliness, 
because of the coming celebration in October of the Cardinal's 
jubilee. This life of the Cardinal is from the pen of Allan S. 
Will, Editor of the Baltimore Sun, and will be the first com- 
plete biography of Cardinal Gibbons. We are informed that 
the author has devoted long and careful research to his task. 
His work spans the entire length of the Cardinal's years his 
early days in New Orleans, his priestly labors in North Caro- 
lina and Virginia, and discusses the weighty questions in which 
he has played so important a part. The price of the book 
will be $2. 

A LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST, by Isabel J. 
Roberts, tells us of a New England girl, Polly Day, 
whose mother deemed it prudent to take her to Southern 
California for a holiday and, incidentally, to cure her of a 
tendency to be somewhat "bossy" in manner. Polly has a 
very happy time in the West and outgrows her faults. It is 
an excellent little story, neatly presented by the publishers. 
(Benziger Bros., 45 cents). A Conversion and a Vocation 
(Benziger Bros., 90 cents) is a second edition of the biogra- 
phy of Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart (Sophia Ryder), first 
novice of the Order of the Good Shepherds in England. 
The story of Sister Mary's vocation, illustrates for the reader 
the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit in* leading and guid- 
ing the souls of men. The biography is of interest also be- 
cause of Sophia Ryder's connections and her friendship with 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 697 

Cardinal Newman. In Freddy Carr's Adventures the Rev. R. P. 
Garrold, S. J., gives his juvenile readers a sequel to Freddy 
Carr and His Friends. The story is brimful of action and 
clever dialogue. (Benziger Bros. 85 cents). Madame Cecilia, 
in More Short Readings for Mary's Children, continues her 
happy work of instructing young girls on the various Christian 
virtues. The papers which make up this volume first appeared 
as magazine articles. They were well worth reprinting in per- 
manent form. (Benziger Bros. $1.25). 
i 

DUCHEZ (1796-1865) par G. Castella gives a resume of 
U Buchez's historic methods. It is interesting to know 
that he who for years brought many doubters to the Faith 
and many insincere to the Truth was, before his death, recon- 
ciled to the Church whose teaching he had so long loved 
without understanding it. Le Clerge Gallo-Romain a la Fin du 
IVe Siecle, by Henri Couget, is a learned and interesting con- 
tribution to the history of the clergy in France, in which 
St. Martin stands out a most brilliant figure. Habitations a 
Bon Marche et Caisses d'Epargne by Henry Clement is a 
thoughtful study in sociology, and explains the mechanism of 
law in the matter of workmen's dwellings. Bossuet's Exposi- 
tion de la Doctrine de VEglise Catholique is a new critical edi- 
tion of the most serious treatise on apologetics called forth by 
the conflict of the sixteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer by 
Emile Legonis is a foreign estimate of the life and work of 
Chaucer. (Paris : Bloud et Cie). 

T ES MIRACLES DE N. S., JESUS CHRIST by 1'abbe L. 
*-' Fillion, Vols. I. II. This work is a vigorous refutation 
of rationalistic errors. Discours Eucharistique collects in per- 
manent form the papers on the Holy Eucharist read at the 
various International Eucharistic Congresses. L'Ame d*in 
Grand Catholique ; Esprit de Foi de Louis Veiullot d apres sa 
Correspondance. L'Homme Public, by G. Cerceau. The author 
recalls the opposition to L'Univers from the time Louis Veuil- 
lot took the helm and the criticism to which he and his journal 
were subjected. That Veuillot's one aim was to defend the 
cause of God with a devotion as absolute as it was disinterested 
is, according to the author, certain. (Paris: P. Lethielleux). 



3Forei<jn periobicate, 

The Tablet(2 June): "They Hallowed Him King," reflections on 
the recent coronation, with the hopes and fears to which 

it gives rise. " Democracy and Saint Sulpice." A 

French correspondent sees in the closing of the famous 
old seminary the destruction of " a seed plot of men 
vowed to work amongst the poor." Certain French 
and American reviews are discussing the history of the 
" Evening Mass," and the advisability of restoring it 
for the benefit of the working classes, 
(i July): "The Spirit of Peace at Work," apropos of 
the recent peace letter of the Holy Father, comments 
at length on the happy termination by the nations in- 
terested of the dispute concerning pelagic sealing. 
"The Vanished Milliard " throws further light upon the 
iniquitous procedure by which the French religious have 
been despoiled, and upon the methods of the anti- 
clerical Republic. Cardinal Logue on the Ne Temere 

Decree. 

(8 July): "Shall the Malissiri be Exterminated?" sets 
forth startling facts with regard to the treatment ac- 
corded by the Turkish Government to the Catholic 

tribes in Albania. "The New Ministry in France." 

Professor A. Valgimi in " A Source of the Divine 

Comedy" comments on a claim made by Dr. Amaducci 
of Bologna University, to the effect that the source from 
which Dante derived his doctrinal scheme of the im- 
mortal poem is contained in the writings of St. Peter 
Damien. 

The National (July) : " Episodes of the Month " gives an ex- 
tended account of the coronation," George V. and 
Asquith I.," is an appeal to the King to stand against 
the demands of the Liberal party. Where is the Eng- 
lishman, it asks, who is not on the side of his annointed 

King? "Education in India and the Future of that 

Country in the British Empire, "is discussed by Agakhan. 

" At Prior Park," by Austin Dobson, is a running 

sketch of that famous estate near Bath. "American 

Affairs" are discussed, as usual, by A. Maurice Low. 



191 1.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 699 

Irish Ecclesiastical Record (June) : " A Recent Confirmation of 
the Scapular Tradition/' by Herbert Thurston, S.J., 
calls attention to a document concerning the scapular 
tradition discovered in the Vatican Library by Father 
Benedict Zimmerman, in 1907. The article is published 
apropos of a statement made by Pere Marie- Joseph to 
the effect that Father Zimmerman has made relentless 
war on the scapular. The Rev. P. J. Bradley ex- 
plains "The Mozarabic Mass" for the benefit of those 

assisting at the Eucharistic Congress in Madrid. 

"Erasmus and the Movements of his Time" by Rev. J. 
F. D'Alton, M.A. 

The Month (July): "Where Scott found Dugald Dalgetty" by 
J. S. Shepherd, is a study of that character who plays 
such a prominent part in the work of Sir Walter Scott. 

Mr. James Britten, K.S. A., under the caption "The 

Lusitanian Church " presents some interesting facts with 

regard to Protestantism in Portugal. In " A Note on 

Macaulay's Style," Mr. James Dwyer points out the 
most salient features of Macaulay's style. 

trish Theological Quarterly (July): "The Validating of Mar- 
riage Without New Consent;" the rarity of invalid 
marriages in the Catholic Church owing to elaborate 
precautions, and the nature of the canonical remedy, 

sanatio in radicc, "Buddhism, Past and Present," 

shows the more important conclusions now arrived at 
in the history of Buddhism, and declares that its 

" shares have fallen low in the religious market." 

H. Bewerungl in "The Metrical Cursus in the Anti- 
phonal Chants of the Mass" points out the harmonious 
sound given to the endings of sentences, and its con- 
nection with the order of long and short syllables can 
be traced back to the classical Latin prose writers. 

Le Correspondant (10 June): "The New Constitutional Law 
of Alsace-Lorraine," by E. Wetterle discusses the dif- 
ferent clauses of the Law. " Letters to the Count 
de Failoux," is the second and last installment of the 
personal correspondence of Pere Lacordaire with this 

nobleman. " The New Army and the Army," by 

General Cfoerfils, compares the ideal army as planned 
by M. JaureV with the army of to-day. General Cher- 
fils discusses M. JaureY work, point by point, as to its 



700 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Aug., 

strength or weakness. "Our Churches in Danger," 

by Max Doumic describes the dilapidated conditions of 
the churches in the district oi Aube which were built 

from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. "The 

Workmen's Pension in England, 1 ' contrasts the difference 
between the English and French laws for old-age pen- 
sions. "A Week at Waterloo in 1815," by M. de 

Lancey is a description of the state of affairs during 
this critical period by Lady de Lancey, and also of the 
death of the latter's husband, Sir William, Staff Officer 
to the Duke of Wellington. 

(25 June): "Jerusalem of Yesterday and To-Day ," by 
M. De Vogue, is a description of conditions existing in 
those places made sacred by the labors of Christ and 

His Apostles. "The Protection of the Frontiers," by 

General Maitrot, treats of the manner of protecting the 
frontiers of France with suggestions of a better method 
of protection. " The International Project of Arbi- 
tration Between the United States and England," an 
unsigned article, is an account of a question which has 
interested all the European powers during the present 
Presidential administration.^" Three Friends of Cha- 
teaubriand," by Lucy Goyan is a description of the 
characters of three women who played an important 
part during the life of Chateaubriand. 

Revue Pratique d* Apologetique (i June): Y. Dumont, in "A 
Catholic People," writes apropos of the Eucharistic Con- 
gress of Montreal, paying tribute to Catholic French 

Canadians. "Education and Free Thought," by Ch. 

Bota, briefly considers the interests of opponents of the 
lay school. 

(15 June): "The Messiahism of Israel," by Valensin, 
answers the questions: "What were the Characteristic 
Marks in the Messianic Hope of Israel? How Did 

Christ of the Gospel Fully Realize this Hope?" 

"Necessary Prejudices," by E. Bruneteau, is a summary 
of a work of the same title, by M. E. Foquet. 

Annales de Philosophie Chretienne (June): G. Fonsegrive, writing 
on " Intuition, Feeling, Estimation," opposes the psy- 
chology that would reduce all to terms of mere sensa- 
tion. In an article entitled the " Conversion of Cal- 
vin," D. Sabatier discusses the probable proportionate 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 701 

influences that heredity, environment, and personal tem- 
perament had on Calvin. While allowing a good deal 
of force to the former factors, he says, "they disposed, 
not determined, the Reformer's career." 

Revue Thomiste (May-June): In " The Scriptural Proofs of the 
Dogma of the Trinity," R. P. Hugon, O.P., examines 
the tenets of both Testaments which manifest a belief 
in the Trinity on the part of the sacred writers. In 
the Old Testament the distinction and consubstantiality 
of the Father and the Son is clearly brought out in 
many passages, but the evidence in the New Testament 
is, of course, much stronger in favor of the Catholic 

doctrine of the Trinity. R. P. Claverie, O.P., writes 

on the " Knowledge of Christ." 

Etudes (5 June): Jean Bainvel shows how widespread the 
"Devotion to the Sacred Heart" became in the thir- 
teenth and following centuries, through the experiences 
and writings of the mystics. Their exchange of hearts 
with Christ and like favors, he explains, as symbolical 
of their sanctification. A. Degert relates the propo- 
sals, discussions, and relatively small but important con- 
clusions on " The Seminary Question at the Council of 

Trent." A eulogy of the patriotism of M. Georges 

Goudon. as seen in his poetry, by G. Longhaye. 

Robert de Sinety, in " The Proofs and Limits of Trans- 
formism," considers it certain that the present animal 
species have been slowly evolved, but that science can 
in no way prove the animal origin of the human body. 

Revue du Clerge Fraitfais (i June): J. Touzard begins a his- 
tory of the "Religion of Israel." -J. M. Vidal pre- 
sents a historic expose of " The Reform of Italian 
Catholic Action by Pius X." detailing the various stages 
in the dissolution of the former organization for the 
direction of Catholic action and the reconstruction of 
another which should proceed in a more energetic and 
united manner for the promotion of Catholic social ac- 
tivity. E. Vacandard gives a "Chronicle of Ecclesi- 
astical History." He notices among other wctks, Tome 
XXIX. of the Analecta Bollandiana by Ch. de Smedt; 
Clement V. and Philip IV. le Bel, by Georges Lizerand; 
Galileo and the Church, the History and the Romance, by 
Pierre Aubanel. Emile Ollivier publishes a letter to 



702 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Aug., 

Hans Delbrueck of Berlin on "The Role of Bismarck." 
(15 June): Writing of "The Constitutionals and the 
Concordat/ 1 P. Pisani gives an account of the clergy in 
France during the Revolution who accepted the " Civil 
Constitution of the Clergy," showing also the part they 
played in bringing about the Concordat between Napo- 
leon and Pius VII. 

(i July): "A Problem to be Propounded," by A. 
Bouyssonie discusses the reconciliation of the unity of 
the human species with the existence from the remotest 
times of races greatly differentiated. G. G. Lapeyre 
treating of the "Religious Movement" in the German 
speaking countries, considers the Polish question and 
the question of schools. The German Government by 
a system of colonization and other means has been 
seeking to protestantize the people of Prussian Poland. 
The schools of the Empire are conducted in a manner 

unjust to the Catholic taxpayers. L. Wintrebert writes 

of the works of Claude Bernard and of other topics con- 
nected with biological science.-^ Mgr. S. J. Segraive 
gives an account of the league " Abstimentis " founded 
recently at Anvers for the promotion of the fight against 
Alcoholism. H. Savatier contributes an article on "The 
Variations of Socialism." 

Chronique Sociale de France (June) : M. Gonin writes on the 
importance of " Public Opinion, Leadership and Organ- 
ization," in the social campaign of the Church. Catho- 
lics capable of leading should be organized so as to form 
the mind of the masses by the press, conversation, and 

lectures. Max Turmann describes two co-operative 

agricultural societies of Italy and Roumania Remy 
Collin thinks that "the Co operative Societies for Cheap 
Dwellings" while theoretically favorable to large fami- 
lies, actually operate against them. According to avail- 
able figures only a little more than one-fourth of the 
families living in these houses have three children. 

Stimmen aus Maria-Laach (June) : St. V. Dunin-Borkowski, 
S.J., gives some translations of "Early Byzantine Re- 
ligious Poetry," in various metres, and ranging from the 

fifth to the sixth century. " Atheistic Monism," by 

A. Denesse, S.J., gives in a first paper a sketch of the 
various monistic schools. A. L. Feder, S. J., shows 



1 9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 703 

how important a source of profane and sacred history 
are the works of Hilary of Poitiers. "A Modern 
Platonist," by G. Wasmann, S.J., discusses Dr. Karl 
Camilla Schneider's attempt to reconcile the Platonistic 
teaching on ideas with the Aristotelian doctrine of the 
soul. 

La Civilta Cattolica (17 June): The Holy Father's Encyclical 
letter against the spoliation of the Church in Portugal, 
is printed in its entirety and discussed in the leading 

article. Scathing criticism is passed upon D'Annun- 

zio's " Martyrdom of St. Sebastian " in the opening 
article of a series on the subject. The writer lays bare 

the raison-d* etre of the production. The series on the 

"Origin of the Humiliate," is continued. "Classes 

of War " suggests that in revenge for the abstention of 
Catholics from the Italian Unity celebration this year, 
the Church is to be attacked by the government in a 

species of Kulturkampf. Recent publications on the 

Epistles of St. Paul and other Apostles are reviewed, 
also some books on the Holy Eucharist.-^ An inter- 
esting account is given of the conclusion of the Ver- 
desi trial in the cause of which some important legal 
precedents were reviewed. 

(i July): P. Enrico Roso, S.J., subjects to destructive criti- 
cism the supposed attainments as a canonist of Profes- 
sor Scaduto, one of the council employed in the inter- 
est of the apostate Verdesi at his trial. " The Moral 
Crisis of the Modern Family " is discussed in a second 
article dealing largely with the modern woman. 
Among books reviewed are Ottolenghi's " Gregorian 
Chant" and several books dealing with the Holy Eu- 
charist and Frequent Communion. The full text of 

the Court's judgment in the Verdesi case is given, show- 
ing clearly that it was on no mere technical grounds 
that the apostate was condemned. 

Espana y America (May) : E. Murillo refutes, through SS. 
Peter and Paul, the reasoning of contemporaneous ra- 
tionalism. M. P. J. Rodriguez continues his study 

on the quadruple version of Genesis: Hebraic, Chal- 
daic, Greek, and Latin. Monjas writes on the " Pan- 
ama Canal and the United States and the Work of 
American Engineers," and on the boast of the Ameri- 



704 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Aug. 

can press to the effect that in 1915 steamers will cross 
the Isthmus of Balboa, thus realizing the wonderful 
dream of that great genius, immortalized in Suez, Fer- 
dinand de Lesseps. El Marquez de Sabuz gives, " In 

Reference to a Book," a dissertation on what evangeli- 
cal preaching should be; bearing particularly on the 
acts of Pius X; in these last years. 
(June) : P. M. B. Garcia writes on the " Revolution in 
Mexico." He shows how this revolution has been the 
fruit of the abnormal situation in which the government 
of Diaz has kept the Mexican nation. This revolution 
was forced upon a people who had no other resource 
or form of protest than war. The Eucharistic Con- 
gress at Madrid, according to A. Monjas, will be a feast 
at once universal and national El Marquis de Sabuz 
reviews the glories of the province and city of Mompos, 

Columbia : its orators, bards, poets, and artists. 

P. J. Monasterio contributes an article on " The Glories 
of the Peruvian Episcopate," and gives the unedited 
correspondence of the Very Rev. Father de Orihuels 
with Father Joseph Munoz Capilla. 

Razon y Fe (June): E. Urgarte de Ercilla writes on "The 
Sacred Heart of Jesus." He shows that this great de- 
votion is not new in the Church, but came through the 

beloved disciple, St. John. J. M. Bover contributes 

an article on the study of the " ^Esthetic Conception of 
Grace." Grace expresses beauty, favor, gratitude; the 
first is, as it were, the foundation of the other two. 
Mr. N. Noguer continues his study of the privileges of 
agriculture. The present article deals particularly with 
the warrants or guarantees on the transportation of 
cereals, etc. Mr. C. Eguis Ruiz, continuing his liter- 
ary necrology, writes in praise of the Norwegian, 

Bjornstjorne Bjornson. P. Villada studies the new 

project of the law of Association, and shows that since 
the Liberal party came into power in 1901 the govern- 
ment has had no greater preoccupation than to submit 
the religious associations of the spiritual order to the 

civil law of the temporal order. J. B. Ferreres, in 

his "Canonical Bulletin," excellently describes the new 
organization of the Roman Curia ordered by Pius X. 



IRecent Events. 



The ministry of M. Monis did 
France. not last more than four months. 

For its fall there were various 

contributory causes, among which, for the first time in the 
WDrld's history the aeroplane must be numbered. An accident 
to one of those new machines by which man is now tryirg to 
conquer the air, deprived the Cabinet of its chief support, M. 
Berteaux, and incapacitated for active leadership the Premier 
himself. He found it impossible from a sick bed to control 
the various forces at work, and the Chamber of Deputies and 
the country. In fact from the beginning, the Ministry was in 
a difficult position, for, from the first it represented a minority 
of the Chamber, M. Briand having secured on the decisive 
vote a majority, although one not large enough for the pur- 
poses which he wished to accomplish. Then with reference 
to the Champagne riots and the settlement of the delimitation 
question, which was the cause of those riots, M. Monis showed 
no small degree of vacillation. The Council of State to whom 
the question was referred, decided that the delimitation of the 
Marne Department was to remain unchanged ; but that the 
wines grown in the Aube Department were also to have a 
limit of their own, but were to be classed as Champagne of 
the second zone. The government accepted this decision and 
signed a decree to enforce it; but the wine growers of the 
Aube would not listen to this, and rose in almost open 
rebellion. All kinds of protests were made. The German 
Flag was hoisted in places, and mock petitions sent to [the 
German Emperor to come and take possession of the wine- 
growing districts, seeing that the dirty Republic did not want 
them. Feeling itself unable to enforce the decree, the Min- 
istry changed its mind, and announced their intention of 
abolishing all delimitation both in the Marne and the Aube 
Departments, and to enact such laws and make such regula- 
tions against the adulteration of wine as would serve the pur- 
pose that it was desired to effect by delimitation. Hardly had 
this question been settled in this unsatisfactory way, than the 
government suffered a defeat in the Chamber upon a question 
VOL. xcm. 45 



;o6 RECENT EVENTS [Aug., 

of small importance, but which clearly indicated that there 
were a number of other men ready to serve their country by 
undertaking to govern it better than they thought could be 
done by M. Monis and his colleagues. In fact France is at 
the present time suffering from too abundant a supply of gen- 
tlemen ready to undertake this task. These are to be found 
not merely in the ranks of the Republicans. Prince Napoleon 
the representative of the Bonapartes has announced his wil- 
lingness to come forward if called upon. He would not, 
indeed, foment disorder there was enough of that already. 
But if the enormous number of Frenchmen who desired an 
issue from the present deadlock should give expression to their 
wish by means of a plebiscite, he would be able and willing to 
give France a strong government which would settle the 
problems of the working masses. There would be no ostra- 
cism; and no reaction, and the principle of equality which 
was so dear to France would be maintained. 

The Ministry of M. Monis having been defeated, although 
by only seven votes, at once resigned. No great achievement 
can be placed to its credit. In fact it had failed in all that 
it had attempted, not even the annual Budget having been 
passed. The success of French arms in Morocco may be ac- 
counted a failure for they were used on the side of oppression 
and tyranny, and it is not yet possible to say whether or not 
serious complications may not arise owing to Germany's inter- 
vention, The attempt to conciliate the railway- men met with 
no greater success. The new Cabinet, formed by M. Caillaux, 
will have no easy task to accomplish. 

No difficulty, however, was experienced by the new Premier 
in finding men willing to make the attempt. M. Caillaux him- 
self, had been Minister of Finance in the Ministry that has 
just resigned, and has had a long and not undistinguished 
career in the public service. He is the author of the Income 
Tax proposals which have been so long before the country, 
and which passed the Chamber of Deputies two years ago, 
but have not yet been accepted by the Senate. Strange to 
say, in forming his Cabinet, he placed the Portfolio of Fi- 
nance in other hands, taking to himself the Ministry of the 
Interior. The new Cabinet consists of representatives of all 
the parties of the Left, with the exception of the extreme So- 
cialists; five are Radicals, eight Socialist Radicals; two are 
members of the Democratic Left; and there is one Indepen- 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 707 

dent Socialist. There is a new Minister of Foreign Affairs; 
M. Delcasse remains in charge of the Navy as well as three 
or four other members of the outgoing Cabinet. 

M. Jaures, the leader of the Collective Socialist, who was 
friendly to the Ministry of M, Monis, has already declared 
war against M. Caillaux. The new government may be ex- 
pected to revert to the principle advocated by M. Briand 
that a government should govern. Electoral reform is the 
first question calling for settlement. Scrutin de liste is to be 
adopted, with some means to secure the due representation of 
minorities. Whether that means is to be some method of 
proportional representation remains undecided. The abolition 
of delimitation in the Champagne districts, proposed by M* 
Monis, is to be carried out. The secular school system is to 
be uncompromisingly defended. The Income Tax Bill is to be 
pushed through the Senate. The question, however which 
seems likely to be most pressing in internal affairs, is the dis- 
content which exists among the railway-men and their sympa- 
thizers, and the ways of manifesting that discontent, which 
have been adopted. Through the length and breadth of France 
acts of sabotage, taking chiefly the form of cutting telegraph 
lines, have been of almost daily occurrence. A still worse 
form of outrage is becoming not uncommon the attempt to 
wreck railway trains. So bad has the state of things become 
that one of the members of the Senate declared that it was 
unworthy of a civilized country, and another characterized it 
as a reign of terror. It is somewhat reassuring that the re- 
sponsible Minister declared in the Chamber the determination 
of the government to do everything in its power to extirpate 
an evil, which had eaten its way so deeply into French life; 
although this declaration so enraged the Socialists that they 
attempted to shout the Minister down. It is clear that neither 
secular education nor universal suffrage has brought peace to 
the body politic of France. The individual M. Duez who 
appropriated the property of the religious orders, has been 
sentenced to twelve years penal servitude. There is DO one 
who can send the State as a whole to prison. 

The President has been paying a visit to the Queen of the 
Netherlands, and has been well received by its people. It is 
the first time for more than one hundred years that the bead 
of the French nation has made a personal visit to Holland. 
Whether this visit and the recent one to Belgium have any 



7o8 RECENT EVENTS [Aug., 

political object is not known ; but it is possible that a desire 
exists to let those small countries learn that Germany is not 
their only friend. 

The forces in Morocco, after the entry into Fez, devoted 
themselves to the subduing of the tribes that were still resist- 
ing the Sultan. As soon as this work is done they will be 
withdrawn at least that is the present intention. The realiza- 
tion of it will doubtless depend upon the action of Germany 
referred to below. 

The Chancellor of the Empire, 
Germany. Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, has 

been successful in the second at- 
tempt made by him at the making or the reform of a Consti- 
tution. The Prussian Franchise Bill, which he attempted to 
carry through the Diet, had, after long discussions, to be with- 
drawn, and at one time it looked as if the same fate would 
befall the proposed Alsace-Lorraine Constitution. Determined 
opposition was offered to it by the Centre Party on account 
of the too great preponderance given in the Upper Chamber 
to members nominated by the Emperor, and the consequent 
inadequacy of local representation, and of the proposal that 
German, as a rule, should be the official language for adminis- 
trative and educational purposes. The chief objection, how- 
ever, to the Bill as first introduced, was the refusal to give 
the right to vote to the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine in 
the Federal Council. This refusal was based, it was said, on 
the necessity of preserving to Prussia its existing preponder- 
ance in that body, and when the Chancellor yielded this point, 
he met with strong opposition from the party by which he is 
generally supported the Conservatives. The effect of the new 
Constitution will be to give to the Reichsland a greater degree 
of independence than it has possessed since its annexation to 
the Empire, although it stops far short of the complete au- 
tonomy to which many of the inhabitants lay claim. The 
Franchise Bill, which accompanied the Constitutional Bill, has 
also become law after the elimination of sundry devices which 
betrayed distrust of the equal capacity of man as man. As 
introduced, it allowed 2 votes for electors over 35 years of 
age, and 3 votes for electors over 45 years. The Committee 
of the Reichstag eliminated all plural voting, not being con- 
vinced that a man becomes politically wiser when he gets 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 709 

older. For his success in securing the enactment of the new 
Laws, the Chancellor has been promoted to the rank of Major 
in the military service. 

In addition to the consolidation of the German legislation 
for the insurance of the working classes against illness, acci- 
dents, and invalidity, the Law to which we referred last month 
provides for an extension of sick insurance to agricultural and 
forest laborers, to home workers, and to casual laborers. A 
beginning, too, is made of insurance for widows and orphans. 
Seven million more people, it is estimated, will thus be brought 
within the scope of the provision for sick insurance at a cost 
of nearly thirty four millions of dollars annually. Of this 
amount about twenty-seven millions will be contributed by the 
employers and the employed, the balance will come from the 
State that is from the tax- payers. 

The Navy League has been holding its annual meeting 
and shows no signs of relenting. It urges the government to 
accelerate still further the pace at which the Navy is being 
increased, blaming it for not carrying out the existent law. 
It demands that instead of building one battleship and one 
large cruiser per year from 1912 to 1917, one battleship and 
two large cruisers should be built. The Navy League is a 
very influential body, nor has the government ever proved 
itself loathe to listen to its voice. So the prospect of dis- 
armament is not encouraging, nor are the burdens of the 
people likely to grow less either in Germany or in the Powers 
allied with, or opposed, to Germany. It is only fair to state, 
however, that the programme of the League has this year met 
with severe criticism not merely from the Socialist but also 
the Conservative Press. 

The tenth Dreadnaught of the German Navy has just been 
launched and if the Field-Marshal who delivered the "bap- 
tismal speech " on the occasion is a representative of the 
sentiments of the dominant class the hopes of peace-lovers 
cannot be very great. Frederick the Great, after whom the 
ship is named, was characterized, so the Field-Marshal said, 
by the keen vision with which he foresaw the perils which 
menaced Prussia and the future of Germany ; and so the ship 
must embody the qualities of the great king, and be ever 
ready for battle, ever ready to use arms, and to let the 
thunder of her guns ring out, ever ready for the attack. It 
is not easy for the neighbors of Germany to rest quietly in 



710 RECENT EVENTS 

the presence of so bellicose and suspicious a Power. Still it 
is not to be passed by as unworthy of notice that the German 
Ambassador at Washington expressed a wish that a copy of 
the drait Arbitration Treaty as submitted to Great Britain 
and France might be furnished to him to be laid before his 
government. The interest in it, we fear, can hardly be more 
than platonic ; although, in the speech which the Emperor 
recently made at Hamburg, he attributed to the preservation 
of peace the marvelous development of German commerce 
which the past forty years has seen. This development, how- 
ever, his Imperial Majesty affirmed, was due to the fact that 
behind it stood the defensive forces of the Army and Navy. 
In his view after the restoration of the Empire peace was 
assured, and with God's will, he went on to say, it would 
remain assured. 

What is called Liberalism, has in Germany, so far as polit- 
ical power is concerned, greatly diminished in influence. In 
other respects, however, it is asserting itself. In the Upper 
House of the Prussian Diet the capital clause of a Bill per- 
mitting and regulating cremation has been carried after many 
years of effort; and this in spite of the opposition of Cardinal 
Fischer who said that the advocacy of cremation sprang from 
the hatred of Christianity. The authorities of the Evangelical 
Church have recently seen fit to condemn as guilty of heresy, 
to sentence to deprivation, a pastor at Cologne. In his favor 
hundreds of thousands had signed petitions, numerous demon- 
stration meetings had been held, and on his condemnation 
the Press was filled with articles full of indignation. And 
yet it is admitted that the pastor in question held no more 
of the Christian faith than is held by Unitarians. It is 
thought by some that this event will hasten the process of 
splitting German Protestantism into sects in the way in which 
it has happened in other countries. 

In foreign relations the sending of a gunboat to Agadir a 
port at present of no importance 500 miles south of the 
Straits of Gibraltar has been the most surprising event. By 
the agreement of February, 1909, between France and Ger- 
many, the latter recognized that she had no political interest 
in Morocco, provided the door was kept open and that to 
France was entrusted commerce and industry. This agree- 
ment has been the basis of mutual understanding and had 
been loyally adhered to until this most recent act on the 



1 9 1 1 .] RECENT EVENTS 7 1 1 

part of Germany. At first it excited misgiving as indicating 
a purpose of reopening the whole Moroccan question. The 
reason given by the German government was that the import- 
ant German interests in that region might be menaced by the 
possible spread of disorder, and that it had been requested to 
take action by the business firms interested. Justification 
also was sought from the action of France and Spain, both 
of which nations had done far more than send a gun-boat into 
a harbor. In fact, it was said that both had gone outside of 
the provisions of the Algeciras Act. It was, moreover, de- 
clared that the demonstration was of an essentially temporary 
character and that the cruiser which had taken the place 
of the gunboat would be recalled as soon as Morocco was 
pacified. Considerable excitement was caused in France as 
well as in Spain; in the latter country this excitement was 
not unmingled with pleasure, for the Spanish people feel 
themselves aggrieved by the advance of France to Fez. Per- 
haps Great Britain is the country which is the most vitally 
affected by German action, for should Agadir be retained and 
fortified by Germany it would be a menace to British com- 
munications with the Cape and to her shipping. However 
this may be, France is being supported by the British govern- 
ment in the conversations which are being carried on in con- 
sequence of Germany's action. France is being supported by 
Russia as well as by Great Britain. Germany seems to be 
isolated, not even Austria-Hungary being active in her sup- 
port. Whatever Germany may have intended by the demon- 
stration, the result has been a reaffirmation of the entente 
between France and Great Britain and a strengthening of the 
determination on the part of the latter power to maintain its 
Navy at full strength. The hopes that were beginning to be 
entertained that better relations between Great Britain and 
Germany were on the point of being established have been 
blighted and the feeling of distrust strengthened. 

A general election has just taken 
Austria-Hungary. place in Austria. It has resulted 

in the complete defeat of the 

Christian-Socialists, the party which was the most numerous 
in the Reichsrath that has just come to its end. In politi 
cal matters the people of Austria superabound in private 
judgment. No fewer than 51 different species of candidates 



RECENT EVENTS [Aug., 

sought admission to the legislature. If division gives power, 
the Austrian Ruler ought to be a veritable Emperor. Num- 
erous as are the races, they are not united within their own 
ranks. The Czechs had 12 different programmes, the Ger- 
mans n, the Poles 6, the Ruthenes and Slovenes 4 each, the 
Croats and the Italians 3 each, while the Rumanes and the 
electorally organized Jews were content with a modest 2 
a piece, For 516 constituencies there were 2,987 candidates. 
The defeat of the Christian Socialists was due chiefly to the al- 
liance against them of German Progressives, Jewish Liberals and 
Social Democrats. This coalition triumphed in spite of the at- 
tempt made by the government to promote an alliance between 
the German Progressives and the Christian Socialists against 
the Social Democrats. The death of Dr. Lueger has been a 
great blow to the party of which he was the head; no one 
has risen up capable of taking his place. 

The chief gainers by the election are the German Progres- 
sives, and Liberals of all shades. Anti-Semitism as a party 
programme has been beaten. The Social Democrats have be- 
come the prominent party in the capitol, holding as they do 
no fewer than 19 out of its 33 constituencies; the Cabinet re- 
signed as soon as the results were known, and a former 
Premier, Baron von Gautsch has been called to form a govern- 
ment. The first of the Austro-Hungarian Dreadnaughts has 
been launched. It is named the Viribus Unitis. Unity, in 
the midst of so much disunion, is, indeed, the thing to be 
most of all desired. It will be interesting to see whether and 
how in the babel of parties in the Reichsrath the new gov- 
ernment will be able to bring about any approach to the unity 
so much needed. 

There has been a ministerial crisis 
Belgium. in Belgium which has resulted in 

the formation of a new Ministry 

not differing in any marked feature from the last. A Catholic 
government has been in power in Belgium ever since 1884, 
but the majority supporting it has been gradually diminish- 
ing, so that the late Ministry had had in its favor only a 
majority of eight. The cause of the defeat was an Educa- 
tion Bill, which it was thought by one of the Catholic 
leaders interfered too much with the independence of the 
communes. As the defeat of the Bill gave great satisfaction 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 713 

to the Liberals and Socialists, it would seem that divisions 
among Catholics are responsible for what their opponents 
look upon as a victory. The new government will " carry 
on" until the elections which are to take place next year, 
and these elections may result in a Liberal-Socialist victory. 
The union of those two parties may enable them to defeat 
the Catholic government, but as they are about as much op- 
posed to each other as they are to their common adversary, 
the prospect of their being able to form a stable government 
is not good. 

Proposals for electoral reform have 

Italy. been made by Signor Giolitti's 

government which may have an 

important effect upon the course of politics in Italy. If car- 
ried the electorate will be doubled, three and a half millions 
of voters being added to the register, bringing the total up to 
7,701,000 or 82 per cent of the population over 21 years of 
age. Illiterates have hitherto been shut out, but the new 
proposals will include them if they are over 30 years old. 
Whether the Conservatives or the Socialists will gain, no one 
knows; some call it as much a gambling move as would be a 
throw of the dice. 

For a long time the municipality of Rome has been get- 
ting deeper and deeper into debt until now it owes a sum of 
more than thirty millions which is quite beyond its means to 
pay. The government has come to the relief of the city, and 
in consideration of certain land being given it assumes the 
burden of the debt. As a result of the arrangement made 
between the State an(^the Municipality, the government is to 
build at least four new Ministries of Justice, Public Instruc- 
tion, Marine and the Interior; while the municipality is to 
spend a large sum on schools, elementary and secondary, 
markets, sanitation, removing slums and other works. 

The Constituent Assembly has 

Portugal. met at Lisbon and proceeded to 

adopt the new Constitution. The 

Provisional government resigned upon the opening of the Ses- 
sion, but was requested to continue in power until definite 
arrangements had been made. A decree was passed unani- 
mously abolishing the monarchy forever, and banishing from 



714 RECENT EVENTS [Aug., 

Portugal the Royal Family of Braganza as an act of emanci- 
pation, and declaring the form of government to be a Demo- 
cratic Republic. A few hours afterwards the representatives 
of this country waited upon the Foreign Minister and in- 
formed him that the United States Government officially rec- 
ognized the government of the Portuguese Republic. Sporadic 
attempts to restore the monarchy have been made and more 
threatened; but little enthusiasm exists for a House which 
proved itself so little capable of wise government for the good 
of the country. Most of the bishops have given uncondi- 
tional adhesion to the government, and have informed the 
clergy that to incite the population against the Republic 
would involve severe punishment. 

The proceedings of the Turkish 
Turkey. troops in their attempt to suppress 

the rising of the Albanians, have 

excited indignation throughout the whole of Europe, and if 
the Powers were a little less selfish than they are those pro- 
ceedings would have secured active intervention. Although 
Turkey denies the truth of the statements made for even the 
Ottomans are afraid of public condemnation yet there are the 
best;of reasons for believing that the accounts which have 
been given are perfectly true. A deliberate plan was formed 
last October by the secret Congress of the Salonika Commit- 
tee, which is the real ruler of Turkey, to subjugate the North- 
ern Albanians in order to give their lands to the Mussulmans 
who had left Bosnia and Herzegovina when these provinces 
were annexed by Austria. To carry out this plan all property 
was destroyed, the old men and women left behind by the 
active rebels were thrown into the fires by which their homes 
were being destroyed, and other atrocities too horrible to men- 
tion were perpetrated. The devastation of the homesteads of 
the Catholic Malissori was complete; and practically all the 
houses of two other Catholic tribes. All this was done delib- 
erately by the orders of the General-in-Chief, Torgut Shev- 
ket Pasha, who declared that his object was to give the Alba- 
nians a lesson that they would remember for seven generations. 
Every fruit-tree and vine as well as growing crops were de- 
stroyed, and the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, in order 
to starve the population. A large part of this was done in 
violation of an armistice which had been granted to the Alba- 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 715 

nians for the consideration of an amnesty offered by the Turks. 
This was but another instance of the bad faith of the Turk?, 
for they had violated every promise which they made last year f 
in order to secure the submission of those who had risen at 
that time. 

At one time there was reason to hope that the Powers 
would intervene to put an end to such heart-rending atrocities 
perpetrated within a short distance of their capitals. But they 
have so far satisfied themselves with remonstrances and with 
holding back Montenegro, where many of the Albanians had 
taken refuge, from making war with Turkey. But there seems 
to be no likelihood of a settlement being made without some 
kind of intervention, for even if the Turks were to grant the 
demands of the Albanians they cannot be trusted to keep 
their promises unless under a guarantee made by the Powers. 
So far as pressure has been put upon the Turks credit must be 
given to the Austrian Press and to the Austrian Government, 
both of which have shown themselves more than usually will- 
ing to listen to the call of suffering humanity. 

The revision of the Constitution 

Greece. which has been in progress for 

some months, and which it is 

hoped will have as a result the inauguration of a new era 
in the politics of the country, has been brought to an end; 
and having been ratified by the King now forms the basis 
of a renovated State. The Revisionary Chamber will be 
dissolved towards the end of the year although this was 
much against the will of some of its members. New elections 
for the ordinary Chamber will be held early next year. A 
further revision of the non- fundamental provisions of the new 
Constitution may be demanded, after the lapse of ten years, 
by an ordinary Parliament by means of two votes passed by 
two-thirds majority under certain restrictions. Complete con- 
fidence in the future orderly development of Greece is, how- 
ever, not yet universally felt. The attempt to raise a loan 
of some twenty-five millions did not attract investors and the 
loan proved a failure. 



With Our Readers 

THE April, 1911, CATHOLIC WORLD contained an article entitled 
7 he First Postulant that told of the career of the first Paulist 
postulant, George W. Muse. The article was reprinted in the 
New Orleans Picayune and, as a result we have received the follow- 
ing very interesting letter : 

NEW ORLEANS, LA., JUNE 20, 1911. 

To the Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD : 

DEAR SIR: I see from an article published in your magazine, which 
was republished in the New Orleans Picayune of this city, that you desire to 
obtain what information that is available of George W. Muse, who, you 
state, was the first layman who applied to become a priest in your order, and 
though accepted by you, deferred taking orders through his patriotic sense 
of duty to his country. I knew George W. Muse well. He was engaged in 
commercial pursuits in this city, prior to the commencement of the Civil 
War. For some time prior to his leaving New Orleans as a private in the 
Battalion of Washington Artillery for the then seat of war, he was a guest 
of an uncle of mine, Mr. W. C. Shepard. While with them, a girl child was 
born, and as an appreciation of the man, and his high Christian character, 
the child was named Nellie Muse Shepard. Grown to womanhood, she is 
now married, and is living in Haarlem, Holland, the wife of a Mr. Logis, a 
publisher of that city. George W. Muse enlisted in the First Company of 
Washington Artillery, and left New Orleans with that command for the 
seat of war on May 27, 1861. The command was enlisted for the war. I 
was then a Sargeant of that Company, and he was on iny gun detachment, 
and was my messmate. Service in an army " tries men's souls " and every- 
thing of good or evil in a man's nature is sure to come to the surface and, 
thus, from most intimate association with him, to the time of his untimely 
death, I am warranted in the statement, that there never lived a more 
perfect, loving, and true Christian gentleman than George W. Muse, always 
true to his convictions, and though modest and retiring in his nature, brave in 
standing up to them. I being a Protestant, gladly subscribe to his Christian 
virtues. In the first engagement in which the Battalion of Washington 
Artillery took part (The Battle of Bull Run, July 18, 1861) he proved that 
he was a brave man, performing his duty fully and without fear. Early in 
the engagement, he was struck in the left sheulder by what was then called 
a " grape shot," which proved to be a mortal wound. Later in the after- 
noon he died, surrounded by friends and comrades. As a singular rfact as 
he died, he raised his wounded arm as if in benediction, and it remained in 
that position, even after death. I know nothing of his early history or of 
his family, only that he had a brother living here who survived him and 
who, I think, died only a short time since. This brother was Captain Muse, 
who for years engaged as a clerk and captain on our palatial steamboats, now 
a thing of the past. If I have been able to have assisted you in giving you 
some of the information you desire in regard to one whom I counted to be 
among my friends, I count it a great pleasure and privilege. 
Yours truly, C. H. C. BROWN, 

Lieut. 1st Co. Battalion, Washington Artillery, C.S.A. 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 717 







UR Holy Father Pope Pius X. has addressed the following letter 
on Universal Peace, to His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate : 



To our venerable brother, Diomede, titular Archbishop of Larissa, 
Apostolic Delegate to the United States of America: 

Venerable brother, health and apostolic benediction. We are happy 
to learn from you that in the United States of America, under the leadership 
of men enjoying the highest authority with the people, the more judicious 
members of the community are fervently desirous of attaining the advantages 
of international peace. To compose differences, to restrain the outbreak of 
hostilities, to prevent the dangers of war, to remove even the anxieties of so- 
called armed peace, is indeed most praiseworthy, and any effort in this cause, 
even although it may not immediately or wholly accomplish its purpose, 
manifests, nevertheless, a zeal which can not but redound to the credit of its 
authors and be of benefit to the state. 

This is especially true at the present day, when vast armies, instrumen- 
talities most destructive to human life, and the advanced state of military 
science portend wars which must be a source of fear, even to the most power- 
ful rulers. Wherefore, we most heartily commend the work already begun 
which should be approved by all good men, and especially by us, holding, as 
we do, the Supreme Pontificate of the Church, and representing Him Who 
is both the God and the Prince of Peace; and we most gladly lend the weight 
of our authority to those who are striving to realize this most beneficent 
purpose. 

For we do not doubt that the same distinguished men who possess so 
much ability and such wisdom in affairs of state will construct in behalf of a 
struggling age a royal road for the nations leading to peace and conciliation 
in accordance with the laws of justice and charity, which should be sacredly 
observed by all. For inasmuch as peace consists in order, who will vainly 
think that it can be established unless he strives with all the force within him 
that due respect be everywhere given to those virtues which are the princi- 
ples of order and its firmest foundation? 

As for the remaining aspects of the matter, we call to mind the example 
of so many of our illustrious predecessors, who, when the condition of the 
times permitted, rendered in this very matter also the most signal service to 
the cause of humanity and to the stability of governments ; but since the 
present age allows us to aid in this cause only by pious prayers to God, we, 
therefore, most earnestly pray God, Who knows the hearts of men, and in- 
clines them as He wills, that He may be gracious to those who are furthering 
peace among the peoples and may grant success to the nations, which, with 
united purpose, are laboring to this end, and that, the destruction of war 
and its disasters being averted, they may at length find repose in the beauty 
of peace. 

As a pledge of divine favor and a proof of our benevolence we most 
lovingly grant you, benevolent brother, the apostolic benediction. 

Given at Rome at St. Peter's, the eleventh day of June, 1911, and the 
eighth year of our Pontificate. PIUS X. 



7i8 WITH OUR READERS [Aug., 

DR. CHARLES K. NAMMACK, of New York, addressed the 
stirring words that follow to the Xavier Alumni Sodality of 
New York. It is a pleasure for us to give them a wider audience: 

The great need of the hour, the living throbbing message of our time, 
is the establishment of a religious solidarity. Religious solidarity should 
mean the unity of religious men in resistance to whatever interferes with 
their common religious purpose to have God's will done on earth. The need 
of it is proclaimed in high places throughout the land. The national Attor- 
ney General laments the dishonesty in our public affairs. The President of 
Columbia University bemoans our lack of moral principle. The President of 
Yale regrets the lack of confidence in our courts. The judges themselves de- 
clare that the whole country is afflicted with lawlessness. 

What can the sixteen million Catholics do to answer these pessimistic 
wails? Standing alone, no man can do anything. Brought together in the 
close and loving association of the Church, firmly united in religious soli- 
darity, the Catholic laymen are the hope of this republic in the civil and 
social dangers that lie before it. America to-day stands in peculiar need of 
that contribution which the Catholic Church is peculiarly fitted to furnish. 
What Americans need to learn is reverence for constituted authority and 
willing obedience to law, and this lesson the Catholic Church is peculiarly 
fitted to teach. The Church, after being providentially guided through so 
many centuries, will not fail to point the way of life and to become the cen- 
tral dynamo of the community in this electrical age. But this teaching, to 
reach the masses outside of the Church, can only be accomplished by the 
brotherhood of its laymen who mix day by day with their brethren of other 
beliefs, and show by example what the teaching of the Catholic Church means 
to its members. 

We are all traveling unto eternity. On that journey we can join hands 
to make smooth the way for those who are finding it rough and hard, for 
those to whom we are bound by ties of adversity. For it is adversity that 
binds; and not prosperity. Prosperity does not bind, it merely assembles. 
Adversity it is, that decides whether the brotherhood of man is only an 
empty phrase, or whether it means sympathy, courage and help. Adversity 
is the time when the good works of the Catholic layman become known and 
stand out in contrast with the empty trumpetings of socialism. Our socie- 
ties, especially our Society of St. Vincent de Paul with its many special 
works and branches, are doing more to remedy the evils of poverty and afflic- 
tion than will ever be accomplished by wild theories. 

But Socialism is not the only evil of the present day. We are living in 
a time when the scramble for the prizes of life has become a mad passion, 
when principle is being exchanged for expediency, when the Christian sense 
of sin is being regarded as a bygone superstition. It is a day of sensational- 
ism, suspicion and strain. Against these evils stands the Church of Christ, 
infallibly true, indestructibly good, the same to-day as yesterday and the 
same forever. In her lies the hope of the age, no less in her laymen than in 
her priests. Why should her laymen shrink from their share in this protest ? 
Is it because they believe they have no vocation ? The word vocation means 
a call, a summons. By common usage, it rs understood to mean a divine 
call, a summons from heaven which makes the vocation divine. Laymen 



i9i i.] WITH OUR READERS 719 

may hesitate to think that they have a vocation as well as an avocation. But 
as long as we have with us fellowmen who must be lifted from the degrada- 
tion of alcoholism and poverty, women who must be rescued from the starva- 
tion which may force them into vice, and children who must be raised from 
physical and spiritual darkness into the light of health and truth, so long no 
layman need lack a vocation, nor look in vain for work that may truly be 
called divine. Against the standard of the world, we must uphold the stand- 
ard of the Church. Against the vicious propensities of the human heart 
toward lust and cruelty, we must set up the standards of personal purity and 
love for our fellowman. Against the suggestive pictures, erotic literature, 
and sensuous drama and music of the time, we must maintain the art that 
breathes of heaven, the great poems and orisons that have welled out of the 
heart of Faith, and the literature that deals with sacredness and nobility of 
character. Against the vaporous and fantastic philosophies of the day, we 
must uphold the teachings of our Church, unshakable and unassailable. 

+ 

JOSEPH CONRAD, the author, whose work was treated at length 
J in THE CATHOUC WORI/D has received the grant of a pension 
,100 yearly out of the British civil list. " If," says 7he Nation, 
"the award has been made on the ground of need, the incident 
throws a curious light on the rewards of literary labor in England." 
Joseph Conrad is one of the very few capable novelists of the day. 
His work will endure. He has never been a " popular " author and 
unless the taste of the reading public be vastly improved, he never 
will be. He is conscientious ; he is a student, and he gives his read- 
ers the credit of intelligence. He himself is never unintelligible 

even to the simplest of us, only he does ask his readers to think. 

* * * 

T)OPUIyAR reading of the day in book and magazine takes it for 
JL granted that readers do not think. They desire only to be 
amused. The conscienceless way in which authors and publishers 
deluge the world with meaningless, immoral (in every sense of the 
word) productions is appalling. One hesitates to think what answer 
they, the debauchers of human minds, will give to the Mind Who 
has created all. They might do a most beneficial work in leading 
the people to nobler ideals and to a better life. That would require 
patience and faith and, hardest of all, financial anxiety, if not 
financial loss. They take the easiest way. A bulging pocket-book 
is more desirable than a full mind. Joseph Conrad has stood against 
such as these. He is not " appreciated:" he is not " popular." He 
must needs receive a pension. But his work is like a tree that has 
been planted beside living waters. It is bearing and will bear still 
more abundantly its own good fruit. 



w ; 



rE are always pleased to receive communications from our read- 
ers and to give them a hearing in the pages of THE CATHOUC 
WORLD whenever possible. . We must repeat once again, however, 
that we cannot take notice of anonymous letters. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York: 

The Little House Under the Hill. By Clara Mulholland. 75 cents. The Summa 
Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas. Part I, Translated by the Fathers of the English 
Dominican Province. $2. 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY, New York : 

A Text Book of English Literature for Catholic Schools. By William Henry Sheran, M, A. 
$125. Vocational Education. By John M. Gillette. 

ROBERT APPLETON COMPANY, New York: 
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. XI. 

A. C. McCLURG & Co., New York: 

The Good Old Days. By Charles Wheeler Bell. 50 cents. 

DODD, MEAD & Co., New York: 

My Life. By Richard Wagner. Vols. I. II. $8.50. 

THE AMERICA PRESS, New York: 

Pioneer Priests of North America. 1642-1710. By F. J. Campbell, S.J. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York: 

John Ruskin. By Arthur Christopher Benson. $1.75. 

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, New York : 

The Bible and Modern Life. By Clayton Sedgwick Cooper. $i. 

LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York: 

Half a Man. By Mary White Ovington $1. Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist. By 
Thomas Dwight, M.D. $i. 

B. HERDER, St. Louis : 

Plea for a Catholic Professional Literature. By Owen L. Lewis. Scents. TheVisitnof 
Master Reginald. By H. M. Capes. 75 cents. The Magic of the Sea. By Captain 
James Connolly. $1.50. Vocation. By Peter Gierman, C.SS.R. scents. A True 
Hidalgo. By Luis Coloma. $1.35. Switzerland To-day. By Virginia Crawford. 30 
cents. Choice of State of Life. Parts I., II. By St. Alphonsus Ligouri. 

J. B. LIPPENCOTT Co., Philadelphia: 

A Short History of the United States Navy. $3. 

SMALL, MAYNARD & Co., Boston : 

The Cross of Honor. By Mary Openheim. $1.20. The Garden of the Sun. By Cap- 
tain T. J. Powers. $1.25. The Big League. By Charles E. Van Loan. $i. 

THE SALEM PRESS Co., Salem, Mass.: 

Vanished Arizona. By Martha Summerhayes. $1.60. 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, Washington, D. C. 

Opportunities for Graduate Study in Agriculture in the United States. By A. C. Monahan, 
Report of the Commission Appointed to Study the System of Education in the Public Schools 
of Baltimore. American Schoolhouses. By Fletcher B. Dresslar. Indian Languages of 
Mexico and Central America. By Cyrus Thomas, assisted by John R. Swanton. An- 
tiquities of the Misa Verde National Park. By Jesse Walter Fewkes. 

WILLIAM P. LINEHAN, Melbourne : 

The Inseparables. By Rev. John J. Kennedy. 35. 6d. 

THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Melbourne : 

A Fight to a Finish. By W. L. Bowditch, M.A. The Ethics of Subscription. By Rev. 
Sydney F. Smith. Pamphlets, one penny each. 

THOMAS BAKER, London: 

Sermons and Lectures. By Monsignor Grosch. 45. 6d. 

ALPHONSE PICARD, Paris: 

Madame Saincte Anne et Son Culte Au Meyen Age. Par Paul V. Charland. S/r. 

PIERRE TEQUI, Paris : 

Petit Catfrhisme de la Grace. Par Cr. Vandepitte, D.H. Les Femmes du Monde. Par 
Joseph Tissier. 3/r. 50. Conferences a la Jeunesse des Ecoles. Vols. I., II., III. Par 
Ch. Vandepitte, D.H. 2/r. 

EUGENE FIGUIERE ET CIE, Paris: 

L' Humanisme. Par Paul Vulliaud; ifr. Charles Louis Philippe. Par Andre" Gide. ifr 

BLOUD ET CIE., Paris: 

Lourdes: Les Apparitions. Par Jean De Beaucorps. 3/7. 

P. LETHIELLEUX, Paris : 

Rome Est Au Pape. Par Louis Veuillot. ofr. 70. 




THE 

CATHOLIC WORLD. 

VOL. XCIII. SEPTEMBER, 1911. No. 558. 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY. 

BY J. F. SCHOFIELD. 

FEW months ago the Editor of THE CATHOLIC 
WORLD allowed me to bring before his readers 
the position of the Church in Denmark and Ice- 
land,* and the notable revival of Catholic Faith 
and life that has taken place in the smallest of 
the Scandinavian Kingdoms and its far-off northern depend- 
ency. No less interesting is the story of the recent progress 
of our holy religion in Norway, and of this I propose to give 
a sketch, albeit but in bare and inadequate outlines. It is a 
story of a mission stretching, in isolated points, over an im- 
mense extent of country ; of slow growth and comparatively 
small exterior results. But there can be no doubt whatever 
that the influence of the Church is not to be reckoned merely 
by the number of converts, and that there is a great future 
for the Faith in Norway. 

The few Catholics of the country were formerly under the 
jurisdiction of the Vicar-Apostolic of Sweden, from whose rule 
they were separated on July 23, 1863, Norway being erected 
into an independent Apostolic Prefecture. It was not until 
1873 that complete freedom of worship and rights of citizen- 
ship were granted to the Catholics of Scandinavia, and it was 

* " The Catholic Revival in Denmark and Iceland." THE CATHOLIC WORLD, Decem- 
ber, 1910. 

Copyright. 1911. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE 

IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
VOL. XCIII. 46 



722 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY [Sept., 

nearly twenty years later that the last anti-Catholic law was 
repealed. As late as 1885 the Norwegian Catholics were reck- 
oned as only 600 in number. They were ministered to by 15 
priests an average of 40 souls to every missionary ! Missions 
were established at Christiania, Frederickstad, Frederickshald, 
Bergen, Trondhjem, Tromso, Atengeard, and Hammerfest. 
There were two religious communities a branch of the Sisters 
of St. Joseph from Chambery, and of the Grey Sisters of 
St. Elizabeth from Neisse. In 1892 Norway welcomed her 
first Vicar-Apostolic in the person of Mgr. Johann Olaf Fallize, 
from whose reports much of what I am about to write is taken. 
Nearly twenty years of his wise and energetic rule have re- 
sulted in a wonderful advance of the Church both as to pres- 
tige and activity. 

Bishop Fallize points out that the number of conversions 
is greatly in excess of the apparent increase, owing chiefly to 
the fact that the financial crisis of 1899 swept away countless 
manufactories and commercial houses, and threw tens of thou- 
sands of industrious workmen into poverty. The result was 
an immense wave of emigration to the United States, and 
among those who thus left their native land were many sons 
of the Church. From Christiania alone over one hundred 
Catholics emigrated to America, many of whom left their wives 
and families behind until they had found work and a settled 
home, thus laying a serious burden on the Church in the capi- 
tal. The emigrants have proved true to their holy Faith and 
a credit to their country. 

In the preceding year the Swedish Government had sent 
a fanatical preacher, " Lektor " Bergstrom, to Norway, that he 
might study and report how best to oppose the advance of 
the Church in Sweden. He sent the government a most com- 
fortless statement as to the increase of Catholics in Norway, 
laying the blame partly on the Norwegian authorities. It is 
true that the Norwegian Government, considering its make-up, 
has always acted with unusual liberality towards Catholics. It 
guarantees to Catholics full liberty of worship, entire freedom in 
the appointment to all ecclesiastical offices, in education, the 
administration of Church property, and the foundation of relig- 
ious houses. One exception to its fairness and liberality is its 
prohibition against the Society of Jesus. The government 
recognizes the respect due to the Catholic priest, entrusts to 



i9".] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY 723 

the Catholic pastor certain legal formalities with regard to the 
civil registration of the members of his flock, and makes im- 
portant contributions in respect of the expenses incurred in 
the upkeep of churches and parochial schools. The liberality 
shown by the great majority of Protestants corresponds to 
such legislation. Protestant burghers have chosen Catholics 
to represent them on county councils, and even in Parliament, 
and have entrusted important positions to them. On the death 
of Leo XIII. official sympathy was expressed to Mgr. Fallize 
and his flock, Protestant authorities assisted at the Requiem 
Mass, and the Protestant press, without exception, devoted 
sympathetic notices to the memory of the great Pope. 

It is notorious that. Norway did not separate from the 
Catholic Church of her own will, but was forced into apostasy 
by King Christian III., of Denmark, to which country Norway 
was then united. For a whole century the Norwegian people 
strove for their ancient Faith ; but they were a flock without 
a pastor; it was forbidden under pain of death for any priest 
to reside in the country; the confession of the Faith was 
punished by loss of all property and by banishment, and in 
order to deceive the people many externals of Catholic worship 
were retained, so that at last the opposition came to an end 
and the country was Lutheran almost without knowing it. 
Happily this policy secured (however unconsciously) the valid 
administration of Baptism, and with Catholic ceremonies and 
the imitation of Catholic titles in the ecclesiastical hierarchy 
(" bishops," " provosts," " parish priests "), there was retained 
also, Mgr. Fallize assures us, a great part of Catholic doctrine 
and tradition. If the people at last came to hold the Catholic 
Church in abhorrence, it was because she was caricatured as 
a very evil monster. At bottom the people remained, in a 
sense, implicitly Catholic, and even in the Lutheran State 
Church preserved their deep Christian feeling and their innate 
sense of liberty. But there was no Cardinal Allen to found 
a Douay for Scandinavia, and no religious or seminarists no 
flores martyrum came to sow with their blood the seeds of a 
future harvest. 

When Norway won back her political freedom in 1815, 
her first act was to assert in her new constitution absolute 
religious freedom for all her people. It now seems incompre- 
hensible that when the constitution was presented to the 



724 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY [Sept., 

.* 

King at Stockholm for his signature this article was deleted. 
It was only in 1845 that the old Draconian legislation was 
abolished, and in 1891 that full religious liberty was estab- 
lished, and the last remnants of the old disabilities swept 
away. This long delay of justice was but one link in a long 
chain of oppression and broken promises on the part of the 
" predominant partner." The rupture of the union with Sweden 
on June 7, 1905, brought back political freedom to Norway; 
and on November 18 of that year the country chose her own 
king in the person of the Danish Prince Karl, who rules over 
Norway as Haakon VII. 

Tke State Church is far less free than the Catholic Church. 
Its head is theoretically the king, but actually and for all prac- 
tical purposes the parliament. Though gagged and fettered by 
Erastian tyranny, it has succeeded in preserving much of the 
old tradition of the Faith. The remoteness of the country and 
the conservative sense of the people have, on the whole, effect- 
ually hindered the spread of that plague of rationalism of which 
German Protestantism is so mortally sick. At the University of 
Christiania, however, and even in the theological faculty there, 
the reverse is unhappily the case, and the laity in many places 
have been shocked to find that pastors recently educated there 
are often entirely without faith in many of the fundamental doc- 
trines of the Christian religion and openly deny the Divine in- 
spiration of Holy Scripture. There is no one to take the place 
of Dr. Krogh-Tonning at the University. In 1903 a chair of 
Dogmatic Theology was vacant, and the theological faculty 
proposed as its occupant a Dr. Erding, who denied the Two 
Natures in Christ, the new birth in Baptism, and the Real 
Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, and submitted the 
Bible to the extreme "scientific" theories of the Harnack 
school. Only one professor, Dr. Odland, protested against the 
nomination; his protest was dismissed, and he now presides 
over the only high school of the State Church which is not 
possessed by the freethinking spirit. A storm of indignation 
arose, however, throughout the country ; the minister, Knud- 
fen, who held the portfolio of public worship, risked his posi- 
tion in defence of the "orthodox" Lutheran faith; but all in 
vain. Dr. Erding was appointed professor, and the State 
Church was rent by an internal quarrel of the first magni- 
tude. Clergy and laity, in countless meetings, abused each 



i9i i.] TH CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY 725 

other in the roundest terms, while thousands of earnest and 
believing souls were sick with horror and distress. It is but 
natural that the last few years should have seen many turn- 
ing, at least with inquiry, towards the old Faith. The storms 
that threaten to engulf the State religion have aroused in 
numberless hearts a wistful envy of those who have found 
safety in the Bark of Peter. And who can say what may not 
be the result of this awakened desire ? 

Not very long ago, in a Protestant newspaper at Bergen, 
there appeared, over the signature " Vox Populi" an earnest 
request to the Catholic pastor of the city, Father Erik Wang, 
that he would publicly discuss the new teaching of the un- 
believing party in the Lutheran Church. The writer, who 
represented apparently a considerable number of religious- 
minded and believing Protestants, spoke of the widespread 
desire " that this question should be treated from a really 
authoritative standpoint, and in a competent and scientific 
manner." They knew, the writer continued, that Father 
Wang was able to do this, and they hoped he would be willing 
to do so. The good priest was only too glad to help his 
fellow-citizens, and preached a Lenten course of conferences 
on " Modern Christianity " to a great audience of both Cath- 
olics and Protestants. 

A sign of the restlessness that is affecting the people's 
religion is shown by the transitory success of various reviv- 
al preachers. A Norwegian, who had been for some years 
in America, not long since attracted audiences of between 
four and five thousand men, night after night, in Christiania, 
his special theme being his opposition to the baptism of 
children. After some months he was quite put in the shade 
by a Methodist preacher, Barrat by name, who also had 
crossed the Atlantic, and stated that he returned " full of the 
Spirit.' 1 His meetings were extraordinary assemblies, the sup- 
posed " gift of tongues " being especially in evidence, many 
of his followers (like the original disciples of Edward Irving) 
pouring out torrents of sounds, of which neither themselves, 
nor those who listened, understood the meaning. In the 
remote country districts, too, wandering preachers attract the 
attention of the scattered country folk, and proclaim the 
wildest doctrines which usually inculcate hatred of the Catholic 
Church. The religious temperament of the people, the long 



726 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY [Sept., 

winter, during which most of their life has to be spent in- 
doors, and their isolation, combine to make them too often 
an easy prey to the ignorant fanaticism of these self-appointed 
orators. Happily, the Catholics are absolutely uninfluenced 
by such attempts, and many earnest Protestants have been 
led by such extravagances as these to turn to the Church 
for security of faith and peace of soul. 

The Vicar-Apostolic is making special efforts for the in- 
crease of religious houses, of which there are three at present, 
and which are warmly welcomed by the people. Close to St. 
Halvard's Church in Christiania is St. Elizabeth's Home, under 
the Grey Sisters, who devote themselves to the care of the 
sick in their own homes. The Mother Provincial resides here, 
and there are hospitals cared for by the same order of Sisters 
at Trondhjem, the ancient capital of Norway, and at Hammer- 
fest, the most northerly town in the world, where the sun in 
winter does not rise for two months, or set for a similar 
period in summer. Another hospital has been recently establis- 
hed at Tromso, somewhat south of Hammerfest, but still far 
within the Arctic Circle. It is interesting to know that the 
medical men of Tromso urged the community to this new de- 
parture. Wherever they have a hospital, the Sisters also direct 
the parochial schools. The Sisters of St. Joseph administer 
a large hospital at Christiania, and five others in the south 
of Norway. The third religious congregation that of St. 
Francis Xavier, the members of which are all German nuns 
has its mother-house at Bergen, where both doctors and pop- 
ulace value their work in the highest degree. At Stavanger 
their hpspital is so surely needed that the presbytery has 
been given up to them for increased accommodation, and the 
parish priest has found a residence elsewhere in the town. Mgr. 
Fallize is most anxious to see the foundation of religious 
houses for men. Regular priests, he says, are greatly needed 
to aid the parochial clergy in giving missions, retreats to clergy 
and religious, instruction to converts, etc., and to supplement 
their efforts in the pulpit and confessional. The Bishop writes : 

Jesuits and Dominicans, zealous for souls, have indeed come 
from time to time, in answer to my call, to help us, and the 
names of Fathers I^amotte, Giinther, Fels, Perger, and espe- 
cially of our inspired friend from Berlin, Father Konrad 
Fischer, O.P., are renowned in Norway; but these isolated 



i9i i.] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NORWAY 727 

visits are not enough. We must have our own monks and 
cloisters, and the cloisters must found their own mission-sta- 
tions, even where as yet there are no Catholics. Denmark 
has already a sufficiency of Religious men, Norway not one ; 
in this respect she is in worse case than the negroes of Africa* 

Mgr. Fallize also seeks most earnestly to create a native- 
born Norwegian priesthood. Several such convert-priests are 
already working zealously on the mission, and others are pre- 
paring for holy orders in the College of the Propaganda in 
Rome. 

It is noteworthy that it is the Norwegian people that have 
so welcomed the revival of Catholic life in their country, and 
this welcome has been warmly seconded by King Haakon who 
a short while before his election to the throne had an affec- 
tionate audience with the Holy Father, and who is on the 
best of terms with the Vicar- Apostolic. Mgr. Fallize was 
commissioned when on his visit ad limina to bear the Pope's 
heartfelt congratulations and paternal wishes to the young 
King on his accession. 

There is, then, every reason for hopefulness when we think 
of the future of the Norwegian Mission. The good Bishop 
has indeed a scattered flock to rule over ; there were last year 
only fifteen fully organized parishes, 21 churches and chapels, 
24 secular priests, 3 convents with a number of dependent 
houses. A small English or American diocese would think it- 
self terribly understaffed with so slender a plant. But the 
present results are the smallest part of the encouragement 
that those feel who watch the progress of the Church in Nor- 
way. There is a great movement among the people that they 
themselves do not yet fully realize. It is with them as with 
all the northern races on both sides of the Atlantic. Defec- 
tive forms of Christianity have been tried in place of the 
ancient Religion, and been found wanting. They have been 
powerless to satisfy spiritual needs, and helpless in the strug- 
gle against modern unbelief. They have fallen an easy prey 
to the tyranny of the state, and have by their very nature 
created and fostered endless division within themselves. And 
so the northern nations everywhere are beginning, where 
Faith exists at all, to turn back to the Rock from which they 
were hewn. There is an old saying that] is still to be heard 
in the country districts of England, which expresses a deep, un 



728 AN ACT OF FAITH [Sept. 

conscious tradition of truth: "The Catholic Religion was the 
first, and it will be the last." 

One Church alone holds the future, because one alone never 
changes in her witness, and holds out the same faith and the 
same gifts to all human souls in every age. And the story 
of her missions throughout the world is the pledge and the 
prophecy of that future which is hers and hers alone, 



AN ACT OF FAITH. 

BY EMILY HICKEY. 

My God, I believe in Thee ! 
Father eternal, 
Maker supernal 

Of all that is, and that was, and is yet to be, 
The passing, and the enduring infinitely ! 
And Love's Begetter from all eternity 
Maker and Father of all, Maker and Father of me, 
My God, I believe in Thee! 

My God, I believe in Thee ! 
O supreme Lover 
Who didst discover 

The one sole way to vanquish the. great- waved sea 
Rolling 'twixt God and man unebbingly, 
Till, smit by Thy lifted cross, it turned to flee 
Lover, Redeemer of all, Lover, Redeemer of me, 
My God, I believe in Thee ! 

My God, I believe in Thee ! 

Life's Lord, Life's Giver, 
For aye and ever 

Source and Fountain of boundless sanctity, 
Pouring high sapience and wisdom royally 
Down on Thy suppliant people, the blest, the free 
Thou who art fain to hallow all men, oh, hallow me! 
My God, I believe in Thee! 




ATTEMPTED SETTLEMENTS OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION. 

BY MICHAEL HENRY LUCEY, Ph.D. 

|HE present system of Catholic parish schools is 
the work of a century. During all these years 
the Catholic people have, from their private 
means, given every dollar which has gone to- 
ward erecting and equipping the buildings in 
which the schools are housed. They have likewise contributed 
the entire amount necessary for the support and maintenance 
of the schools with the exception of meagre state aid received 
at infrequent intervals. 

We have noted what a heavy burden this century-long 
struggle has imposed on a people who sincerely believe that 
religious instruction is an essential part of any sound educa- 
tion which seeks to make not only upright men but loyal citi- 
zens. While this burden has been borne cheerfully and un- 
complainingly, yet there has always been a feeling that in 
this matter the state has been dealing unjustly with its citi- 
zens. And as citizens of a free state, the Catholic people 
have, from time to time, striven to place the justice of their 
claim before their fellow-citizens. 

As we have observed before, the question of church versus 
public school was fought out in the Common Council of the 
city before the establishment of the first Catholic school, and 
the decision was in favor of the former. When St. Peter's 
was established a few years later there was no opportunity 
for the Catholic parent to decide between the relative merits 
of the parish and the public school, as the latter was not yet 
in existence in the city. 

But from the first we may note that the Catholic authori- 
ties were in favor of a just and reasonable amount of state 
supervision and control in return for state support. The law 
of 1813, which recognized all the church schools of the city, 
irrespective of denomination, as a part of the state system, 
and which made them its accredited agents for the education 
of children, provided laws for their administration. To the 



730 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept., 

trustees of the church schools were given the powers and 
duties of inspectors of common schools. They possessed power 
in the examination, appointment and rating of teachers; were 
required to visit the schools, and in general were held respon- 
sible for their administration. They were required to report 
periodically on the condition of the schools under their care 
to the Commissioners of Education, appointed by the Com- 
mon Council. 

This arrangement, in which the Catholic parish schools 
shared, was continued for twelve years, during the administra- 
tion of Bishop Connolly, and was then terminated. 

Bishop DuBois, as we have seen, was likewise in favor of 
coming to an agreement in the matter. In 1834, in an appli- 
cation to the officials of the Public School Society for the use 
of one of their school buildings which had been erected near 
the Cathedral, he requested that the board permit him to em- 
ploy a Catholic teacher, subject to the approval of the board; 
that the books used be subject to his approval; that he be 
permitted to visit the school from time to time and submit his 
observations to the board, but that final actions on these sug- 
gestions be left entirely with them. He likewise requested 
that the use of the building be permitted him after the school 
was dismissed in order that the Catholic children might re- 
ceive religious instruction. 

Archbishop Hughes, while a strenuous defender of the 
parish school, was likewise in favor of compromise. In the 
proposals submitted to the Board of Aldermen the Catholic 
authorities expressed their willingness to place practically the 
entire administration of their schools in the hands of the pub- 
lic officials, reserving to themselves the designation of teachers 
and the approval of the text-books to be used, subject, bow- 
ever, to the approval of the proper public officials. This 
compromise plan likewise failed. 

Cardinal McCloskey, the successor of Archbishop Hughes, 
was essentially a man of peace, who accomplished results by 
gentle means, hence his administration, which is marked at 
one end by the Second Plenary Council, and at the other by 
the Third Plenary Council, was in New York one of quietness 
and peace. That this was due mainly to the gentle but firm 
character of the Cardinal, and to the respect in which he was 
generally held, is at once evidenced not only by a comparison 



i9i i.] THE SCHOOL QUESTION 731 

of his administration with the preceding and following ones, 
but likewise by the consideration of the course of events in 
many other dioceses at the time. 

Not only were the relations of the Cardinal and his own 
people marked by this spirit, of harmony and good will, but 
his administration is likewise characterized by a growing spirit 
of tolerance in the community at large. The great Civil War 
had purged the country of almost all traces of bigotry and 
know-nothingism. The days of storm and stress were now 
over; a period of peace and good will had set in. This change 
of sentiment is marked in various ways in the social, indus- 
trial and commercial worlds. Even a more kindly feeling came 
to be entertained for the church schools. This is evidenced 
by the action of the people of both the city and the state, as 
represented in their legislative assemblies. After a lapse of 
sixty-three years the parish schools again received a measure 
of state support, small, it is true, but yet enough to mark 
the change which had taken place in the sentiments of the 
people at large. 

During the session of 1868 the state legislature granted to 
the church schools of the state, irrespective of denomination, 
a share in an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars. The 
money was to be paid on the warrant of the Comptroller, ac- 
cording to the number of scholars instructed without charge 
during the preceding fiscal year. 

The same amount was appropriated in 1869. In 1870 the 
appropriation was increased to seventy- five thousand dollars, 
and this amount was again given in 1871. 

In addition to these general appropriations which were to 
be divided among all charity schools, regardless of religious 
affiliations, there were appropriations for particular schools. 
The only Catholic parish schools which benefited by this 
special legislation were four in the City of Brooklyn, and 
these during one year only. The entire amount [appropriated 
was $6,875. 

At this time, also, contributions were made to the parish 
schools directly from the city treasury, as had been done 
when the schools were first organized. Now, however, no 
general plan was followed, no special fund was created for the 
purpose. On the contrary, the appropriations were special; 
many schools received no aid at all; and the amounts so con- 



732 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept., 

tributed were classed as "donations." Nor was the Catholic 
Church alone favored. The records of the Board of Aldermen 
show that appropriations were made to churches of all de- 
nominations for various purposes. 

This spirit of tolerance was not only manifested in direct 
aid from the public treasury, but likewise by attempts at set- 
tling the entire school question on a permanent basis. In this 
matter, as in so many others, the Cardinal allowed the pas- 
tors of the churches wide latitude. He knew that his faithful 
priests were as much interested in the Christian education of 
their flock as he himself was. He had, moreover, faith in 
their ability and judgment, and left the working out of the 
details to them. 

Compromise plans were -tried in Rondout and in Pough- 
keepsie. Although the schools affected were, therefore, not in 
New York City, yet they were in the diocese of New York, 
and the Catholic school authorities of the city were vitally in- 
terested in the outcome, and watched the experiments with 
keen attention. 

The Rev. M. C. O'Farrell had brought the Franciscan 
Brothers to start a school in [a building belonging to St. 
Mary's Church, in Rondout, about 1874. At that time Ron- 
dout was divided into three school districts. The school 
building used for the parish school was in School District No. 
3, where there was a large Catholic population in a great 
majority. The district school was not large enough to accom- 
modate all the children of the district, so in 1877 Rev. Dr. 
J. J. Duffy took advantage of this to persuade the trustees of 
District No. 3 to hire the school building belonging to the 
church, situated in the district, at a rental of $200 a year, and 
also to engage the Franciscan Brothers as teachers, subject to 
their obtaining a state certificate. The brothers did secure 
the certificates and were engaged. In school hours they wore 
secular dress, though putting on the religious garb afterwards. 
This arrangement lasted a number of years with fairly satis- 
factory results. 

About the same time a similar plan was inaugurated at 
Poughkeepsie. On August 21, 1873, the Board of Education 
of the city of Poughkeepsie entered into an agreement with 
Archbishop McCloskey, Rev. Dr. Patrick McSweeney, and the 
other trustees of St. Peter's Church, whereby the city leased 



i9i i.] THE SCHOOL QUESTION 733 

the two buildings belonging to the church for a period of ten 
years, at the yearly rental of one dollar, the city also agree- 
ing to pay the premiums of insurance on the leased property 
during the continuance of the lease. 

By the terms of the agreement the Board of Education 
was to have the absolute control and use of the buildings and 
lands and school furniture for the use and purpose of public 
schools during the school hours fixed by the board. Before 
and after school hours the buildings, land and furniture were 
to be under control of the lessor. 

The schools formerly known as St. Peter's Church School 
for Boys/' and the "Girls or Female School of St. Peter's 
Church," were now respectively designated as Public Schools 
ii and 12, and became a part of the public school system of 
the city. 

The selection of teachers was, as in the case of the other 
public schools, in the hands of the Board of Education, although 
there was an unwritten understanding that only Catholic teach- 
ers should be employed, and in fact this was done to the end. 

The scheme worked with very little friction, and was re- 
garded by many thoughtful men as a satisfactory solution of 
the entire question. It certainly gave satisfaction to the 
people of Poughkeepsie, for after the ten years' lease expired 
the arrangement was continued as a matter of course, and 
when its legality was finally questioned, its warmest defenders 
were members of the board of education of this city. 

During the greater part of the time while the plan was in 
operation the following was the daily order of exercises: 

8 : 45 A. M., morning prayers, 

9 to 12, regular course as in other schools, 

12 short prayer, 

i P. M. religious instruction, 

i : 30 regular secular course, 

3 closing religious exercises. 

The state school hours were from 9 to 12 A. M., and from 
I : 30 to 3 P. M., and no child was compelled to attend the 
religious exercises except by the parents' desire. 

In 1897, ia order to remove any possible objection, it was 
verbally agreed that all religious or denominational instruc- 



734 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept,, 

tion should be discontinued in the leased buildings during 
school days, and the right to use the buildings for such pur- 
poses was waived by the lessor. 

We are now to enter on a new phase of the school ques- 
tion, a phase which was marked by much earnestness and no 
little feeling. The previous battles on the school question 
had been waged with those outside the ranks of Catholicity. 
In this struggle the parties that differed were found in the 
Church itself. The controversy, which was unequalled in the 
history of the Church in the United States, was not local, 
but rather national. 

All Citholics held that religious instruction was an essen- 
tial part of the education of their children. The method or 
manner of supplying this necessary element was an open 
question, and on this Catholics were divided. The divergent 
views thus held indicated no disagreement on the value or 
necessity of religious education, but simply an honest differ- 
ence of opinion as to the proper, or rather most expedient 
method of putting this principle into practice. 

While it is difficult to draw dividing lines which are clear 
and well marked, because the views of the opposing parties 
shaded one into the other, yet we shall get a fairly accurate 
notion of the situation if we note the two classes of extremists, 
and the advocates of a policy of compromise. 

Again in ascribing views to any one of these parties it 
must be borne in mind that in each party or school there 
were various types from the most extreme to the most liberal. 
The most radical of the first class, then, were out and out 
defenders of the parochial school. They would listen to no 
compromises, nor would they brook any semblance of state 
control. The right of education belonged to the parent and 
to his accredited representative, the Church. With this right 
the state should in no way interfere. 

The other type were stanch defenders of the public schools. 
They contended that these schools gave a sound secular edu- 
cation, and that the necessary religious instruction could and 
should be furnished by the Church or the home. Further- 
more, they held that the public schools were an essential part 
of our republican scheme of government. In them all classes, 
the rich and the poor, the native and the foreign born, the 
Catholic and Protestant met. It was in them that these future 



i9".] THE SCHOOL QUESTION 735 

citizens of the republic learned lessons of tolerance, of respect 
for their neighbors, of the equality of all before the law. 

Between these two schools of thought there was a third, 
the party of compromise. While they were believers in the 
parish schools they did not condemn the public schools. 
While they were opposed to sending their children to the 
public schools as then administered, they hoped that in time, 
their fellow-citizens could come to realize the necessity of 
religious instruction in all schools, and that a plan satisfac- 
tory to all would be evolved. In the meantime they advo- 
cated the establishment of parish schools wherever possible, 
but would seek to have the burden of supporting these schools 
lessened by coming to an agreement with the state. To this 
end they would practically turn the control of these schools 
over to the state, reserving to themselves only privileges in 
the matter of selecting teachers and text-books. 

While the mutterings of this storm of dissension were just 
beginning to be heard, the Third Plenary Council of the 
Church met at Baltimore. The fathers now took a positive 
stand in the matter of Catholic Schools. Former legislation 
on the school question had been of an advisory kind, now the 
tone was mandatory. 

The fathers of the council adopted the following decrees: 

1. Within two years from the date of the promulgation of 
the council a parish school should be erected and maintained 
in connection with every Catholic church, unless the bishop, 
on account of grave difficulties, saw fit to grant a delay. 

2. Any pastor who, within this time, failed to provide a 
parish school through neglect and after repeated warnings 
from his bishop, should be deemed deserving of removal from 
his church. 

3. Any parish which neglected to aid its pastor in erecting 
and maintaining a parish school should be urged to do its 
duty by the bishop by every prudent and efficacious means. 

4. All Catholic parents should send their children to the 
parish schools unless, for special reasons, they were excused 
by the bishop. 

This rigid insistence on Catholic Schools was exactly to the 
mind of the Most Reverend Michael Augustine Corrigan, the 
successor to Cardinal McCloskey. One of the greatest inter- 
ests of his life was the promotion of parochial schools. Long 



736 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept., 

before the Third Council was held, he had, as Bishop of New- 
ark, warned, urged, encouraged and commanded the clergy and 
laity to build, patronize and improve the parochial schools. 

This zeal on behalf of Catholic schools he carried with him 
to New York. He took his stand squarely on the absolute 
necessity of these schools. In his first pastoral as Archbishop 
of New York he made his position clear. " We can no 
longer ask ourselves 'Shall we promote Catholic Schools for 
our children?' but the only question is this, 'how can this 
be most efficiently accomplished ? ' " 

In this advocacy of parish schools he was, however, op- 
posed to any plan of compromise which would in any way 
lessen the authority of the Catholic officials in the manage- 
ment of their schools. His rigid adherence to this principle 
made him the leader of the conservative element as opposed 
to those of liberal tendencies who advocated some arrange- 
ment with the public authorities. 

About this time, out in the City of Fairbault, Minnesota, 
in the Diocese of St. Paul, another attempt was made to 
settle the school question. On August 31, 1891, the pastor of 
the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the local 
board of education came to an agreement whereby the man- 
agement of the parochial school connected with the Church 
passed under the control of the board. The plan was no novel 
one. It had been suggested in all its essential details over 
fifty years before by Archbishop Hughes, and very much the 
same arrangement had been tried at Poughkeepsie without 
arousing any undue excitement. But such was the temper of 
the time that the arrangement between the parish school au- 
thorities and the local board of education of a far away Min- 
nesota town stirred Catholic circles to their depths. 

This discussion of the relation of the parochial schools to 
the state in which the participants were, for the most part, 
Catholics themselves was marked by intense feeling. A num- 
ber of pamphlets and magazine articles quickly followed. The 
extreme advocates of the parish schools held that the state 
had no right to interfere with the right of the parent to edu- 
cate his child, while the advocates of compromise held that the 
state had an undoubted right to provide for the education of 
her citizens. As the Rev. Dr. Bouquillon, of the Catholic Uni- 
versity, put it, " Not only has the state the right to found and 



i9i i.] THE SCHOOL QUESTION 737 

manage schools, but also to enforce a minimum of education. 
The latter does not exceed the limits of the state's just power 
and is in no way contrary to Catholic teaching." 

The controversy finally assumed such proportions that it 
reached Rome and called for the interposition of the Holy 
Father himself. Accordingly, acting under instructions from 
the Apostolic See, the Most Rev. Francis Satolli, Archbishop 
of Lepanto, called a meeting of the Archbishops of the United 
States at New York, in November, 1892, to consider this and 
other important matters. 

At this conference the school question was discussed in 
all its bearings. In the resolutions adopted by the Arch- 
bishops it was resolved to promote the erection of Catholic 
schools, so that there might be accommodation in them for 
all Catholic children. It was recognized, however, that a very 
large number of Catholic children attended the public schools, 
and for these it was decided that provision be made for im- 
parting Christian Doctrine not only on Sunday, but likewise 
on some other day or days of the week. Parents were also 
urged to assist in this work at their homes. 

Certain definite rules were also laid down by the Arch- 
bishop of Lepanto, as Delegate of the Apostolic See. 

In the matter of Catholic parish schools the Papal Dele- 
gate emphasized the importance of erecting them where needed 
and enlarging and improving those already established, in 
order to make them the equal of the public schools in teach- 
ing and discipline. To this end he suggested that the teachers 
of these schools should prove themselves well qualified, not 
only by previous examination before the diocesan board, but 
also by certificate and diploma received from the school board 
of the state. This was urged so as not to appear regardless, 
without reason, of what public authority requires for teaching. 
Secondly, a better opinion of Catholic schools would be cre- 
ated. Thirdly, greater assurance would be given to parents 
that in Catholic schools there would be no deficiency to ren- 
der them inferior to public schools; that, on the contrary, 
everything would be done to make Catholic schools equal to 
public schools, or even superior. Fourthly and lastly, it was 
held that the plan would prepare the way for the state to see, 
together with the recognized and tested fitness of teachers, 
that the laws would be observed, in all matters pertaining to the 
VOL. xcm. 47 



738 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept., 

arts and sciences, to method and pedagogics, and to whatever 
is ordinarily required to promote the stability and usefulness 
of the schools. 

In accordance with the Holy Father's expressed command 
the method of caring for those Catholic children who attended 
the public schools received special attention. As to the 
public schools, it was stated that the Catholic Church in par- 
ticular, and especially the Holy See, far from condemning them 
or treating them with indifference, desired rather that by the 
joint action of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities that there 
should be public schools in every state. But the Catholic 
Church shrinks from those features of the public schools which 
are opposed to the truth of Christianity, and to morality, and 
since, in the interests of society itself, these objectionable feat- 
ures ought to be removed, not only the bishops, but the citizens 
at large should labor to remove them, in virtue of their own right 
and in the cause of morality. 

When there were no Catholic schools at all, or where the 
one that was available was little fitted for giving the children 
an education in keeping with their condition, then the public 
schools might be attended with a safe conscience. The dan- 
gers of perversion were to be rendered remote by remedial 
and precautionary measures which were left to the conscience 
and good judgment of the ordinary. The Archbishop, how- 
ever, suggested the adoption of one of three plans for the re- 
ligious education of the Catholic children who, in large num- 
bers, received their education in the public schools, the choice 
to be made according to circumstances. 

The first plan suggested was an agreement between the 
Archbishop and the members of the school board, whereby 
they, in a spirit of fairness and good will, would allow the 
Catholic children to be assembled during free time and taught 
catechism. It would also be of the greatest advantage if this 
plan were not confined to primary schools, but were likewise 
extended to high schools and colleges in the form of free 
lectures. 

The second plan suggested was to have a catechism class 
and also classes of higher Christian doctrine, outside the school 
building, where, at fixed times the children would assemble, 
induced thereto by the authority of their parents, the permis- 
sion of their pastors, and the hope of praise and rewards. 



i9i i.j THE SCHOOL QUESTION 739 

The third plan, it was pointed out, was bound up more 
intimately with the duty of both parents and pastors. Pastors 
should unceasingly urge upon parents that the most important 
duty imposed both by natural and divine law, was that of 
bringing up their children in sound morality and in the Catho- 
lic Faith. 

The Archbishop likewise expressed himself in favor of some 
arrangement between the bishops and the civil authorities, 
whereby the schools might be conducted with mutual atten- 
tion and due consideration for their respective rights. 

These propositions, or rather the interpretations put upon 
them, caused much alarm to many friends of the parochial 
schools. It was feared that they would be interpreted as an 
indorsement of the public schools, and that Catholic parents 
would withdraw their children from the parish schools. Many 
children, in fact, were withdrawn, one school in the West los- 
ing three hundred children in one week. 

News of this feeling reached Leo XIII. He accordingly 
invited each bishop in the United States to write him stating 
his case. From an examination of these letters it became 
manifest that while many bishops saw no reason of apprehen- 
sion, to others it seemed that the proposition partially abro- 
gated the disciplinary law, concerning schools, enacted by the 
Council of Baltimore, and that the diversity of interpretations 
put upon them would engender dissension which would prove 
detrimental to Catholic schools. 

The Holy Father declared that such interpretations were 
totally alien from the decision of the Papal Delegate, as they 
assuredly were from the mind of the Apostolic See. 

The propositions of the Delegate were declared to be in 
harmony with the decrees of the Council of Baltimore, and 
were upheld. But in order that there might remain no room 
for further doubt or dissension, the Holy Father stated that 
the decrees of the Council of Baltimore concerning parochial 
schools, and whatever else had been prescribed by the Roman 
Pontiff were to be carefully observed. 

He then urged all the faithful to put aside all cause of 
discord and dissent and to work not only for the sanctification 
of their own people, but likewise for the welfare of their fellow- 
citizens. 

As a result of the great controversy, therefore, some claimed 



740 THE SCHOOL QUESTION [Sept,, 

that the party of compromise had won; while others main- 
tained it was a drawn battle. 

Despite all that was done by Catholic officials in the 
way of conciliation with secular authorities, the New York 
Constitutional Convention, held at Albany, in 1894, adopted 
an amendment which made any basis of settlement impossible 
for at least twenty years. This amendment, as we have seen, 
makes it unlawful for the state or any subdivision thereof to 
contribute in any way other than for examination and inspec- 
tion to any school or institution of learning, wholly or in part, 
under the control or direction of any religious denomination, 
or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught. 

About the same time the compromise plans at Rondout and 
Poughkeepsie came to an end. In Rondout all the teachers 
in the district schools had to be re-engaged each year, and 
this gave rise to an annual agitation for the election of trus- 
tees a number of influential Protestants striving to elect 
trustees who would not renew the lease of the parish school 
building, or re-engage the brothers. 

They divided the Catholics on the question. At last, in 
1895, they succeeded in enlarging the district school to accom- 
modate all the children, and this took away the ostensible 
ground for hiring the church building or engaging the brothers. 

In 1897 an appeal was lodged with the State Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction against the further continuance of the 
" Poughkeepsie plan." The appellant objected to the action 
of the Board of Education of the City of Poughkeepsie in 
leasing for school purposes the buildings known as School n 
and School 12, both the property of St. Peter's Roman Catho- 
lic Church; and to employment of the Sisters of Charity as 
teachers. 

It was contended on the part of the appellant that by rea- 
son of the sectarian character of the school thus maintained 
in these two buildings, parents residing within the ward where 
the schools were situated objected to sending their children 
to them, while other parents residing at long distances sent 
their children thereto, in order that they might receive reli- 
gious instruction given therein. 

The Board of Education admitted the leasing of the build- 
ings mentioned and the employment of the sisters, but they 
denied that there was any religious instruction imparted in 



i9i i.] THE SCHOOL QUESTION 741 

such schools, and they further denied that any denominatioral 
doctrines or tenets were taught in the leased buildings during 
the school days of the week. They further alleged that they 
had no power under the provisions of the City Charter to 
provide buildings or rooms for school purposes except by rent- 
ing the same; that buildings could only be purchased or 
erected by an affirmative vote of the taxpayers, and that the 
financial condition of the city made this course impossible. 

The State Superintendent, in a long opinion, dated Decem- 
ber 23, 1898, decided in favor of the appellant. While not 
unmindful of the fact that the plan attacked had been widely 
commented upon and in many quarters was regarded as wise 
and practical, the superintendent held that it was the settled 
policy of the state that localities must own school buildings 
in which their public schools are conducted ; that the leasing 
and renting of rooms and buildings for school purposes was 
not authorized except under extraordinary conditions, and tc 
provide for emergency. 

The superintendent, therefore, decided that the action of 
the board in continuing the lease of the buildings in question 
beyond the period of emergency contemplated by the statute 
was without legal authority. As for the Sisters of Charity 
who were employed in the schools as teachers, it was held that 
the wearing of an unusual garb for the purpose of indicating 
membership in a religious sect, constituted a sectarian influ- 
ence. The superintendent, therefore, ruled that it was the 
duty of the board to require teachers employed by them to 
discontinue in the public school room the use of the distin- 
guishing dress or garb of any religious order. 




THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL. 

BY HELENA T. GOESSMANN. 

JO you would have my Julius, who writes such 
noble verses, selling blue cabbages, fat hares, 
tender water-hens, and green salads in the Alte 
Market ? Why, Frau Hoenig, that would spoil 
the life of my boy. His soul is not like Han's 
and Jacob's and gossiping Phelps who sit in the Zohn-Garten 
after the day is done, chattering not more of sense than the 
doves that peck each other under the eaves of Ludgerikirche. 
My Julius will some day be great. He will sing at the Sang- 
Fest, and perhaps by the Kaiser's own hands will be be 
crowned," and Frau Elsbeth, seated in the midst of her mar- 
ketable wares, slapped away a black dog that was creeping 
dangerously near to her basket of poultry, and waited for her 
neighbor on either side to answer. 

Frau Decklar was too busy arranging her turnips and po- 
tatoes (all pealed for the pot), to make comment. Frau Hoenig, 
pushing away a measure of beets from her feet and shaking 
up with her long, brown hands a basket of kale, said : 

"Julius is a handsome boy. He should marry one of the 
girls of Miinster and settle down and do as his father and his 
grandfather did come to market, make a good livelihood for 
a rosy-cheeked, little wife, and spend his evenings in his gar- 
den or by his fireside, listening to the prattle of his own chil- 
dren. That would be better, and all Miinster of the Alte 
Market would call Julius a real man. Now they shrug tkeir 
shoulders, point to his head, look with pity at you, and say : 
' After twenty long years of nursing and feeding her nephew, 
old Frau Elsbeth still sits on the cold stones in the Alte Mar- 
ket Tuesdays and Fridays, while the graceless Julius wanders 
through the woods and fields, making verses that no one cares 
for and that he himself half understands.' Is that not so, Frau 
Decklar?" 

"Ach!" said the older woman; "let the boy alone. Per- 
haps there is more good in him than you think. He has a 
boy's heart, he loves children, and he is very kind to those 
that are helpless. Frau Elsbeth loves him and he satisfies 



i9i i.] THE SOUL OP JULIUS BITTEL 743 

her, and I think, Frau Hoenig, it is rather forward of you with 
three daughters already ripe for marriage to be talkie g so of 
this youth." 

Frau Elsbeth put out her tired little bent hand and patted 
the knee of Frau Decklar. Somehow these two old market- 
women, widows and toilers, had more often a common cause 
for sympathy than Frau Hoenig and her kind imagined. 

Yet sometimes when Frau Elsbeth sat alone in her little 
plaster cottage on Black Street, at the end of a tiresome 
market day, and listened for the footsteps of Julius and to the 
singing of the water-kettle over the fire, she wished that her 
nephew, for his own sake, would do some work that called 
for strength, force, and generous works. 

Once or twice during the last year she had tried to say 
this to him by complaining that she was now growing too old 
for the Alte Market, and that he might be a better one to sell 
their wares. Julius had tried to please her, but the roughness 
of the market women had discouraged and repelled him. When 
he held up a pair of young water-hens that he had carefully 
raised himself, before the eyes of a good haus frau from Rogan 
Strasse, Frau Hoenig, thrusting them aside, said to the pur- 
chaser: "Buy my fowl, raised on milk and bread and tender 
watching. Julius Bittel feeds his on poetry, dreams, and air." 
He was so hurt that he did not answer his saucy competitor* 
and Frau Hoenig made her sale. 

What did it matter to him if the bold girls on the Cathedral 
Plaza laughed at him sometimes, or an urchin pulled his coat 
as he passed, saying: "What is the last poem about, Julius?" 
Fere Gabriel and Fere Hedwig in the old monastery patted 
him upon the shoulders, and said to Frau Elsbeth: "Julias 
is a good boy. His soul is free from the beer and pipe and 
coarse song and dance of the public house." 

Every day since his First Communion he had visited the 
old cathedral. He loved the colossal and gaudily painted St. 
Christopher at the entrance, the high altar, the carved stalls 
of the monks, the shrines at the ends, the long dim aisles* 
the Pieta, the Crucifixion, the sweet odor of incense always in 
the air, and the clink, clink, clink of the friars' sandals as they 
passed to and from matins, lauds, and vespers. 

Frau Elsbeth had told him that his young mother had 
taken him to the cathedral when he was six weeks old, arci 
consecrated him to the Mother of God at her shrine to the 



744 THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL [Sept., 

right of the high altar, and so he often prayed before the 
quaint time-worn statue of the Madonna and Child, with the 
adoring angels painted on the wall back of it. 

The evening of Frau Hoenig's criticism of Julius found 
him making his five o'clock visit to this shrine. The day had 
been a happy one, full of tasks he loved, and country dreams 
and the halo of these he carried with him into the dim 
quiet of the cathedral. 

The rustle of a silken skirt passing roused him as a young 
girl stepped quickly to the foot of the altar and knelt down. 
She wore a long, dark red cape; her fair hair in heavy braids 
was wound around her shapely head, while a white lace scarf 
tied loosely under her right ear only partially concealed her 
face. Between her fingers as she prayed, a gold and crystal 
rosary glistened. Just behind her on the paved floor, knelt 
her serving woman. As the former rose to leave the cathedral 
she dropped a piece of silver in the offering box and lighted 
a taper before the shrine. 

Julius did the same when a few minutes later he took up 
his cap and bunch of young willow sprigs and hurried out of 
the church, through the twilight across the cathedral plaza 
and the Alte Market, down Black Street to Frau Elsbeth's 
cottage. 

He found his aunt preparing supper. 

" Aunt Elsbeth," he said at once as he entered the house, 
"who is the servant who comes on Tuesdays and Fridays to 
your stall and buys the pair of pigeons ? " 

"She is Johanna Orth," said Frau Elsbeth, "and serves 
in the family of Count Adrian von Dormsfeld. He is a very 
exacting master and I am much troubled that at times my 
pigeons may not be as plump and tender as he wishes them. 
But why do you ask this, Julius?" 

"As I knelt in the cathedral this evening," he replied, "a 
beautiful maiden came in and prayed before the shrine of our 
Lady. The old woman whom you call Johanna Orth followed 
her, and, aunt, the younger one looked so like one of the 
angels on the wall 1 " 

Frau Elsbeth stirred the pudding on the fire, moved the 
coffee pot a little to one side, that it might not bubble over, 
brought some stewed fruit from a cupboard near the door 
and then seating herself, said: 

"The beautiful maiden, Julius, is the daughter of Count 



i9i i.] THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL 745 

Adrian von Dormsfeld, and is called Francesca. The Count and 
his daughter live in the great old Hof on King Street. I mean 
the one with the double iron gates and the golden crowns above 
them. The Count is very rich, very proud, but very sad." 

" He has the most beautiful daughter in the world. That 
should make him happy," replied Julius. 

Frau Elsbeth brought the coffee from the fire to the table, 
put the pudding in an earthen dish beside it, and then sitting 
herself on a stool behind the one lighted candle, told this 
story to Julius. 

" Many years ago Count Adrian von Dormsfeld was the 
most gallant young noble in the whole province of Westphalia. 
His old father, Count Earnst, had left him a noble name, much 
land and gold. I remember well Count Adrian as he often 
passed through the Alte Market in those days, for I was then 
young and strong, and selling as now, blue cabbages, water- 
hens, hares, and salads. One bright June morning, about 
twenty years ago, the Count came to the ten o'clock Mass in 
the cathedral but he was not alone. A sweet young wife was 
by his side, and all of the market women were excited. They 
said he had gone to Koln and married the daughter of a very 
rich banker, and she had come with him to Miinster, bringing 
many millions of marks, so the Count once rich, was now too 
rich to tell. 

"The next spring Johanna Orth, my neighbor, came to me 
and told me with great pride that Jacob, the steward of the 
count, had just bidden her into his master's service. Two 
little babies had been born in the great Hof and baptized in 
the cathedral, Adrian and Francesca. 

"Then came that awful winter of 1872. Your young father, 
hired to attend the nobles in the hunt, was brought home shot 
through the heart an accident. Your little mother laid down 
upon her bed the night after your father's body was carried 
to the cemetery, and when the blue light of the morning came 
into her window I took you sleeping from her lifeless arms. 
Her heart always weak, had stopped from grief. Then fol- 
lowed the sickness of the black thtoat. All through Mtinster 
people died like the birds of the air. Even the noble families 
and the rich land owners were not spared. The first to be 
taken was the baby Adrian. A few days later his gentle 
mother, who had clung to his crib through his hours of suf- 
fering died too of this sickness, and the Count was left with 



746 THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL [Sept,, 

Francesca, three years old, to comfort and love him. The 
poor Count, once gayest in the dance, bravest in the hunt, 
strongest in the march, only came out of his house to go to 
Mass in the cathedral. Herr Everlinger painted for him on 
the wall back of Our Lady's Shrine the three adoring angels. 
The one in the middle is the countess, the one on the left the 
little Adrian, and the one on the right, Francesca, whom you 
saw praying this evening." 

" And," continued Frau Elsbeth, " I am told by Johanna, 
that Francesca is as good as she is beautiful. She does much 
for the poor, but if anything were to take her out of the 
world, black indeed would be the life of Count Adrian." 

Julius ate his supper hurriedly and silently, and then find- 
ing his aunt weary after her day's work in the market he 
urged her to retire. When he had extinguished her candle 
and kissed her good-night, instead of climbing up the stairs 
to his own neat little room under the rafters, he put on his 
coat and walked out down Black Street by the Freidansaal 
into King Street. He knew the von Dormsfeld gate and he 
lingered outside. The windows were well lighted. Occasion* 
ally a form passed between the lace curtains and the lamps and 
he imagined that sometimes it might be Francesca. He stayed 
there for nearly an hour musing on his vision in the church, 
and then he went back to his attic and through his dreams 
that night wandered angels, myriads of lights and a beautiful 
maiden with golden hair and wrapt in a long red cloak. 

Every evening after this Julius strolled down to King 
Street and lingered a little while back of the wide stone post 
outside the von Dormsfeld gate. Once or twice as he stood 
in the shadow Johanna Orth came out and walked toward the 
Alte Market. He wondered if she saw him, and was quite 
convinced that she had when the following day aunt Elsbeth 
said to him : " Johanna told me in the market to-day that she 
has seen you standing outside the gate of Count Adrian and 
she wondered why. I told her that you had seen Francesca 
for the first time in the cathedral a week ago, that I had told 
you the story of the three angels back of the Madonna and that 
the soul in you had been so touched by it that now you were 
writing some verses, and thinking some beautiful thoughts of 
Francesca at the shrine of Our Lady;" 

That evening when he made his little excursion to King 
Street Julius threw a single white rose into the court yard before 



i9i i.] THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL 747 

Francesca's door. It was a tribute from his poet's soul which 
the pure white flower, planted by his mother, and tended by 
him during all these years, could only express. 

Johanna Orth had said much more regarding the presence 
of Julius beside the von Dormsfeld gate ; more than Frau Els- 
beth was willing to repeat to him. In fact she had rather 
startled her old friend by suggesting, if Count Adrian heard 
of it, something might occur which would bring Julius before 
the public of Miinster in a very ridiculous light. 

That same evening as Johanna brushed the hair of her 
young mistress the latter said : 

"I sometimes wonder nurse, if I am unlike my mother. 
My father tells me she was very, very happy here; that she 
loved the poor and found her days in this old Hof filled with 
duties and joy. The hours seem so long to me sometimes, 
and I wish so to go out into the world of Miinster and talk 
with people who are not just officers or old women whom 
father brings to drink coffee with me. There must be young 
girls and young men in the town whom it would be pleasant 
to know. Do you not think honestly Johanna that my life is 
very dull and stupid for a girl of eighteen ? Why my mother 
was a wife at my age ! " 

Johanna Orth hesitated a little and then said : " My Fran- 
cesca you are a von Dormsfeld and have a proud position to 
uphold. There have been good von Dormsfelds and bad ones. 
Your mother was born for her position and she filled it. Her 
daughter must do the same. By- and. by your father will 
take you to court and you will meet some young prince or 
count and love him and marry him. Then you will live in 
his castle, have little children and days full of happiness when 
your old nurse is sleeping in God's Acre." 

" But, Johanna," continued Francesca. " You go to mar- 
ket twice a week and you come in and tell me the funny 
things you see on the street. When I go out it is simply 
with you to the cathedral or some stupid family party. I 
never talk with people except old Jacob or you or some one 
within the house." 

"Do you wish then," said Johanna, "to do something that 
will be very good, wise and kind, and yet will be not talking 
with Jacob or Johanna or with the old women whom your 
father asks to drink coffee with you ? " 



748 THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL [Sept., 

"Tell me quickly what it is you mean, Johanna," said the 
excited Francesca. 

" Every night, Francesca," her nurse continued, " the 
nephew of a market woman, a young, idle fellow who writes 
verse rather than do a man's work, comes to the gate of 
your father's house and gazes up at the windows. He saw 
you once in the cathedral and he has gotten into his poor, 
crazy head an idea that looking at you means so much to his 
soul and his heart." 

" But, Johanna," said Francesca, " he has never spoken to 
me. I have never seen him, and how should I know him 
among all the market boys that pass me ? " 

" Every evening," said Johanna, "for the last week when I 
have gone out on my little errands for you, I have found him 
at the gate with a white rose in his hand. Now he has an 
aunt, an old friend of my childhood, who is lame and bent 
and who sells her blue cabbages, hares, water-hens and salads 
in the market and every Tuesday and Friday prepares for me 
the pair of pigeons which your father orders. Elsbeth Bittel, 
for that is her name, is disturbed that her nephew is doing 
this. She would rather he would help her and do the work 
that is becoming a strong youth of his age. You can make 
him do this, my mistress. Send him a message that you wish 
him to help his aunt, and make him feel that you dislike his 
standing at your gate. The white rose and his verses about 
you are at best only the thoughts of a crazy man." 

"Tell me what he is like," said the interested Francesca. 

Johanna Orth quite off her guard, replied: 

" He is broad of shoulder, has large beautiful gray eyes, 
a white clear forehead and brown hair. He is unlike any 
youth in Miinster, and if he had the dress of a gentleman 
might even be handsomer than any noble in the province." 

"And you would wish, Johanna," said Francesca, " to have 
me say some cold and cruel words to him, because he looked 
at me in the cathedral, talks of me to his aunt, and acts toward 
me like the cavalier in a romance. No, I cannot hurt him 
but I promise you. dear nurse, that I will try to cure him." 

"God bless you child!" said the grateful Johanna. "You 
are indeed a true von Dormsfeld. To-morrow I will tell Frau 
Elsbeth that my good young mistress will send her nephew 
away from the gate and back to carry her basket to market 



19 1 1.] THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL 749 

and forget all the idle silly hours he has spent in the cathe- 
dral, and outside Count Adrian's gate. 



The 7th Corps d'Armee had been stationed for a number 
of years in Miinster and the military maneuvers held in May 
of each year was always a time for activity and celebration 
in the homes of the rich as well as in the wide public squares 
where the poorer classes assembled. The Kaiser and Kaiserine 
with a party from the court at Berlin were expected this year 
for a week's stay at the Old Schloss just inside the west 
ramparts of the city. Count Adrian had therefore selected 
the occasion of the Kaiser's ball on the opening evening of 
the military fetes to present his daughter to his sovereigns 
and the social world of his province. 

Frau Elsbeth on this same evening as she was preparing 
supper said to Julius: 

" Johanna Orth tells me that the Countess Francesca looks 
like an empress in her ball robes and that she goes to-night 
with her proud father to the Schloss." 

Julius ate little supper and talked less but after he had 
closed the coops and cages of his pets in the garden and 
tossed a kiss to Frau Elsbeth, he strolled down to King 
Street just as the street lamps were lighted. 

Back a little from the gate of the von Dorrasfeld's in the 
shadow of the wide stone post he stationed himself. The 
windows were brilliantly illuminated and the family coach 
stood before the great open door. The Countess Francesca 
came down the broad staircase wrapt in a soft pink cape and 
was tenderly handed into the carriage by her father who 
seated himself beside her. As their carriage rolled under the 
gateway, past Julius* hiding place, into King Street, Francesca 
said in a merry voice, as she slipped her small gloved hand 
over the side of the carriage door nearest her and dropped 
a small white roll in front of the wide stone post. 

"My father, every house is brilliantly lighted to-night. 
Even old Princess Solen is burning eight candles instead of 
one in her window.*' 

She had seen the shadow by the gate and she knew who 
it was. 

Julius sprang out after the departing coach and picked up 
the tiny roll. It was a white glove, and as he pressed it in 



7so THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL [Sept., 

his hands he felt a bit of crisp paper inside. He walked 
hurriedly toward the first street lamp and unfolding the glove 
drew out the bit of paper. On it was written in a girlish 
hand : " My true knight must do a man's work and be the 
brawn of his household if he would honor me. Francesca." 

Julius stood simply petrified for a moment, then he folded 
the paper back into the glove, pressed it to his bosom and 
walked quickly around by the old fortification promenade into 
the cathedral. He went directly to his favorite shrine and 
hung the glove under a bunch of wax roses which just touched 
the feet of the Madonna and vowed with folded hands "that 
he would be Francesca's knight and leave her glove and its 
message there until such a day as he was worthy because of 
manly labors to carry it into his attic room and possess it as 
his own." 

A half hour later Julius burst into the cottage of Frau 
Elsbeth and taking the astonished old woman into his arms, 
said: 

"Aunt, I have decided to become a market man. To- 
morrow I am going to take your basket filled with cabbages, 
hares, water-hens and salads and sell them. Sell them, do you 
hear, in the Alte Market. You will stay at home and knit 
and visit with your neighbors, and at night I will come to you 
with my hands full of marks. No longer then can Frau Hoenig 
tell you that you have a lazy, idle, dreaming nephew, for all 
Miinster will say before the summer fetes: "Julius Bittel 
loves his aunt ; he truly loves her for he works for her." 

Frau Elsbeth stood breathless for a moment, then draw- 
ing his face down to hers she kissed him many times as she 
said between her tears of joy, " I knew my Julius that some 
good day your dream and mine would come out of the same 
cloud." 

The following morning found Julius in the Alte Market no 
longer heeding Frau Hoenig when she spoke of his lank hares 
and his tough water-hens. He laughed now at her and sold 
everything in his basket, even to the last pfennig's worth of 
salad. The young market girls gathered around him and even 
Frau Hosnig, as she gathered up her own unsold fowls, poked 
him in the side and said : " Come and drink coffee with us 
on Sunday and meet my Mina, Julius." 

He, however, was living now in a world quite away from 



19 1 1.] THE SOUL OF JULIUS BITTEL 751 

the Alte Market, its rivalries, successes, failures and plaudits. 
He was thinking of the white glove hung at the shrine in the 
cathedral, his vow and Francesca. 



The military fetes were now over, the royal party back 
again in Berlin and the old Schloss and the population of 
Miinster settled down for another year to coffee drinking, 
cheese and family reunions. 

Tuesday morning when the Alte Market was again alive 
with its commercial activities, it was passed from stall to stall 
that the Countess Francesca, daughter of Count Adrian, was 
lying dangerously ill in Dormsfeld-Hof. She had contracted 
a cold at the Kaiser's ball, pneumonia had developed and the 
great doctor from Berlin, the Kaiser's own doctor, had come 
and said she would not live. 

When Friday morning dawned clear and warm and full of 
the odors of May flowers, the bell on the cathedral tolled its 
eighteen strokes Francesca had joined her mother just as the 
day was born. 

Julius stood white and dumb before his wares in the Alte 
Market that day. People bought of him and talked with him. 
He replied, but only his lips knew what he said. He was 
weak and cold and his heart beat so slowly as the day moved 
on that he felt at times as if even his vision of the busy 
people passing was fading fading into mist and he yet could 
not reach out for a support. 

Retainers of the house of von Dormsfeld had borne the 
body of Countess Francesca to the great tomb of her fore- 
fathers in the crypt underneath the cathedral. 

Old Jacob, pale, swollen-eyed and bent, was picking up 
some crushed roses and bits of myrtle dropped by the funeral 
procession in the court, and closing the great iron gates be- 
fore von Dormsfeld-Hof, when his eye caught sight of a black, 
crouching figure just back of the wide stone post. He went 
up and grasping the collar, drew the form around before the 
stone steps, until a white set face and lifeless hands were 
turned to the sunlight. 

" Heavens ! " he shrieked, " Johanna, come ! come ! come 
quickly I It is Julius, idle Julius, Elsbeth Bittel's Julius, dead 
dead at our gate. He is the second in a week. Mercy upon 
us! Who will be the third ?" 




THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING. 

BY WALTER ELLIOTT, C.S.P. 

;T. JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL tells of St. 
Francis de Sales sorrowing over the corpse of 
his mother: "He wept over his good mother 
more tears, as he told me, than he had shed 
since he had been a priest, but not tears of bit- 
terness, ' for,' he added, ' it was a calm sorrow though a 
sharp one. I said to God like David : I was dumb, and I 
opened not my mouth, 'because Thou hast done it (xxxviii. 
10). If it had not been for that, doubtless I should have 
broken out into passionate lamentations; but I dared not cry 
out under the blows of that Fatherly hand, 1 " (From St. Chan- 
tars testimony for St. Francis de Sales' canonization). A mark 
of sainthood is keen-sightedness in finding the hand of God 
in the vicissitudes of life. The place of suffering in religion, 
in repentance, in perfection, is not commonly enough known. 
The least known of all wisdom is the philosophy of suffering, 
a wisdom purely religious. Nothing is so hard to learn as the 
lesson of Calvary. " And calling the multitude together with 
His disciples, He said to them : If any man will follow Me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me " 
(Mark viii. 34). 

This stern test of fellowship with Christ, is expressed by 
Father Thomas of Jesus, as follows: "Thus Christ has de- 
clared in His Gospel that He will acknowledge none for His 
disciples but crucified men " (Sufferings of Jesus, xlii. 2). 

I. 

St. Luke tells us, that when our Lord prophesied to His 
followers the fate that was before Him, " they understood 
none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and 
they understood not the things that were said " (Luke xviii. 
31-34). This is a triple statement of a thrice-dyed ignorance 
of the divine reason of suffering. Involuntary suffering they 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 753 

might have understood; but that He should be ''offered be- 
cause He willed it" (Isaias liii. 7) a rebellious no was cast 
back at Him with triple emphasis. 

The value of knowing the reason of suffering is that it 
mitigates the pain; it justified St. Francis de Sales in his 
calmness of sorrow; it is an incentive to assume pain for the 
divine reason of Calvary, and to praise it and to propagate 
it. Ignorance of the source of evil is almost an excuse for 
falling into it ; if any excuse avails for flight in battle it is : 
We were ambushed. 

The most complete misery is that which I cannot explain ; 
it is like the fright from ghostly apparitions. A fit of cause* 
less depression of spirits, is often worse agony than anguish at 
a friend's death-bed. Reason demands a cause everywhere 
and of everything; the mind ca*nnot work without material to 
work on ; otherwise it acts like an engine spinning its wheels 
on slippery rails. The miseries of this life are insupportable 
only to one who will not perceive their origin and cause the 
hand of God balancing sin with justice. This is not stoicism. 
" It is not," says Tauier, " that a man is inaccessible to all 
external emotion. No; certainly not. To be truly patient is 
to hold for certain that no man can do us wrong," so bright- 
ly conscious are we of our deservings. 

II. 

If the Apostles, on the occasion referred to, had risen 
to the resignation of faith, and believed, on their Master's 
word, that He must enter His glory only by suffering these 
awful things (Luke xxiv; 26), they would have obeyed Him 
intelligently, exactly ; they would not have fled away ignomin- 
iously ; Peter would not have denied Him; John would not 
have been their solitary representative on Calvary; their eyes 
would not have been bandaged by triple folds of misgivings, 
even after the resurrection ; Thomas would not have earned 
the ignoble distinction of being the doubting Apostle. 

How different the case of Mary, who for her acceptance 
of the mystery of suffering, is crowned with the high title of 
Mother of Sorrows. She said nothing, but she believed all; 
listened and looked and believed ; and then she suffered, inde- 
scribably, efficaciously, "That out of many hearts, thoughts 
might be revealed" (Luke ii. 35). 
VOL. xcni. 48 



754 THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING [Sept., 

That much we can do, each in his place and measure, if 
we shall but learn the mystery of suffering, which is naught 
else than the bridge between sin and atonement. Then our 
abandonment to divine providence (in all the meanings of sub- 
mission to God's good pleasure) would be a flow of sweet 
water from the deeper springs of consolation. And our love 
of Jesus Crucified would be perfect, for it would be sympa- 
thetic. The cause of sorrow is God's purpose to remit sin by 
an adequate atonement in which each of us shall have a share : 
" Wherefore Jesus, also, that He might sanctify the people by 
His own Blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, 
therefore, to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" 
(Heb. xiii. 12). The reason of the alliance of sanctification 
with suffering is sin, and the decree that " without the shed- 
ding of blood there shall be no remission " (Heb. ix. 22). The 
religious definition of suffering is this : It is the means of the 
sanctification of our souls by the painful mingling of Christ's 
Blood with our own. Herein is the secret of the mystery of 
suffering, both now and in purgatory, nay it is the secret of 
heaven's joy. St. Catherine of Genoa suffered acute physical 
pain in the latter part of her life. And it was said that her 
friends " beheld heaven in her soul, and purgatory in her 
agonized body " (Life Ch. XXXVIII). 

III. 

We have an inkling of our relation to pain, when we real- 
ize that sin is a hurt to nature; the terms abnormal, deordi- 
nate, disintegrating, are all descriptive no less of sin than of 
sadness. Know sin and you know suffering in its roots. What- 
soever is not known in its cause is not well known in its ef- 
fects, is hardly known at all. Sin partly known is a violation 
of law and order; fully known it is a personal insult to the 
Deity, a breach of friendship with the Eternal Father, meaning 
deordination, indeed, but principally bitter woe to the sinner. 

The effect on an heroic soul of knowing this clearly is 
shown in the case of St. Catherine of Genoa. In her Spiritual 
Dialogue, she thus makes the soul address the body and self- 
love: 

My brothers, I have come to know that God is about to do 
a work of love in my behalf, and therefore I shall take no more 
heed of you, your needs or your words. Under the appear- 



19 1 1.] TffE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 755 

ance of good and necessity, you have well nigh led me to the 
death of sin. Now I intend to do to you, what you have 
wished to do to me, and I shall hold you in no more respect 
than if you were my deadly enemies. Never expect to be on 
good terms with me again give up all hopes of it. Yet I 
shall do all things in such manner that the necessities ol each 
shall be satisfied. You led me to do what I ought not, in order 
to satisfy your appetites ; and I will now lead you to do what 
you wish not, in order to satisfy the spirit. I will not spare 
you, even if you are worn out, even as you spared me not in 
so enslaving me that you did with me wholly as you pleased. 
I hope to bring you into such subjection to myself as to change 
your natures (Chap. IX.). 

St. Thomas teaches that suffering is the absence of a nec- 
essary good or the impending loss of it; or it is the intrusion 
of evil or the impending coming of it. Now there is no 
human being at any time of his life in whom the co- exist- 
ence of this cause and effect is not either established, or re- 
cently established, or impending. For in Adam, our nature's 
fountain head " all have sinned and do need the glory of 
God 11 (Rom. iii. 23); all the innocent are liable to sin and 
dread it, all the penitent lament it: "And if we say we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us " 
(I John i. 8), The whole race constantly suffers from the ab- 
sence, real or possible, of its supreme need, the love of God : 
" For we know that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in 
pain, until now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who 
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, 
the redemption of our body " (Rom. viii. 22). Mark the apos- 
tle's last words, laying down sinfulness as the root of the 
body's pain. It is notorious that most men spend their whole 
life in seeking pleasure and shunning pain, never with full 
success, often with aggravation of their misery. How high a 
condition is that, in which happiness is not dependent on 
pleasure. "I used to say to Satan" relates St. Teresa, "when 
he suggested to me that I was ruining my health [by my 
austerities], that my death was of no consequence ; when he 
suggested rest, I replied that I did not want rest but the 
cross" (Life, Ch. XIII.). Until one feels thus about dying 
and resting he will make no great progress. 



756 THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING [Sept., 



IV. 

What then is our joy ? It is the joy of penance. St. 
Peter of Alcantara appeared in a vision to St. Teresa after 
his death, all resplendent with glory, and he said to her: 
" O blessed penance, which has won for me so great a joy ! " 
It is our only solid joy. Our joy is a sick man's joy in his 
medicine. We once heard a soldier of the civil war boast 
joyfully of his left arm, which had been dreadfully fractured 
by a gunshot wound, and had been saved by a skillful surgeon 
extracting a section of the shattered and splintered bones 
between the wrist and elbow; he was proudly exhibiting and 
thankfully boasting of a boneless and almost nerveless arm 
and hand. But it was an arm, nevertheless, a real limb of 
flesh and blood, and infinitely better than none at all. A 
wounded man's joy is in the sharpness of the surgeon's knife, 
and a Christian's joy is in the sharp knife of sorrow for sin, 
that pain of contrition which cuts deep and true to his heart's 
core. "To my hearing," cries the Royal penitent, "Thou shalt 
give joy and gladness, and the bones that have been humbled 
shall rejoice" (Ps. 1. 10). Believe in that joy; crave that joy of 
God ; accustom yourself to the joy of mending your thoughts 
by painful efforts; of thinking of sin and of suffering and 
atonement as unified under the cross; of sympathizing witi. 
the Redeemer ; of bearing the pain of submission to the divini. 
will as the counter- pain of mental or bodily suffering. Do all- 
this and go on doing it by reasoning and by method and by' 
habit, till at last you can do it by instinct. One must syste- 
matically use spiritual means and measures until he becomes 
simply saturated with this doctrine of the correlation of sin, 
pain and joy, if he would go on smoothly towards perfection, 
which is "justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" 
(Rom. xiv. 17). 

Fail not to use the same plan for bodily joy, which if ra- 
tional and Christian, must square with that of St. Paul : " I 
now rejoice in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
dwell within me" (II Cor. xii. 9). We find joy in the soul's 
sores by curing them with the salve of the commandments, 
adding the unction of the counsels of perfection for the 
period of convalescence and to secure entire recovery. Con- 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 757 

sider this : if one persists in sin, he suffers as a mere penalty ; 
if he repents, he yet suffers, but joyfully as an atonement. 

Joseph was the name of a Christian priest who suffered 
martyrdom under Sapor, King of Persia in the fourth century. 
Being fearfully scourged, and seeing himself covered with his 
own blood, he lifted his eyes to heaven and joyfully exclaimed : 
"I return Thee the greatest thanks in my power, O Christ 
my Lord, for granting me this favor, washing me in my own 
blood by a second baptism and cleansing me again from my 
sins" (See Butler's Lives, March 14). " It was a favorite saying 
of Father Hecker, that the spirit of the martyrs was needed 
in our day and couatry for the spread of the true faith, for 
that alone, he insisted, forms the missionary type of character. 

V. 

Love is the source of all joy. Suffering in atonement for 
sin is suffering for love Love is just, and so by suffering makes 
up to the Beloved His losses by sin. And this form of love 
takes rank before other forms. Be just before generous; pay 
your debts before you give to the poor; be penitent before 
you are heroic. The head of our race is Christ, and His 
office is as personal to each as it is universal for all : " I 
would have you to know that the head of every man is 
Christ" (I Cor. xi. 3). Now the trysting place of each and 
all of His members is Calvary: "I, when I shall be lifted up, 
will draw all things unto Me" (John, xii. 32). Suffering has 
lifted Him up and enthroned Him ; we must know suffering 
in order to range ourselves beside Him. What love equals 
that of Christ on the cross ! What love is so sorrowful, what 
sorrow is so lovely ! What joy is so quickly got and so sure- 
ly held as that of the loving sorrow of the cross ? " For the 
love of Christ presseth us: judging this, that if one died for 
all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all; that they 
also that live may not now live to themselves, but to Him 
that died for them and rose again" (II Cor. v. 14, 15). Is 
not this a joyful solution of the problem of suffering? 

What man does to God when he commits sin is one thing; 
what he causes God to do is another: the crucifixion of His 
only begotten Son. By sin God is by His very nature com- 
pelled to remove love from the throne of joy and place it on 
the throne of pain, for justice demands this. By sin man does 



758 THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING [Sept.,* 



this to God : he seeks joy without love, therefore a sensual 
joy, an avaricious joy, the joy of hate, of sloth, the joy of 
pride, disobedience and rebellion, the joy of the beast or the 
demon which feeds the love of the degenerate child of God. 
But this joy of the wicked shall perish, and it will be fol- 
lowed by the reaction of sadness, just as is the case with the 
joy of the drunkard. Conscience rises like the stern prophet 
before the sinful king of Israel, and stands and points and 
threatens, and pronounces awful words of doom. Then follows 
doubt, dread, shame, rage, foreboding : pain in its worst 
form. This form of suffering is without God in the world 
and without hope. The other form is the suffering of the 
penitent: "And David said to Nathan: I have sinned against 
the Lord" (II. Kings, xii. 13), and forthwith "his tears be- 
came his bread day and night" (Ps. xli. 4.), till the prophet's 
message of pardon : " Thy sin is forgiven thee " had pene- 
trated to his deepest soul with its message of joy. 

VI. 

Our consolation is, therefore, a product of courageous suf- 
fering. Perfect joy we cannot have here below, and yet a 
good meed of repose of mind is sure to come by the post- 
ponement of unmixed joy till we enjoy it with Christ in the 
next life. " If he," says St. Augustine, " who came into this 
world without sin, did not depart hence without scourges, 
how shall they who have lived here in sin, not be deserving 
of scourges." 

A very sweet joy is that which submerges all carnal, all 
rebellious joys, and is content to rejoice in the more spiritual 
faculties, with a pleasure perceptible only in the finer sensi- 
bilities. Of a devout penitent of his St. Vincent de Paul 
said: "It is nothing to see her in health; you ought see her 
in sickness if you would learn her soul's quality." 

This love of suffering is unknown to the worldling, for 
whom suicide is so often the besetting temptation under in- 
curable disease. And yet men often sneer at the Christian's 
exercises of self-subjugation as self-torture, as inhuman, mor- 
bid, gloomy. But what of the self-torture of the man who 
practises vice, or of one less guilty but not less foolish, who 
wears away his life in the pursuit of money or of power ? 
Not self-torture alone but self-destruction it should be called, 



i9i i.] THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 759 

the destruction of the good self by the bad self. The self- 
chosen suffering of the Christian is just the reverse; it is the 
painful inner process of the enslavement by the good self of 
the bad self, done in union with Christ crucified. This is the 
surest joy of a rational existence, the only outlet for the 
noble longing of the spirit towards perfect bliss. St. Teresa 
says that the only remedy for the tedium of a long life, is to 
suffer for Christ's sake: "What medicine hast Thou, O Gcd, 
for such misery ? There is none, save to suffer for Thy sake " 
(Exclamation xiv.). 

" The thought possessed me that in order to obtain heaven 
it was necessary to give up the earth" the testimony of St. 
Bernard, and a very simple truth. It is the main truth, after 
all, of our divine doctrine, as far as that doctrine tells of 
means to an end. But not for obtaining heaven alone is 
abandonment to holy pain efficacious, for it bestows on its 
adepts the mastery of the earth. During the many years 
that that same St. Bernard's life, attenuated by years of reli- 
gious asceticism, hung by a thread, he chained to God's will 
whole nations of men. 

He was a marvelous combination of both the contempla- 
tive and the active spirit, showing how both work together 
unto joy. For the contemplative saint provides himself with 
food and sleep and clothes and shelter only sufficient to ward 
off death; because the nearer he is to expiring the closer is 
his view of God, his only joy. The saint of the active life 
makes barely sufficient provision of necessary bodily helps to 
ward off the collapse of his physical powers the nearer he 
is to fainting the better does he enjoy the consolation of his 
labors for souls. One can see how easily the two types may 
blend into one. The ordinary good Christian barely keeps 
within the Church's penal laws of fasting and abstinence; and 
even he has no small sweetness of devotion ; for the motives 
of all true Christians are identically those of Calvary. 

VII. 

"A soul that is full," says the Wise Man, "shall tread on 
the honey-comb ; but a soul that is hungry shall take even 
bitter for sweet" (Prov. xxvii. 7). How accurate a statement 
of the two conditions. When sated with an over- plenty of 
every good thing this world can offer, the soul disregards 



760 THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING [Sept. 

the heavenly banquet of the Holy Spirit. When dry and 
hungry, the least thought of God tastes sweet. Even the 
anger of God is a boon to a soul that is angry with itself, 
for it is the anger of a father ; it bestows first filial fear and 
then joyful love. 

What, then, shall I do about joy and suffering? The 
answer depends on your attitude of mind about sin and its 
divine Victim. What think you of Calvary, whose joy is 
there? What think you of Christ crucified, what joy is His? 
In seeking for joy place yourself face to face with the God- 
Man injured by your sins, and realize that the penalty is 
measured by the lex talionis, a life for a life. But in paying 
this penalty, bear in mind that you instantly recover your 
own life enriched and ennobled by Christ's. 

Let us conclude these thoughts on the mystery of sorrow 
and joy by Newman's profession of faith in the Catholic prin- 
ciple of asceticism : 

O my I/ord Jesus, I believe, and by Thy grace will ever be- 
lieve and hold, and I know that it is true, and will be true to 
the end of the world, that nothing great is done without 
suffering, without humiliation, and all things are possible by 
means of it. I believe, O my God, that poverty is better than 
riches, pain better than pleasure, obscurity and contempt 
than name, and ignominy and reproach than honor. My 
I^ord, I do not ask Thee to bring these trials on me, for I 
know not if I could face them ; but at least, O L,ord, whether 
I be in prosperity or adversity, I will believe that it is as I 
have said. I will never have faith in riches, rank, power, or 
reputation. I will never set my heart on worldly success or 
on worldly advantages. I will never wish for what men call 
the prizes of life. I will ever, with Thy grace, make much 
of those who are despised or neglected, honor the poor, revere 
the suffering, and admire and venerate Thy saints and con- 
fessors, and take my part with them in spite of the world 
(Meditations). 




UNFORGOTTEN SHRINES. 

BY LAURA M. JACKSON. 

ERY seldom, probably, do even Catholic passengers 
on the great ocean liners from Boston or New 
York, to Liverpool, Southampton, or Fishguard, 
realize that on landing in England they are in 
a land redolent of Catholic memories. There 
speak the evidences of a Catholic past made glorious by mag- 
nificent martyrdoms. There, also, are many communities still 
holding fast the ancient Faith in unbroken continuity from 
pre- Reformation times. It is too commonly assumed because 
England is technically a " Protestant country," with a repu- 
tation for deeply-seated bigotry, that what Catholicism it 
happily possesses is either the hereditary legacy of a few 
great Catholic families, or that it has been brought to it in 
comparatively recent years by immigration from Ireland or 
the Catholic countries of Europe. Nothing could be further 
from the truth. While thanking God whole-heartedly for the 
augmentation to their numbers from the sister isle and other 
Catholic lands, the Catholics of England, more particularly 
in the far North and in "faithful Lancashire/' are proud to 
remember that they are the descendants of ancestors who in 
every stratum of society (as is proved by the official lists of 
recusants) were true to the Faith of their Fathers, " in spite 
of dungeon, fire, and sword." 

It is of some of the places sanctified by the lives of mar- 
tyrs and confessors of the Faith, that Dom Bede Camm tells 
us in Forgotten Shrines*; but we at once join issue with the 
author regarding the title. Forgotten these shrines certain- 
ly are not; neither are they likely to become so; some of 
them are indeed the scene of annual public pilgrimages. What 
is more important, the martyrs whose names are linked with 
them are not and never will be forgotten. Many loving 
labors have prevented that. Challoner in a by-gone day ; and 
in times more recent, the learned researches, of the late Father 

* Forgotten Shrines. St. Louis : B. Herder. $6. 



762 UNFORGOTTEN SHRINES [Sept., 

John Morris, S.J., and of Abbot Gasquet, O.S.B., of Dom Gil- 
bert Dolan, O.S.B., of Father John Pollen, SJ., of Father 
Phillips, of Ushaw, and of their host of collaborators, have 
secured to history abundant, if far from exhaustive, material 
regarding the glorious band of English martyrs, and have es- 
tablished the claims of many of them to beatification. 

Dom Bede Camm now adds to his own previous work in 
the same field a handsome volume which will appeal to a large 
circle of readers who might be repelled by a severely histori- 
cal work. The book will, perhaps, lead them in their turn to 
become pilgrims to these fortunately Unforgotten Shrines. 

Those among us who have lived from youth among the 
lore and relics of penal days, may be forgiven for asking upon 
what principle of selection Dom Bede Camm has made his 
choice of matter, whether as regards martyrs or "shrines." 
While welcoming all that he has to tell, even to the vast 
amount of conjecture which may or may not actually repre- 
sent facts connecting martyrs and confessors with the places 
described, we note omissions which suggest that Dom Bede 
Camm himself has forgotten that unforgotten "shrines" are 
to be found in East Anglia, in the West Country, in the 
southern shires, and even more numerously than he apparently 
indicates 'twixt Trent and Tweed, and in the faithful County 
Palatine. It were ungracious, however, to dwell upon omissions 
when so much good matter is provided. We heartily recomm- 
end our readers to make themselves acquainted in the beauti- 
fully printed volume itself, with the admirably reproduced pict- 
ures illustrating the domestic architecture of the period, and 
including portraits, facsimiles of deeds and letters, and other 
subjects of interest. Indeed, the book would be worth pos- 
sessing for its delightful pictures alone and for its important, 
if not exhaustive, chapter on the relics of the English martyrs. 

If the martyrs themselves are held in loving memory, and 
if the places where they lived and labored are visited in rev- 
erent pilgrimage, unforgotten too is the constancy of the no- 
ble band of confessors secular clergy from Douay, sons of 
St. Benedict and St. Francis, members of the Society of Jesus 
faithful nobles and gentry sturdy yeomen and stolid farm- 
ers, soldiers and sailors, and others too, who in their several 
spheres fought the good fight for the Faith. In parts of 
England, as we know, the homes of some of the gentry were 



i9i i.] UNFORGOTTEN SHRINES 763 

recognized centres of Catholic life; and for the fidelity of the 
local leaders who thus held to the old religion no gratitude can 
be too great. Elsewhere, however, whole tracts of country 
remained staunchly Catholic when the dominant interest was 
openly and even aggressively Protestant. It is a significant 
fact that where there was fidelity in "unprotected" regions, the 
Faith was and is still of the most tenacious and robust type. 

But no words can ever tell what Catholicism in England 
owes to the missionary priests, secular and regular, who at 
the peril of their lives traveled from place to place, reconciling 
the lapsed, and bringing Mass and the Sacraments to the 
faithful. The heroism of those among them whom God did 
not destine for the martyr's crown, and of their successors in 
post-penal days is perhaps too frequently taken for granted ; 
yet but for it the old religion might have been as effectually 
stamped out in England as it was in some other countries; 
and the first Archbishop of Baltimore might not have received 
Episcopal consecration at the hands of the English Benedic- 
tine, Bishqp Walmsley, at Lulworth Castle, a southern strong- 
hold of the Faith; neither might he have heard in the sermon 
then preached by the English Jesuit, Father Plowden, the 
prophetic words foretelling the future glory of the Church in 
the United States. 

Interesting surely to their children's children for many 
generations will be Dom Bede Camm's presentment of a few 
of the English martyrs and confessors, and of the places 
which through them have become " Unforgotten Shrines." 
Linking modern with mediaeval days is the name of Blessed 
Margaret of Salisbury, last and greatest of the great Planta- 
genets, who was beheaded in the tower of London for refus- 
ing to acknowledge Henry VIIFs usurped title to supremacy 
over the Church in matters spiritual, and thus entwined the 
golden boughs of the planta genista with the palm branch of 
martyrdom. Of her we read in the chapter entitled, A Ruined 
Castle by the Sea, her favorite home at Warblington where 
Hampshire touches Sussex. Another martyr in the same cause 
was Blessed Adrian Fortescue, layman, whose home was for a 
time at Stonor Park in Oxfordshire, where later on was set 
up the secret printing press from which was issued Blessed 
Edmund Campion's famous Ten Reasons for holding the Faith. 
Incidentally we catch a glimpse of this most fascinating Jesuit 



764 UNFORGOTTEN SHRINES [Sept., 

martyr in the chapter on Stonor. Richly weighted with in- 
terest is the Fitzherbert chapter, a record of loyalty and suf- 
fering for conscience sake in exile and in chains and finally 
in martyrdoms which Derby Bridge and Derby gaol were 
privileged to see. The scene of the Northern Rising for the 
restoration of the Old Religion is vividly portrayed in Dom 
Side's chapter on Markenfield Hall. Ripley Castle, revered as 
the birthplace of the Venerable Francis Ingleby, gives its title 
to a chapter devoted not only to his short missionary career 
and subsequent martyrdom and to the serener fortunes of his 
relatives in convents beyond the seas, but likewise to the 
glorious deeds and death of the valiant Margaret Clitherow 
one of the nobliest martyrs who laid down their lives for the 
Faith. The Old Chapel at Mawdesley introduces us briefly to 
many relics and to three more Elizabethan martyrs, the Vener- 
able John Rigby of Harrock in Lancashire, the Venerable John 
Finch and the Venerable George Haydock, a martyr for the 
perogatives of the successors of St. Peter. 

Passing from times of Tudor tyranny to scarcely less cruel 
days of early Stuart rule, we read the pathetic story of 
the friendship and martyrdom of the Venerable John Sugar, 
priest, and his young friend Robert Grissold, layman, who 
together shed their blood at Warwick for their Lord. Dom 
Bede Caram's chapter on Baddesley Clinton tells their tale, 
and shows us the ancestral home of the Ferrers family, which 
has kept the Faith and been its untiring defender. An Oxford 
Martyr was the Venerable George Napier, at whose home at 
Holywell Manor outside the university town, Mass was cele- 
brated regularly throughout the dark days of persecution. 
Washingley Hall introduces us to the Venerable Robert Price 
or Apreece who promptly answering to a non-judicial query, 
" I am Price, the Roman Catholic," was immediately shot 
dead. In a Martyr's Footsteps we read of the road over moss 
and moor trodden by the Venerable Edmund Arrowsmith, S J., 
when he was apprehended and led to death at Lancaster Cas- 
tle; we come into touch with the faithful shire in which the 
labors of the martyrs have ever borne abundant fruit; and we 
come to know the " Holy Hand," a relic to which God has 
accorded the gift of miracles. Woodcock Hall and the Martyr's 
Altar tells of the birthplace of the Venerable John Woodcock, 
O.S.F., and of a precious missionary altar, at which he said 



19 II.] UN FORGOTTEN SHRINES 765 

his last Mass, and at which the martyrs, Father Campion, S.J,, 
and Father Arrowsmith, S.J., had also offered the Holy Sacri- 
fice. Gruesome though be its title, Ike Skull of Wordley Hall 
relates the story of one of the bravest and most gracious of 
the martyrs commemorated by Dom Bede Camm. His gentle 
brother Benedictine, Dom Ambrose Barlow, a monk of St. 
Gregory's, attracts us now as he attracted during his fruitful 
apostolate in Lancashire the hearts alike of friend and foe 
until he won the crown of martyrdom at Lancaster Castle. 

Three martyrs brought to death by the pretended Popish 
plot of Titus Oates find a place in Dom Bede Camm's pages. 
All three were martyred in August, 1679. Father Postgate, at 
York, on the 7th of the month; Father Wall, O.S.F., at Wor- 
cester, and Father Kemble, at Hereford, both of them on the 
22nd of the month. Of the Venerable Nicholas Postgate's 
long missionary labors in North Yorkshire on and around 
Cleveland Blackamoor, of the touching hymn he composed 
when in prison awaiting execution, of his death at York, and 
of the beautiful traditions that lingered round his name, and 
were preserved in the last century by Father Nicholas Rigby, 
the fine old priest at Ugthorpe, we have quite a delightful 
account in the chapter entitled A Martyr of the Yorkshire 
Moors. Pictures that are an artistic treat illustrate the story 
of A Franciscan Apostle, His Home and His Flock , and show 
us Harvington Hall, Rushock and Purshall and Chaddesley 
Corbet all recalling in luxuriant Worcestershire the memory 
of the Venerable John Wall, O.S.F. who gained the martyr's 
crown at Redhill just outside Worcester. Pembridge Castle % 
the centre from which for many long years the saintly apostle 
gained souls to Christ in peace, gives a place-name to the 
chapter on the Venerable John Kemble, one of the most 
pathetic and lovable of the martyrs for conscience sake in the 
seventeenth century, and possibly a future patron of smokers, 
for he loved his pipe and found solace from his labors in a 
smoke. 

Before ending this brief mention of martyrs with whom 
and with others, too, we hope our readers will make more in- 
timate acquaintance in Dom Bede Camm's pages, we would 
draw attention to the last recorded words of these servants of 
God before they underwent the cruel death by which most of 
them gained the martyr's crown. Most emphatically do these 



;66 ICHABOD ; ICHABOD ! [Sept. 

words testify that the English martyrs suffered for no treason, 
for no political cause, but simply and solely for their Faith, 
for the Old Faith that made England Catholic and gave her 
her saints, for the Old Faith that though persecuted and op- 
pressed during the long winter time before the coming of the 
" Second Spring," has never, thanks be to God, died out in 
the land that was once renowned for its devotion to Jesus in 
the Blessed Sacrament and to Peter's See, and gloried in the 
title of the " Dowry of Mary." 

Transit gloria mundi : 
Fides Catholica manet. 



ICHABOD: ICHABOD! 

BY CORNELIUS CLIFFORD. 

In vacant hours by day, 
In dreams of the too-brief night, 
Breaks my youth's vision bright, 
Gilding times' lowering grey 
With the old delusive ray, 
This then O rare delight! 
L/ife vaunts its ancient might, 
Futile, but brave alway. 

Sudden the splendors fade, 
As, swift from brain to heart, 
God's message of dissent 
Flashes; and, undismayed, 
I choose the duller part, 
With His high will content. 




HENRIK IBSEN. 

BY EDWARD F. CURRAN. 

CONNECTED with the drama of the nineteenth 
century there has been no name so prominently 
before the public as that of Henrik Ibsen, whose 
life though devoid of very special interest seems 
to have colored his literary work to a large de- 
gree. It is better, therefore, to lay the foundation of a review 
of that work by a rough survey of him as he lived, for the 
general reader will then be able to understand better some 
of the dramatist's subjects and theories. 

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in Skien, a 
seaport town on the southeast coast of Norway. His father 
was a merchant, at one time possessing ample means, but 
whose business through sheer recklessness failed in 1836 The 
family had to leave Skien proper, and retire to a small farm 
on the outskirts of the town. This turn in family affairs 
changed the career of Henrik, who was compelled towards the 
end of his fourteenth year to go out into the world to earn 
his living. With an embittered mind he became the appren- 
tice of an apothecary in Grimstad, and, though heartily detest- 
ing the business, remained at this work until the close 
of 1849. In spite of his hatred of everything connected 
with drugs and medicines, he managed for some time to en- 
joy himself after his own heart, but not without incurring 
the disapproval and the frowns of the puritanically inclined 
citizens. It appears that one of Ibsen's gifts at this time was 
the knack of turning out rhyming lampoons on the staid 
townsfolk, which were naturally by no means appreciated by 
the unhappy victims. Although it is evident that he had al- 
ready given his thoughts to writing, these ventures in rhyme 
were only his skirmishes in literature. But in 1847 he began 
to write in earnest, and two years later his first drama in 
blank verse, Catilina, was written under the pseudonym 
" Brynjolf Bjarnie." A newly acquired friend in the person of 
Ole Schulerud, a law student, took the play to Christiana and 



;68 HENRIK IBSEN [Sept, 

offered it to the managers, but no one would touch it. 
Schulerud then gave a loan of money to Ibsen, who pub- 
lished the play in 1850. It turned out to be a complete 
failure, and only thirty copies were sold. By this time Ibsen 
had taken off the apothecary's apron, and had come to Chris- 
tiana in the hope of studying medicine, but having failed in 
his matriculation he abandoned the idea of trying again to 
enter the University. Straightened circumstances now befell 
him, and were it not for the kindness of Schulerud he would 
have found much difficulty in obtaining the merest necessaries 
of life. Ibsen being freed from immediate danger of starva- 
tion by a share of Schulerud's lodging, began at once to build 
his castles in the air, and towards the end of 1850 a one-act 
play by him The Viking's Grave was produced at the Chris- 
tiania Theatre. 

On November 6, 1851, he was appointed "Stage- Poet" of 
the Norwegian National Theatre in Bergin, a post that car- 
ried the combined duties of stage-manager and playwright, 
at a yearly salary of not quite three hundred and forty dol- 
lars. Small as it was it could not be refused by one who 
had no regular income, and whose penwork was bringing in 
next to nothing. At the expiration of his term of appoint- 
ment in 1857 he returned to Christiania, where he became 
Artistic Director of the Norwegian Theatre, a better post 
since it meant a salary of over six hundred dollars; but on 
this house failing in 1862 he was thrown out of employment. 
Meanwhile he had married Susan Thoresen, a member of a 
literary family, by whom he had one child, Sigurd, born De- 
cember, 1859. When the Norwegian Theatre became bank- 
rupt Ibsen without any hesitation accepted the position of 
Aesthetic- Adviser to the Christiania Theatre, which was con- 
ducted by Danes and had been in opposition to the Nor- 
wegian Theatre, an institution national in all its aims. Here his 
salary was only about three hundred dollars, and even this 
sum was uncertain, for if the receipts of the theatre did not 
reach a required amount Ibsen's salary suffered. The result 
was that he fell heavily into debt, and finding the greatest 
difficulty in supporting himself, his wife and child, he ap- 
pealed to the Norwegian Government for aid before he would 
be forced to put into effect his resolution to emigrate to 
Denmark. Life never seemed blacker to him than at this 



1 9 1 1 . ] HENRIK IBSEN 769 

period. The managers waved his plays aside, and no pub- 
lisher would look at them. To one of his few friends, Paul 
Botten-Hansen, he wrote imploringly at the begfnning of 1857 
to try and get Lady Inger of Ostraat printed, so that the 
work could be brought before the eye of the public. "Dear 
friend," he wrote, " let me count on your help ! I give you 
full liberty to do as you please with Lady Inger. Urge a pub- 
lisher until he gives in." 

In 1849 Ibsen wrote a poem appealing strongly to his fel- 
low countrymen to stand by Schleswig and save it from Ger- 
many, but there was no response to his views. About this 
time there was an acute movement among Norwegians for a 
union between the Scandinavian countries. Ibsen became a 
violent "Scandinavian" as well as a pronounced hater of 
everything Prussian. He now dabbled in politics extensively, 
and came very near seeing the inside of a prison cell in 1851 
over a connection he had formed with a newspaper which pro- 
mulgated extreme views. The aloofness of the Norwegians in 
the struggle between Prussia and Denmark in the war of 
1864, waged for the annexation by the former country of Hoi- 
stein, Lauenberg, and Schleswig, enraged Ibsen so much that 
he determined to become a voluntary exile from his native 
land, and accordingly on April 2, 1864, he started out for Rome. 
His position by this time had improved slightly, while a 
brighter future began to appear. An acquaintanceship had 
sprung up between him and Bjdrnson as early as 1850, though 
for some reason or other they were mutually distant even 
during the succeeding years, whilst Bjornson was actively 
helping on the works of Ibsen by sympathetic contributions 
to the press. It was not until 1859 that there sprang up be- 
tween them a strong friendship, from which Ibsen derived 
considerable material help. Indeed it is to Bjornson that 
Ibsen owed much of his future success, as the correspondence of 
the latter amply demonstrates, for Bjornson introduced the 
works of the struggling poet to Frederick Hegel, a publisher 
of considerable business ability and of integrity of character. 
Into Hegel's hands Ibsen threw all his business affairs; a 
step which he had never any cause to repent, for not alone 
did Hegel publish all Ibsen's works, but also undertook to 
invest the proceeds in the best possible way. If Bjornson 
had done nothing else for Ibsen it would have been suffi- 
VOL. xciii. 49 



770 HENRIK IBSEN [Sept., 

cently difficult for the latter to repay his friend. But Bjorn- 
son did not stop at this. He worked so hard at collecting sub- 
scriptions for the poet's support that when Ibsen at last, by the 
aid of a grant from the Norwegian Government, reached Rome, 
Bjornson kept the wolf from his door by sending on various 
checks at intervals. He also obtained by repeated pleadings 
from the Norwegian Scientific Society in 1865 a small grant 
to help Ibsen complete Emperor and Gallilean. Notwith- 
standing all this exhibition of disinterestedness miserable poli- 
tics sundered their friendship in 1867, causing them to be 
estranged for the succeeding thirteen years. 

Away from the stress of political quarreling and party 
strife, Ibsen for a considerable time did not know what to do 
with himself in Rome. He found that peace and quiet for 
which he had so often longed, and he dawdled, though he 
claimed that he was not losing time. He was most enthusi- 
astic over the old city. " Of Rome it is impossible to write," 
he told his mother-in-law in a letter, " one may describe it, 
but one always fails to convey what is best, what is unique 
about it." In another place he writes, " Rome is beautiful, 
wonderful, magical. I feel an extraordinary capacity for work, 
and the strength of a giant-killer." And in December, 1870, 
he wrote to George Brandes, the Danish literateur, "At last 
they have taken Rome away from us human beings, and given 
it to politicians. Where shall we take refuge now? Rome was 
the one sanctuary in Europe; the one place that enjoyed true 
liberty freedom from the political liberty. tyranny. I do not 
think that I shall visit it again after what has happened." 
This, however, turned out to be a frail resolution that was 
broken later on. Ibsen being a born dramatist naturally 
sought for a subject having some connection with the Chris- 
tianity which he saw around him on all sides, and soon he 
became filled with thoughts of a great drama based on the life 
of Julian the Apostate. Still he did not work on it for some 
years, but, so far as we can ascertain, kept turning the sub- 
ject over in his mind. His immediate attention was given to 
Brand which appeared in 1866, and next to Peer Gynt which 
was published in the following year. Brand was the first 
work that attracted the serious attention of the literary world 
to Ibsen, as it was also the first of his works that brought 
him in any substantial returns from his publisher. 



i9ii.] HENRIK IBSEN 771 

On the isth of May, 1868, Ibsen left Rome for Dresden. 
Why he made the change is not apparent from any of his 
published letters; when he does make mention of the fact he 
simply says that such a change will have to be made. To all 
appearances he had in mind the education of his son. For 
six years the family dwelt in Dresden, and then early in 1875 
he removed to Munich. The work of these years consists in 
The League of Youth, the first of his prose dramas, which ap- 
peared in 1869, and Emperor and Gallilean, published in 1873. 
During his three years residence in Munich he wrote The 
Pillars of Society, which turned out to be his first really suc- 
cessful drama, and then, returning to Rome in 1878, he pub- 
lished in the following year A Doll's House. To Munich he 
again came in 1879, remained there a year, and then fled 
back to Rome once more. A short visit was now paid to 
Sorrento where he finished Ghosts, a play that caused violent 
controversies in Norway and other places. Until 1885 he was 
flitting back and forth between the Tyrol and Rome, but to- 
wards the end of that year he again settled in Munich where 
he stayed until July of 1891 when, turning his lace towards 
his native land, he set out for Christiania. Of the five .plays 
which he had published since the appearance of Ghosts only 
two The Lady From the Sea, and Hedda Gabler have ac- 
quired any fame. His life in Norway was not unclouded. He 
worked in his usual leisurely way and wrote four plays in nine 
years. Among these works many look upon one, Ihe Master 
Builder, as Ibsen's most perfect drama. With the production 
of When We Dead Awaken, 1900, his literary career closed, 
and for the remaining few years of his life he was troubled 
with a mental affection with which his bodily strength gradu- 
ally failed. On May 23, 1906, after a life of seventy-eight 
years, he died. 

He had a peculiar temperament and character, Being of a 
reserved and retiring disposition he did not make many friends. 
He rarely spoke in company when others could or were speak- 
ing; still, if necessity compelled him to begin, he became a 
fluent talker. The few persons of literary tastes with whom he 
did become intimate seem to have been attracted to him by 
his strange manners, and they certainly left nothing undone to 
give him every assistance. For a considerable number of 
years he was constantly in pecuniary difficulties which were 



772 HENRIK IBSEN [Sept., 

not lessened by his own words and actions. It is easy to un- 
derstand that having such a reserved disposition and a hasty, 
hot temper which he allowed to govern his pen at times he 
was not always smoothing the path to success. Everythiug 
seemed to sour him. He not infrequently complained and 
found fault where he need not, and could rage where there 
was no immediate necessity. For him clouds were continually 
hiding the sun, and he had not that brightness of character to 
remember that these clouds may have had some sunnier lin- 
ings. Perhaps it was his earlier years of poverty, it may have 
been his drudgery against his will in the apothecary's shop, 
but, as likely as not, it was a mere failing of character that 
urged him to withdraw to himself; to leave mankind severely 
alone; to despise and wage war on the laws of social life. 
Whatever may have been the cause, much of his literary work 
reflected these ideas. 

Ibsen's life was singularly uninteresting, and his letters, in 
which one would instinctively seek for insight into his charac- 
ter, are dull and wanting in literary touch. It is quite possi- 
ble that owing to his correspondence being published in 1905, 
the year before his death, some of his friends and admirers 
may have declined to submit to the unfavorable criticism of 
Ibsen's antagonists correspondence which departed from the 
commonplace mediocrity of that published. The only notable 
thing about the letters that have seen the light is the evidence 
of Ibsen's abnormal selfishness. For a man like him who owed 
all his success to the disinterested assistance of friends, it comes 
with bad grace to say one word against friendship. Some of us 
poor mortals in the world are all the time craving for a real, 
true friend ; and in a short life if we manage to hold one in the 
sieve of time out of a number who were previously there, but 
who have been shaken through as being too small for the mesh 
of true friendship, we think ourselves lucky, and highly blessed. 
Ibsen was of an opposite opinion. " Friends," he writes to 
Brandes, "friends are an expensive luxury ; and when a man's 
whole capital is invested in a calling and a mission in life, he can- 
not afford to keep them. The costliness of keeping friends 
does not lie in what one does for them, but in what one, out 
of consideration for them, refrains from doing." The same 
principle he seemingly applied to his conduct towards his 
parents. When once he left the farmhouse of his broken- 



19 ii] HENRIK IBSEN 773 

down father be began gradually to loosen the ties of kinship, 
and finally in a very short time broke off all communication 
with father and mother. They were struggling ; so was he. 
But in after years when success came to him it is apparent 
to the most casual reader that he was indifferent to the cir- 
cumstances of his parents. The same silence is kept ; no let- 
ter, no communication, no connection with them. When his 
mother died we have evidence in his correspondence of how 
he took the tidings. But a few words, and he passes on to 
something else. Later on when his father passed away, Ibsen 
makes a lame apology for not communicating and helping his 
parents. This is all of no avail to one who can read the lives 
of other men. The truth is, that Ibsen's selfishness, his grasp- 
ing after money, his general pettiness of character, and his 
want of a definite form of religious belief colored his works, 
directed his life, and guided his pen. 

His literary life may be divided into two periods; that in 
which he figures as a poet, and secondly, that in which he 
gave all his talent to writing prose dramas. His poetry con- 
sists of three plays, three dramatic poems, and a quantity of 
various kinds of verse. Of the plays Lady Inger oj Ostraat 
may be passed over without comment, since it contains many 
great imperfections. The Vikings of Helgeland is on a higher 
plane. In it figures Hiordis the first in his picture gallery of 
revolting women. The play contains some examples of good 
work, although there is nothing of special distinction in it 
from beginning to end. One dramatic situation towards the 
close is cunningly introduced. Sigurd, the Viking, and Hiordis 
have made confession to each other of their hidden mutual 
love in the past. Both are now married and their partners 
living. The thought of the past fires Hiordis to madness and 
she determines on killing both Sigurd and herself, so that 
they may be with each other in the realms of the gods. To 
put her resolution into effect she shoots him with her bow 
and arrow. 

SIGURD. Well aimed, Hiordis! (He falls). 

HIORDIS (Jubilant, rushes to him). Sigurd, my brother, 
now thou art mine at last ! 

SIGURD. Now less than ever. Here our ways part; for I 
am a Christian man. 

HIORDIS (Appalled). Thou ? Ha, no, no. 



774 HENRIK IBSEN [Sept., 

SIGURD. The White God is mine; King ^Ethelstan taught 
me to know him ; it is to him I go. 

HIORDIS (in despair). And I ! (Drops her bow). Woe! 
woe ! 

Among Scandinavian peoples this work may possibly be 
retained as an example of the treatment the Sagas of the 
country received; but to other races the sole interest con- 
nected with The Vikings of Helgeland is its place in the de- 
velopment of Ibsen's dramatic writings. 

Seven years after its appearance came The Pretenders, a 
play containing some powerful scenes, and some very good 
dramatic conceptions. The weakest portions are those in which 
the religion of the period Catholicity of the early thirteenth 
century is touched. Here the ears push themselves through 
the mane. In no place are they so evident as in the scene of 
Bishop Nicolaus' death. While meant to be a serious descrip- 
tion of the Episcopal schemer's last moments, it develops into 
gross farce. Quotations could not be cited here to prove this, 
owing to the length into which they would run, and the whole 
scene of several pages has to be read in order to get a perfect 
grasp of where Ibsen fails. One original sayirg, however, one 
cannot resist from plucking out of the text. Duke Skule, the 
great Pretender, visits the bishop, who is about to breathe 
his last, and greets him : " I hear it goes ill with you." 
Bishop Nicolaus answers: "I am a corpse in the bud, good 
Duke; this night shall I blossom; to-morrow you may scent 
my perfume." Throughout the play Ibsen follows closely 
to history, for the subject is based on the struggle in the 
thirteenth century between Hakon Hakonsson and Skule Barda- 
son for the throne of Norway. A slight inkling of religious 
bias develops in the fifth act, but as the situation is not de- 
void of humor, and is in one respect an echo of Dante, no 
great objection can be taken to it. 

Following this play came two dramatic poems, Brand and 
Peer Gynt. 

Of Brand it is difficult to speak in small space. The poem 
is long and complex, and from a Catholic point of view is full 
of thought provoking material. Its scene is laid in a small 
village in Norway, and the plot is to show how Brand, a 
Lutheran minister, endeavors to regenerate the people accord- 
ing to his own ideas. It is not too much to say that one could 






1 9 1 r. ] HENRIK IBSEN 775 

hardly find in the realms of fiction a more minute study of a 
hard-hearted fanatic than in that of Brand. He is a mono- 
maniac, obsessed with a principle, which when relentlessly ap- 
plied, brings torture and suffering in its wake. If Brand had 
been pictured as a Catholic priest by Ibsen, instead of a 
Lutheran preacher, and some impedimenta which he had brought 
with him through a portion of his life dropped out, the critics 
of two hemispheres would be holding him up as an example 
of the monsters given birth by the Papacy. A wife and a few 
other things change the face of life for a large section of the 
human race, and now Brand is looked upon as a man with 
great and noble thoughts for mankind. Perhaps of all Ibsen's 
works, this one is the most widely read in English-speaking 
countries. It is so religious ! It shows up the heroism and 
the sanctity of the clergy ! Therefore, those pious ladies who 
maintain missions to the heathen and to the benighted Catho- 
lics of Europe, choke with enthusiasm over the conduct of 
Brand. To us, however, he is a blasphemer, if ever one ex* 
isted in literature. His gross insults to God are set down 
plainly. He declares that he scarcely knows whether he is a 
Christian at ail. He is a hypocrite, full of the cant of such 
folk. He acknowledges in several places that he has been mis- 
guided in his spiritual affairs, yet while he holds an idea, no- 
body dare oppose it. He practically murders his child and 
his wife, in order to hold fast to one of these delusions. He 
allows his mother to die without visiting her, or administering 
to her the consolations of religion, for which she is craving 
and calling. His language to her when they did meet is of 
the vilest kiad. His cant is, all of nothing / And his exposit- 
ion of it to one of his parishioners, " If you cannot be what 
you ought, then be thoroughly what you can" has a touch 
of the oracular about it. To all appearances it has the look 
of an effort to hide Ibsen's inability to work out his central 
idea with satisfaction. But what is the secret of all these 
inhuman characteristics in one man. We need not guess; we are 
told by Ibsen himself: " Brand is myself in my best moments, 1 ' 
he writes to Peter Hansen, in 1870. In some respects this 
is true; in others, we should require much compulsion to 
make us believe it. 

In the poem is to be found one of the best pieces of writ- 
ing ever penned by Ibsen the agonizing cry of Agnes after 



776 HENRIK IBSEN [Sept., 

her dead child. She thinks of his presence at the Christmas 
-festivities of the previous year, and yearns for him. Then in 
her grief she takes out some of his baby clothes and fondles 
them. Just here the true pathos of the situation is ruined by 
the strained and theatrical introduction of a wandering, impu- 
dent gypsy with a naked child. She, evidently, is made to ap- 
pear for the mere purpose of forcing Agnes to give away the 
clothes, which are the only tics that bind her to her child in 
the grave. Her introduction is awkward, crude, and devoid 
of any touch that would betoken a master-hand. Ibsen has 
never approached in any other place the power of this de- 
scription previous to the entrance of the gypsy. If any woman 
ever deserved pity and sympathy, it is the wife of Brand. 
She is weak and vacillating, but she recognizes, as do other 
persons in the poem, the callousness of Brand. For her faith- 
fulness to his monomania she sinks into an early grave. And 
shortly after her death her former lover, whom she left for 
Brand, turns up as a raving, religious maniac. His description 
of his conversion is rather good : " I am saved. Not a speck 
cleaves to me. I have been washed in the laundry of faith ; 
every splash of mire has been rubbed off on the wash-board 
of holiness. I have rinsed out my Adam garment with the 
aid of the mangle of watchfulness. I am white as a surplice, 
thanks to the use of the soapsuds of prayer." Madness over- 
rules the poem. Brand is insane, Edjar (the lover just quoted) 
ends in the same way, and Gerd is a madcap idiot. Undoubt- 
edly, there is great power shown in the poem, but there is also 
an equally great lack of true artistic spirit. 

In Peer Gynt, his second and more perfect poem, Ibsen 
gives us another monster of selfishness -as a hero. In this in- 
stance, however, he does not construct his work on mere 
imaginative or subjective ideas alone, but makes use of the 
folk-lore of his native land, which he varies, by reproducing 
memories of his own home-life in his early years. In connec- 
tion with the latter we are amazed, for we cannot understand 
how any son, with ordinary respect and love for his mother, 
could caricature her under the guise of Aase, the mother of 
Peer Gynt. This Ibsen has done, as he has told us; his 
mother serving as a model, " with necessary exaggerations. 1 ' 
Here we have one of those nasty touches which repel anybody 
possessing honor, from admiring the personal traits of Ibsen. 



i9i i.] HENRIK IBSEN 777 

The poet's pet theory of heredity is aired in this work. Peer 
is the son of a reckless, drunken father, and inherits many of 
the failings of a ne'er-do-well. He is a drunkard, a grossly 
immoral dreamer, who is always thinking of the past glories 
of his father's household and building castles in the air of 
the future. His bad character is so well recognized, that when 
he goes to the marriage feast, described in the first part of 
the poem, the people turn from him. Yet, in spite of this, 
Solveig, who had previously never known him, who draws 
away from him when she learns his name, who is aware of his 
wickedness, leaves father, and mother, and home, to go up 
into the hills and live with him when he is ostracized by the 
villagers, and is compelled to dwell apart from them in the 
forest. 

From thenceforth, the history of Peer changes to other 
parts of the world. He wanders away, becomes a slave-dealer 
in America, then in Africa he plays the part of prophet, and 
is tricked out of a large part of his belongings by a dancing 
girl with whom he consorted; he ends like a rooster, as he 
says, by getting well plucked ; and, finally, when he becomes 
old and decrepid, he comes back to his native village in Nor- 
way. He is now stark mad, and thinks of nothing else than 
life. He will not die. In the latter part of the poem his fight 
with supernatural powers for life is tedious and artificial. On 
the whole, the poem is uneven. Whilst in some places Ibsen 
reaches a high plane, in others he turns out nothing but drivel. 
There is also a semblance of hasty and intermittent energy 
about its construction ; just as if his ideas came spasmodically, 
and that while they lasted he worked feverishly on them, quite 
irrespective of their possible bearing on the unity of the work. 
This fault lessens the power the poem would otherwise most 
certainly have had. 

(TO BE CONCLUDED.) 




SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY. 

BY CHARLOTTE BALFOUR. 

N the i2th of last month, the 7ooth anniversary 
of the Foundation of the Order of Poor Clares 
was celebrated throughout the world. 

Except to Franciscan scholars St. Clare is 
very little known. Her fame has been hidden, as 
her life was hidden, for many centuries. But lately the revival 
of interest in Franciscan things, both within and without the 
Church, has brought about a new curiosity to know more 
about the friend and companion of St. Francis whose coun- 
sel he sought and valued so greatly. 

The sources from which the story of her life are taken are 
the Legend of Thomas of Celano; a, few passages in the 
Fioretti and the Speculum Perfectionis, which supply very illu- 
minating incidents to show the friendship there was between 
St. Francis and St. Clare; and finally her own writings these 
being her rule, her will and four letters written to Blessed 
Agnes of Bohemia. 

Father Paschal Robinson in his recently published Life oj 
St. Clare tells us how Thomas of Celano, not being satisfied 
with the defective accounts he read of St. Clare in her Acta, 
had recourse to the surviving companions of St. Francis and 
St. Clare to ascertain the facts. " Here," says Father Paschal 
Robinson, "we may note the temper of the true chronicler, 
whose chief concern is to record things as they really were." 
If we regret that we have so few details of St. Clare's life 
we may rejoice that at least we have that little quite pure 
and undefiled. 

To understand the real Clare, to make friends with her and 
feel her a familiar companion, we have only to build up her 
personality for ourselves from the few but very faithful details 
we have of her life. There is no need to clear away a de- 
posit of rubbish left by the false sentiment of later centuries. 

As the founder of the Order of Poor Ladies, or Poor 
Clares, as they came to be called after her, St. Clare is of 



i9ii.] SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY 779 

course well known. Most of us look upon the Poor Clares as 
a mysterious order of women vowed to a life of almost in- 
human austerity austerity only to be spoken of with bated 
breath. " How can the founder of such an order/' we say 
"be a being comprehensible to the modern world ? Her rigor 
of penance, her standard of asceticism may have been rental 
in the Middle Ages, but in the light of the more balanced 
outlook on life of modern days it can seem only morbid and 
overstrained." Whether this judgment be sound or not it is 
not our purpose to consider; the fact remains that the Poor 
Clares still preserve and realize in this "declining age of the 
veteran world when the light of faith is growing dim," the 
Christian ideals of the thirteenth century, and that they re- 
flect very faithfully through the seven hundred years since 
their foundation the spirit and personality of their holy 
mother; whilst, as for St. Clare herself, not only was she as 
free from any morbidness as her master, St. Francis, but she 
was full of true Franciscan joyousness in the midst of suffer- 
ing and austerity,, and was always eminently sane and practi- 
cal in her relations to all who came within her sphere. 

St. Clare was born at Assisi in 1196. She was the daugh- 
ter of the Count Favorino Scifi, one of the chief nobles of that 
town. He was a soldier, and like most of the nobles of that 
day he spent his time fighting the Pope's battles and in skir- 
mishing against the neighboring city of Perugia. From his 
treatment of St. Clare after her flight from home, we find he 
was a man of violence. Her mother, Hortolana, was a devout 
and holy woman. 

Thomas of Celano tells us-: 

that Clare's childhood was pious and charitable. That* she 
loved holy prayer so much and felt so often the sweet fra- 
grance thereof, that little by little she attained to the heavenly 
lite, and that because she had no rosary in those early days on 
which she could make her devotions, she made heaps of little 
stones and thus paid her devotions to our L-ord in orderly 
manner. 
Her hands were so open to the poor that out of the goods 

* The English rendering of Celano's Legend quoted here, is from the present writer's 
translation of a French version of the sixteenth century, The Life and Legend of the Lady Sf, 
Clare. New York : Longman's, Green & Co. 



780 SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY [Sept., 

which abounded in the house ol her father she relieved the 
sufferings of many folk. Pity and compassion grew in her 
heart and her thoughts, for the sufferings of the poor grieved 
her much. 

. . . And when holy love began first to weigh on her 
heart the love of worldly things seemed to her to be despised, 
and when the Holy Spirit had taught her, worldly love became 
to her a hard thing, and it did not draw her, but rather wear- 
ied her. She wore a hair shirt beneath her robes and thus 
she showed herself in worldly dress, but within, her heart was 
clothed with God. Thus she seemed a chamber full of good, 
sweet-smelling spices although she knew not of it. 

Then the Legend goes on to say : 

When she heard of the great fame of St. Francis . . . 
by the guidance of the Holy Spirit she desired much to hear 
him preach. It was his preaching in the Cathedral of Assisi, 
during the L,ent of 1212, that inspired St. Clare to follow him 
into the life of Holy Poverty. 

It gives delightful play to the imagination to ponder on 
the way in which rumor of St. Francis' fame would reach St. 
Clare in her secluded life at the Castle of Sasso Rosso. Her 
two young cousins, Rufino and Silvester, were among the 
first companions of the Povereilo. The choice of these two 
young men of the life of Holy Poverty must have made a 
profound impression upon the young girl, already so fond of 
relieving the sufferings o! the poor who came to her door. 
Would she question her cousins on their leader, and would 
they in return tell St. Francis of the girl who had conceived 
the impossible idea that she too might follow Holy Poverty? 

All must be conjecture, too, on the question of whether St. 
Francis actually had St. Clare in mind when, (according to 
St. Clare's own account in her Testament), as he was repair- 
ing the ruins of San Damiaao he called to him the poor of 
the neighborhood and cried to them : " Come my brothers 
and help me in this building, for in a short time there will 
be here Ladies whose fame and holy life will glorify our 
Holy Father in all his Holy Church." 

Neither do we know any more of the intercourse of the 
two saints before Clare actually joined the order, than the 
bare fact that " he went to her and she to him often, and 



i9i i.] SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY 781 

St. Francis admonished her with lively words to despise the 
world and the deceitful vanity and dry hope that is in it," 
and how he showed her that her only happiness lay in alle- 
giance to the Lady Poverty. 

She was already eighteen when, on Palm Sunday, 1212, 
St. Clare stole from her father's house to lay her destiny in 
the hands of St. Francis. A marriage had been arranged for 
her two years before, but she had pleaded her youth and dis- 
taste for an earthly union. Eighteen was not so young as 
ages went in those days. And we may take it from the study 
of her character, as it shows itself later, that Clare's offering 
of herself was no momentary impulse. It was a mature and 
deliberate act of consecration. From the point of view of the 
world and of human respect, her action was intrepid in the 
extreme. The world was no easy place then for the inde- 
pendent woman. The cloister was an absolute necessity for 
ene who renounced her home life. But no cloister had as yet 
been provided for St. Clare when she left her father's house. 
And the life of Holy Poverty, how was that to be led? Did 
she intend to beg her bread like the Friars ? St. Bonaventure 
relates that St. Francis, to try her, had bidden her disguise 
herself, and go into the streets of Assisi to beg, and that she 
had done so for a whole day, unrecognized by her fellow- 
citizens. It is possible this was their idea at the outset, but 
that when they experienced the violence of St. Clare's rela- 
tions at her flight, they reconsidered the situation, and that 
thus the peculiar construction of the Franciscan family evolved 
itself. 

However this was, we may be sure that Clare knew herself 
to be strong enough to accomplish whatever St. Francis had 
prepared for her, stronger to perform that, whatever it might 
be, than to return to the life of ease and comfort she found 
so intolerable. An ideal had been set before her. She had 
seized and made it her own. It was impossible for a nature 
so single-minded, so strong and so clear-sighted as St. Clare's, 
to go back upon a single detail of that ideal, or to relinquish 
one inch of the ground upon which she took her stand. 

So she was enclosed in San Damiano, and "in that narrow 
cloister," says Thomas of Celano, " she lived in great disci- 
pline and great austerity for the space of forty years." Her 
sister, Agnes, who followed Clare very soon, must have been 



782 SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY [Sept., 

her first companion, and they, we learn in her Testament, were 
joined by " a few Sisters whom the Lord had given me shortly 
after my conversion." Together they formed the first Com- 
munity of the Second Order of St. Francis. Thus was the 
joyous adventure of the Franciscan joined to the contemplative 
intensity of the cloister. 

The adventure of the Poor Clares was even more reckless 
than the Friars', because the latter could at least go to work in 
the fields to earn enough to keep body and soul together. But 
the Poor Ladies in their cloistered seclusion were entirely 
dependent upon what the Brothers, specially appointed to the 
task, could beg for them. Thus their dependence upon the 
providence of Godthat most essential note of the Franciscan 
spirit was absolute. The Franciscan motto, Dcus meus et 
Omnia t My God and my All, was. carried out in perfect liter- 
alness. 

The other great orders of the Church observe the three 
vows which include personal poverty, that freedom of spirit 
for the individual from material things, which alone makes the 
contemplative life possible. But the Franciscan ideal of Holy 
Poverty was more complete than this of individual detachment 
from possessions. The whole Franciscan family, collectively, 
were to throw themselves upon the Divine Providence. 

As we have said, St. Clare had seized and laid hold of the 
Franciscan ideal in all its completeness; she had grasped its 
whole significance, and we shall see how it was she who held 
its stronghold against all despoilers, and how when even St. 
Francis wavered, she stood firm upon the rock of Holy Poverty. 

The Brothers' duty of begging alms for the Poor Ladies 
formed a link between the first and second orders that St. 
Clare valued very much. There was constant coming and 
going between St. Mary of the Angels and San Damiano. In 
the Fioretti we hear that "St. Francis when he was at Assisi, 
was wont often to visit St. Clare, giving her holy counsels"; 
and we all know the famous story of how Clare dined with 
St. Francis at the Portiuncula, and how the neighbors ran 
with buckets of water to put out the flames that they thought 
had enveloped the monastery, because of the brightness that 
shone round the saints in their holy conversation. All through 
her life Clare fostered the intercourse between the two com- 
munities, and she set great store by the preaching of the 



i9i i.] SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY 783 

Brothers to her Sisters. Celano gives us an instance of this, 
which also serves to show her insistence upon the spiritual 
good of her Sisters before their material welfare. He tells us 
how " the good Lady St. Clare provided for her daughters 
the nourishment of the word of God through devout preachers," 
but that " once it happened that Pope Gregory forbade that 
any Brother should go into the house of the Ladies without 
his permission, and for this the good mother, St. Clare, had 
great grief in her heart, for she saw that she would have less 
of the nourishment of Holy Scripture. And she sent all the 
Brothers of the bouse away to the Minister General, and said 
" she would have naught to do with the Brothers who begged 
their bodily bread, since she must lack those who nourished 
her and her Sisters spiritually with the word of God." But 
as soon as Pope Gregory heard this news he withdrew that 
which he had forbidden. This little story is entirely charac- 
teristic of St. Clare in her absolute refusal for a moment to 
lower her ideal, to set the material above the spiritual, and her 
unhesitating directness in combating what she felt to be harm- 
ful to her vocation by throwing all worldly considerations 
aside. 

Now the special function fulfilled by the Poor Ladies, the 
Second Order of St. Francis, was to be the " Bedeswomen " 
of the Franciscan family. They were to fulfil the command 
of our Lord: "Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to 
send forth laborers into his harvest." They were not to pray 
(as the world so often judges of the contemplatives) in order 
to find peace in it, to fold their hands in comfort whilst others 
worked, to secure their own personal salvation in the quiet 
and seclusion of the cloister. No, theirs was to be a work 
of co-operation with the activity of the Friars. We see in the 
Catholic Church the two vocations the active and the con- 
templative strengthening and supporting each other. The 
contemplative religious is saved from morbidness and self- 
concentration, by the duty of praying in sympathy with those 
who are called to active service for God. The workers in the 
open field are encouraged to uphold a spiritual ideal against 
the material standard of the world by the example of their 
contemplative brethren. So, in the Franciscan family we have 
the same constitution. St. Francis safe-guarded his First 
Order of Working Friars, by founding his Second Order of 



784 SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY [Sept,, 

Praying Women. The ideal of both was the same to follow 
in utter literalness the life of our Lord on earth in holy desti- 
tution and dependence on Divine Providence; but some were 
to preach and some were to pray, and thus to supply each 
other naturally with spiritual help. 

Now the onlooker, to whom the spirit in which the saints 
mortified themselves is incomprehensible, looks with horror 
upon St. Clare's austerities upon her bed of twigs and her 
pillow of stone, her knotted cord and hair shirt, her rigid fasts 
and her grief over the Passion. So these all seem the outcome 
of a morbid frame of mind. They might be if it were not 
that we know that such suffering cannot be borne unless the 
fire of divine grace be so infinitely the greater that the suf- 
fering counts for nothing in comparison. St. Clare's work 
outside her contemplative life, was all directed to the relieving 
of suffering ; her miracles, as recorded by Celano, were nearly 
all worked to heal the sick. She knew what suffering was, 
and so was able to relieve it. Yet no one knew better than 
she that " the sufferings of this world are not to be reckoned 
with the glory that is to come." To her the suffering and 
mortification were the negative side of life the ecstasy of the 
Spouse of Christ was the reality of life. 

There is a little passage in a poem of Blake's, that conveys, 
in a quaint and homely way, the action and reaction of joy 
and suffering in the life of voluntary austerity : 

Joy and pain are woven fine, 
A clothing for the soul divine; 
It is right it should be so, 
Man was born for joy and woe ; 
And when this we rightly know, 
Safely through the world we go. 

Celano, too, expresses this in a profound little paradox. 
In speaking of St. Clare's austerities, he says: "Thus, O ye 
who hear it, the sufferings of the heart were assuaged by the 
pains of the body; thus the love of the heart assuaged the 
pain of body." 

A great deal has been said and written about St. Francis' 
ideal of Holy Poverty and its relation to modern schemes, 
socialistic and otherwise for the abolition of destitution and 



i9i i.] SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY 

poverty. It is much too wide a subject to examine here, but 
we may say emphatically that there is no reconciliation be- 
tween the two attitudes. The Socialist dreams of a heaven 
on earth when every man shall possess material well-being 
and ease to set him free from struggle against poverty, to 
develop powers and intellect for the evolution of the human 
race the Universal Brotherhood. St. Francis would have re- 
jected this ideal as meaningless and entirely beside the mark. 
Utter dependence upon God's Providence was the only state 
of life which set the spirit free. But the Franciscan ideal 
was essentially Holy Poverty as opposed to linholy Poverty. 
No one can say that the destitution we have all around us is 
Holy Poverty. It is unthinkable that St. Francis could have 
meant that kind of existence to be led by all. 

The poverty that St. Clare relieved at her father's door 
as a girl was probably very much the same sort of thing that 
comes to our doors nowadays. The misery that St. Francis 
relieved amongst the lepers was in many respects the same as 
that of the band of modern outcasts from society, the Casual 
Warders. But St. Clare's with St. Francis' conception of the 
situation was not as it is ours to-day that the poverty was 
the disease to be combatted. For then the poverty of the 
poor was their greatest good, for without any need for volun- 
tary sacrifice on their part they were literally following the 
precepts of the Gospel. Only their poverty was too often 
unholy it must be sanctified. St. Francis had laid hold irre- 
vocably upon the idea of Lady Poverty and with the poetry 
of his nature he had woven his ideal into a romance. We 
can imagine how St. Clare not only recognized the truth and 
beauty of his precepts as a vocation for herself, but also their 
practical bearing upon the poor beggars she relieved at the 
door of her father's castle. How could she, who only gave 
out of her abundance, convey to the poor and ignorant the 
immense advantage they, did they but know it, possessed over 
her. How, unless she herself was utterly dependent upon the 
Divine Providence, could she show those in the same condi- 
tion, how blessed was their state in the eyes of God, who 
chose to be a Poor Man on earth. 

Now St. Clare's defence oi the observance of Holy Pov- 
erty and the firm stand she made to preserve it for her 
order, against Pope Gregory IX., was the chief work of her 
VOL. XCIH. 50 



786 SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY [Sept, 

religious life. Celano's words are a simple relation of the 
facts. They do not convey any of the persevering and con- 
sistent opposition she maintained against the Pope's very 
natural desire to see the order of the holy nun, for whom he 
had such admiration and love, established in something like 
material stability. 

Pope Gregory loved this Clare as a father does his 
child. And for this lie prayed her, with graciousness, to 
consent to certain possessions, which he himself offered her, 
against the perilous times that were to come. But her heart 
was so strong that in no manner would she consent either to 
take or to have anything. And when the Pope said to 
her that if she repented of her vow he would absolve her 
from it, she replied that at no time and on no day did she 
desire absolution from the poverty of Jesus Christ. 

There is no space to go into all the intricacies of St. 
Clare's differences with the authorities over her rule and the 
constitution of her order. Cardinal Ugolino, as Legate of 
Pope Honorius III., had declared that the Poor Ladies were 
under the rule of St. Benedict, the common rule of monastic 
communities at that time. But St. Clare refused to be any- 
thing but Franciscan; and, when Cistercians were appointed 
as preachers and directors of the community instead of the 
Friars, we have seen how Clare refused the material assistance 
of the Friars if she was not to be guided spiritually by the 
Franciscan teaching. 

The fight for Holy Poverty and the Franciscan ideal was 
hardly won. The rule of St. Clare was only confirmed on 
August 9, 1253, two days before St. Clare died, full of 
peace and joy in the accomplishment of her task. 

We have seen how Clare was full of strength and how 
valiantly she fought her battles. This strength is all the more 
impressive when we realize the wonderful sweetness of her 
character. The Legend is full of instances of her melting love 
and tenderness towards her Sisters : of her fervent and 
humble admiration of the virtues of others, and of her joyous 
service in all sorts of menial offices for her daughters. 

Celano says: 

She left, through humility, the office of Abbess three 
years after she was converted, for she loved more to be in 



i9i i.] SAINT CLARE AND HOLY POVERTY 787 

obedience to another than that others should obey her. . . 
. . but St. Francis took her back and constrained her that 
she should govern the Poor L,adies, and of this she had 
greater fear than joy in her heart. 

And she was always found the best apparelled for serving 
and had the roughest habit, for she loved rather to work 
herself than to command her Sisters. 

She was ever in holy prayer and was melted often in 
tears, .... and when she left her prayers she came forth 
from them so joyously and spoke to her Sisters words so 
flowing that she warmed their hearts with the fire of the love 
of God. It seemed to them her countenance was more beau- 
tiful and bright after her prayer than before. 

These passages are quoted at random from the Legend. 
In St. Clare's four letters to Blessed Agnes of Prague (the 
Bohemian Princess, who renounced her betrothal to the Em- 
peror Frederick II. to embrace the life of Holy Poverty), we 
find all her characteristics. She speaks with poetical rhapsody 
of Holy Poverty. She is always "the worthless handmaid of 
the servants of Christ. She enjoins the greatest heights of 
austerity, but makes minute provisions for the modification of 
this strictness for those Sisters who have not the strength 
physical or spiritual, to bear so great fasting and mortification. 
Very characteristic, too, are the words of strong admiration of 
the greater saint for the lesser. 

St. Clare was happy in being a pioneer not only a re- 
former. She need teach and lead only by example. The old 
chroniclers are fond of playing upon her name. Clara bright, 
shining. Sometimes she is bright by the divine light that is 
in her. Again she is a torch held up to lighten the darkness 
of the world. As a child she shines clearly in the shadows 
of the world. 

Her light has been a hidden one for many generations as 
far as the world is concerned. But we find it burning as clear 
as ever amongst her sisters who bear her name. They are 
the lasting memorial through the years of infidelity and dark- 
ness of the Poor Lady who followed Holy Poverty with such 
perfect faithfulness. 




THE COLORS- 

BY RUTH QUIGLEY. 

fHILDREN of the narrow, noisy street paused in 
their boisterous play, and bare-headed women 
sitting on ill-kept stoops suspended their gossip 
to stare curiously at the little boy. He was, in 
all essential things, no different from them, ex- 
cept that the grime on his face was tear- marked, his grotes- 
quely tattered blouse was caught together near the shoulder 
by a gilt pin which held a tiny American flag, and tight in 
his hand he carried a bunch of withering flowers. 

Straight on he walked, between endless rows of houses 
that were all alike, confused yet hoping, the immediate con- 
cern of being lost quieting that greater fear of going back to 
meet the disaster from which he had run away. The sun 
beat down upon the unseasonable wool cap that engulfed 
his head; his stockingless feet, exposed by gaping holes in 
his shoes, shrank from the blistering heat cf the pavement. 

This would be a relief the hard-beaten earth of an open, 
treeless square at which he finally arrived ; and he could sit 
down to rest on one of the benches. Taking off the heavy 
wool cap he released his inky curls, which glistened like 
blue metal in the afternoon sun; his lustrous eyes, shaded 
by long, dark lashes, lost some of their pain in recol- 
lection. 

Although it was a terrible misfortune not to have found 
the ocean after having come a great way to look for it, yet 
it was wonderful to have met the virgin and to have told 
her of his disappointment. There was much more that Gui- 
seppe might have tried to tell, but he could not find words, 
even in his own language, to describe the heavy feeling of 
homesickness that the dismal life in this new land had wrought 
within him. 

Of course it was not so bad at first, and he and his 
mother and father had been passably comfortable in their 



i9i i.] THE COLORS 789 

home of two rooms at the top of a very high building. But 
since the scowling man had become a frequent visitor there, 
everything was changed. The little boy had formed such a 
habit of imitating this unpleasant caller that the very thought 
of him induced a grimace. Why should he not feel hatred? 
His mother had been made unhappy by these visits and every- 
thing had gone wrong. 

It was not so when they first came to this country. Then 
the mother had been at home all day to tell stories and sing 
to him. She gave him macaroni and milk for his noonday 
meal, and at night, when his father came home from work, 
they had hot macaroni, or beans, and sometimes brown, smok- 
ing sausages. And the father always laughed, and the mother 
sang. Then the mother would put on her velvet skirt and 
her striped over-dress, and they would leave their stuffy, high- 
up rooms to go down into the cooling street where lights 
glittered and people elbowed and crowded and laughed, and 
many spoke the language of Guiseppe and his parents. 

But, by and by, the scowling man came to their home 
more frequently. He talked and talked to Guiseppe's father 
in a low growl of a voice, too low for the boy and his 
mother, who kept in the other room, to understand. But 
sometimes they could hear the man smacking his fists to- 
gether, and his voice would grow suddenly loud with big, 
awful words. He would cry out: " aristocrats I " " oppressors ! " 
and then Guiseppe's mother would start and begin to tremble. 
After the scowling man had gone, Guiseppe's father would 
not be like himself. 

That was bad enough, but when the father began to stay 
out at night, and remained at home in the daytime to sleep 
instead of going to his work then it was much worse. For 
now the mother went away in her old clothes every morning 
and came home tired and sad at night; now Guiseppe had 
nothing to eat but cold coffee and hard bread. 

It was when he was alone and hungry that Guiseppe first 
began to think of finding the ocean and the big, white boat 
that would take them back to grandmother's. But the first 
time he had spokea to mother about it, she told him it would 
be impossible, and after that he had kept his longing to him- 
self. He could not make up his mind to start without mother 



790 THE COLORS [Sept., 

and father until last night, when things began suddenly to grow 
worse with them. The scowling man had come in unusually 
late to see Guiseppe's father, bringing with him Tony Baffa, 
their neighbor on the second floor. All three men had talked 
very low and then, suddenly, very loud. They had spoken 
many of those words which Guiseppe and his mother had 
learned to fear. Finally, Guiseppe, peeping from the bed- 
room, had seen his mother in the dim light of the flickering 
gas, holding his father by the coat sleeve, and trying to keep 
him back. The scowling man stood by and looked fiercer 
than ever, while Tony Baffa coaxed the woman to let her 
husband go. 

Guiseppe's father shook his head and hesitated ; he did 
not want to go; then, under the persuasion of the two men, 
he yielded, and all three went down stairs together. Gui- 
seppe's mother cried all night. The little boy knew it, though 
he was thought to be asleep; it was only that he kept his 
eyes closed. 

This was why Guiseppe had decided to wait no longer. 
He had started that morning just as soon as his mother went 
to work, and that was very early. It had been a day of bit- 
ter disappointment, into which had come a great but transient 
happiness, for someone had been kind to him. While he had 
been with her, she had seemed just a little girl, with a soft, round 
face and a fuzzy nimbus of bright hair under the crinkled 
edges of the basket thing she wore on her head. But the 
more he thought of it now, the more the face seemed like his 
mother's best image of the Virgin that hung near the bed- 
room door at home. He was almost convinced that she could be 
no other than the Virgin herself, though she did have such 
long, slim, pink- stockinged legs and such very short white 
skirts. If only he could have understood what she said ! But 
her chirping little voice spoke the language of this America. 
However, she had made Guiseppe sit on the coping beside her 
to watch the procession go by. Her manner, her gestures, he 
could not mistake, she was so sweetly imperious. It was a 
happy but strangely quiet throng of men, women and children, 
which wound steadily past them, down the broad, white pave- 
ment, some carrying flowers, and nearly all wearing the gay, 
fluttering things like the one pinned to the little girl's frock. 



i9i i.] THE COLORS 791 

Guiseppe was bewildered, but he did not forget his pur- 
pose. As he crouched upon the cool stone in the bright sun- 
light, he tried to make his companion understand whence and 
why he had come. At first he had hoped that she might help 
him to find the ocean. But she seemed only to take it as 
fun kindly, to be sure, as though they were playing an in- 
teresting game. When he repeated the question in trembling 
wistfulness, every trace of amusement vanished from the sweet, 
childish face of his listener. But her words still sounded 
strange to him, though her voice was compassionate. As if 
seeking for something to divert him from his trouble, she un- 
fastened from the lace frill of her frock the tiny bit of red, 
white and blue that had reminded Guiseppe of a summer-fly. 
It was a dainty, quivering, silken thing on the slenderest gilded 
stem, and it was held with a pin made of glittering letters. 

" See ! " cried the virgin, waving it aloft. 

Guiseppe understood that much, and looking up to follow 
her motion, he noticed floating almost directly above him a 
broad streamer with colors like the bit of silk in the virgin's 
hand, only a thousand times larger. It rose and fell in the 
breeze, against the blue of the sky, as though to keep time to 
the music that was now beginning to pour in from all sides. 
The crowd closed in around Guiseppe and his companion so 
that they could not see until they tiptoed upon the coping. 
Then the virgin became quite tempestuous with enthusiasm, 
waving her little flag and pointing out the bowed old men in 
blue coats and glittering badges, who led the procession. 
Guiseppe was excited, too, though he did not know why; he 
felt just at that moment, while the music of the band grew 
louder and louder, and that great streamer of gay stripes 
waved above him, that he could and would find the ocean. 

And to make perfect that moment of elation, the virgin, 
with impetuous, soft, white fingers, had pinned her gay little 
summer-fly to the rags of Guiseppe's blouse. Then followed 
a great calamity. A distressed young woman in white cap 
and frilled white apron had darted panting and scolding from 
out the crowd and snatched the virgin away. 

So sorrow had come back again to Guiseppe, more sud- 
denly than it had vanished. After a while almost everybody 
had gone and the boy was left alone with his grief and 



792 THE COLORS [Sept., 

his decoration. Here and there on the grass or the pave- 
ments lay bright-colored bits of discarded flowers, withering 
like the hopes in the little boy's bosom. He could not find 
the ocean. Besides, if he did so, he would not want to go 
upon the huge, white boat without father and mother. He 
was now so very much discouraged and so tired that only a 
desire to show mother what the virgin had given him could 
have inspired his weary limbs to come this far on his home- 
ward way. 

As he thought it over, sitting on the hard bench in the 
treeless, sun-baked square, he reverently felt of the tiny 
silken thing against his shoulder, and he wondered if there 
might not be a charm in the strangely wrought letters of the 
pin. It might have power to impart the courage be needed 
to return to that home which had become so comfortless of 
late. It needed courage, but another force impelled him 
now ; he was very hungry and thirsty and tired, and mother 
would be glad to see him though she would have no smile. 

The sun was almost hidden behind the tall buildings, and 
Guiseppe, suddenly remembering that he was lost, allowed him- 
self to be borne along by crowds of people going home from 
work. All at once the street and pavements were blockaded 
by a close-packed, yelling mob that had collected at a corner. 
Then, above the voices of excited men and women, there arose 
sharp commands. Policemen those tall, uniformed people of 
authority that Guiseppe feared, were pushing their way 
through, brandishing red-tasseled clubs. Guiseppe could not 
understand their angry-sounding words, but some one said in 
his own tongue that a man had been arrested. The little boy 
knew well enough what it meant to be dragged away to a 
dark dungeon by those ogres who as he and his small com- 
panions understood it had power to kill or eat alive as their 
fancy dictated. Often in his imagination he had lived through 
the experience. And now, too much overcome with terror to 
move by his own volition, he was carried back by the retreat- 
ing mob, until a hurt to his foot brought him to himself. 
When he had burrowed his way out and gained a place where 
he could go limping along, he recognized an old fruit woman 
at the corner. He was within a few steps of home. Mother 
would do something for his foot. But presently he became 



.] THE COLORS 793 

unconscious of the pain in his foot, for a much greater hurt 
had been done him ; he had lost the bunch of withered pink 
flowers that he was taking to mother, and greater even than 
that the gift of the virgin hung limp and broken on its 
gilded stem. 

Guiseppe's dread of going home was entirely forgotten, 
even his fear of the police; he was no longer fleeing from 
them; he was hurrying home to have mother repair the dam- 
age to his treasure. Tkat was his only thought as he reached 
the entrance to the building where he lived. He clambered 
laboriously up the five flights of unlighted stairs, guiding him- 
self by his hand along the battered wall. In the midnight 
blackness of the landing, Guiseppe instinctively found his own 
door. It was nearly dusk in the small, heated room which 
he entered, though not yet dark enough for gaslight. When 
he had left the street the sun still touched the tops of some 
of the highest buildings. 

The little boy's mother, who had just returned from work, 
looked up with an air of plaintive relief as he came in. She* 
was placing a few dishes and some bread on the oil-cloth- 
covered table. A pot of coffee was boiling on the little cook- 
ing stove. The father, awaiting these preparations, sat on a 
bench with his bushy, black head supported upon his hands. 

The atmosphere of the place was so oppressive that it 
seemed to close down upon the little boy, bearing his weari- 
ness, and his troubles heavily upon him. Even his mother's 
caress, as she pulled off the hot wool cap from his dripping 
curls, was hurried and unnatural. But when the father began, 
with ominous sips, to drink the hot, black coffee, Guiseppe 
could wait no longer. He drew his mother aside and began 
to whisper his story. For when father was in that mood 
they never talked aloud. 

With trembling fingers, the mother unfastened the gilt- 
lettered pin from the ragged blouse. Her eyes were full of 
questioning wonder To Guiseppe, himself, as he tried to tell 
what had happened, it seemed as a vanishing dream : that 
place where there was soft grass, trees, and shrubs, and open 
sky above; the white walks, the music, the endless procession 
of people, who went orderly along and did not shout, and did 
not need to be driven and shoved by uniformed officers; and 



794 THE COLORS [Sept., 

the greatest marvel of all a real, living virgin, almost like a 
beautiful little girl, who dispensed gay-colored gifts fastened 
with golden pins. 

All this the mother could not comprehend, but she did 
understand that he wanted his treasure mended, that it must 
be made right before he could eat or sleep. It was the flag 
of this new country she told him, as she held it caressingly 
in her fingers. It could not be mended without that sticky 
paste from the store; she had no paste. But the little boy 
could not accept so material a verdict; he insisted that it was 
an affair for divine interference. When his mother, yielding 
to his desire, had pinned it to the coarse lace drapery of a 
queer little shelf that supported an image of the Virgin Mary, 
he drew a long, trembling sigh of hope. To be sure, his 
mother's best virgin was something of a disappointment after 
his association that day with the creature of pulsating life, 
whose lips smiled good-fellowship, whose eyes gazed sympathy, 
and whose soft hands bestowed tangible gifts. There was the 
real miracle; and Guiseppe almost wondered as he gazed 
upon the cold features of the little white image, how he could 
have been led to make the comparison. 

But he had not long to think of this, for presently the 
door of their living-room opened, and without knock or word 
of greeting, there entered two gigantic figures, their blue coats 
buttoned tight to their chins across broad shoulders and full 
chests, and black clubs dangling at their belts. As these vis- 
itors advanced, Guiseppe huddled into a corner, and his mother, 
with a cry, shrank back against him, covering him with her 
skirts. Guiseppe's father looked up, slowly lowered his coffee- 
cup to the table, and without a word, looked down again. 

Then one of the terrible visitors nodded to the other, who 
spoke something that sounded like a command. The man sit- 
ting at supper neither moved nor looked up. The officer 
spoke again, in a sharper tone and in Guiseppe's own language. 
And the little boy knew that the dreaded calamity had come 
upon them. His father was bidden to go away with these 
men ; he had fallen into the hands of the most terrible rulers 
of America. Something had happened to displease these in- 
satiable dispensers of destiny. A disturbance had been caused 
by one of those mysterious weapons that make thunder and 



i9i i.] THE COLORS 795 

earthquake, and Guiseppe's father was believed to be con- 
nected with a conspiracy to destroy the building where he 
had worked. 

It was useless for the man to deny his complicity, protest 
his innocence. The policemen would not believe his declara- 
tion that he had not been out of the house that afternoon. 
They shook their heads with a grim impatience which made 
Guiseppe shudder, as he peeped from behind his mother's 
skirts. 

Then the mother, summoning the bravery of desperation, 
tried to verify her husband's statement. She showed one of 
the two officers the disarranged bed in the bedroom, where 
her husband had been asleep when she came home. He could 
see for himself the pillow was almost warm. He could see 
also that her husband's eyes were still red and heavy from 
sleep, and his curls tumbled. Eloquent in her soft-voiced 
protestations, Guiseppe's mother seemed to grow in courage, 
but it was no use. One of those long-armed rulers of America 
had seized Guiseppe's father by the shoulder and was leading 
him towards the door. The captive was pale, but firm-kneed ; 
he said not another word. The mother fell to weeping again, 
and Guiseppe choked back his sobs, because he was too ter- 
rified to cry aloud. 

But the other officer the one who had been in the bed- 
room, paused to make the sign of the cross before the image 
of the Virgin, which rested on a little shelf by the door. As 
he did so, he suddenly bent near to examine, in the dim light, 
the tiny flag that was pinned to the dingy lace drapery of the 
queer shrine. He felt the bit of silk between his great thumb 
and forefinger; and meditatively rubbed the gilt letters of 
the motto which held it there. 

"Look here, Harry," he said in a subdued voice, mo- 
tioning to his companion, who, leading his captive by the arm, 
crossed the room. 

" Here's the flag ! " And then, in the hush that followed 
this announcement, when even the sobs of the woman and the 
little boy were checked, he repeated slowly, musingly : " Let 
us have peace." 

It was the motto formed by the gilt-lettered pin. Gui- 
seppe remembered the sound of the words that had come that 



796 THE COLORS [Sept. 

morning from the virgin's lips, while again and again she had 
pointed out the queer characters with her tiny forefinge^ 
and coaxed Guiseppe to say them. And with that memory 
he thrilled once more as at the outpouring of the band and 
the sight of the great, great flag soaring up into the sunlit 
blue of the morning sky. 

Somehow, help had come and things would no longer be 
unfriendly. For the two officers were talking together in low 
voices, and presently they told Guiseppe's father that he might 
go free, admonishing him in the future to avoid suspicion. 

Guiseppe could not understand it all, but he knew that 
disaster had been averted. The huge men in their tight, blue 
coats and glittering buttons were gone. In the darkening room, 
Guiseppe's father stood before the little flag and felt it, won- 
deringly, reverently, between his thumb and forefinger, as the 
officer had done. The man was trembling now, very much. 

When his wife came to his side, leading their little boy, 
he put out an arm and enclosed them both. 

"To morrow," he said, in a voice that was husky and 
low, " I go back to the work." 

Guiseppe's mother was crying again, but this time very 
softly; it was not bitter to hear, for Guiseppe knew that she 
was ho longer sorrowful; the miracle had happened. 




THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM. 

BY F. W. GRAFTON, SJ. 

WRITER in the Dublin Review has been laying 
stress on the necessity of Catholics, putting for- 
ward a positive solution of the Social Question. 
The crambe repetita of denouncing Socialism, dis- 
secting its principles, and displaying their un- 
soundness, taken alone, will be the death of us. Further, Pro- 
fessor Phillimore in a recent address to the Catholic Social 
Reform Society of Glasgow affirmed quoting Ferdinand Brune- 
tiere that what we most require at the present day is the 
repetition and enforcement of commonplaces, by which, I take 
it, he means that the large fundamental principles on which 
any sound theory must rest, need more than ever to be reas- 
serted at a period when in practically every branch of human 
activity the sure way to gain public attention and a following 
is to propose something new and striking, however ill-founded 
or even unprincipled it may be. These two undoubted truths 
shall be the apology for what is little more than an attempt 
to set forth as clearly and simply as possible the fundamental 
principles on which a Catholic Social Reform platform must 
rest. 

The social evil, as it exists in almost every land under the 
sway of western civilization, though in some it has assumed a 
far more acute form than in others, consists primarily in the 
uneven distribution of wealth. Riches are in the hands of a 
few, the many are sunk in poverty, the middle-class, the sound 
core of national prosperity, is reduced and gradually disap- 
pearing. The socialist remedy for this state of affairs implies, 
as indeed is expressed, too, in most of the utterances of the 
more blatant socialists against the capitalists, that those who 
hold the riches of this world have obtained them by immoral 
means and that their confiscation would be only the just retri- 
bution for injustice. Now while we must admit that there is 
much in modern commercial methods that would require a 
great deal of casuistry to square them with the ten command- 



798 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM [Sept., 

ments, at the same time we must equally admit that there are 
rich men, men moreover who have made their money and not 
inherited it, who are morally irreproachable in their business 
dealings. There are Catholics on the world's stock exchanges 
and directors of companies who let their consciences be guided 
in business matters as well as in private life by the principles 
which their religion teaches them. 

The main cause of the evil lies, therefore, elsewhere. It is 
to be found in the false doctrines of Liberalism as applied to 
trade, in the free competition in industry and commerce pop- 
ularized by the Manchester School, which by the operation of 
purely economic factors tends to cause a large capital to grow 
larger and a small capital to dwindle. It must, of course, be 
admitted that a morally vicious principle such as this, based 
on a universal law of selfishness, will tend to produce the habit 
and practice of selfishness in those who conduct their business 
dealings in accordance with it, and so be the cause of many 
sins, at least against Christian chanty. Yet charity is not jus- 
tice and it is against justice that most socialists assume that 
capitalists have sinned. But the selfishness which is the root 
principle of Liberalism in trade can be rationally supported 
only on the supposition that worldly wealth is man's highest 
good and final end, and we have therefore implied in it the 
doctrine of materialism. We are thus driven back to a false 
philosophy as the source of the social evil. An unsound econ- 
omic theory is founded on false ethical principles, themselves 
the outcome of a fundamental error in metaphysics. 

If then we wished to establish our social principles with 
German Griindlichkeit we should have to fall back on philo- 
sophical ground. Here however, we can take Catholic ethics 
and all they imply for granted, and content ourselves with 
building our thesis upon them. But we must not, make 
the mistake of imagining that we have to work out a Catho- 
lic theory of civil society. Such already exists and what we 
have to do here is merely to consider its main principles 
as applied to the social situation of the present day with a 
view to the erection thereon of a practical Catholic platform 
to meet present social needs. This consideration is the more 
necessary since it is first principles that social reformers, espe- 
cially socialists, are to-day attacking, while at the same time 
it is, as is usually the case, with first principles that the mass 



i9i i.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM 799 

of the people, whose votes will eventually have to settle the 
matter, is least acquainted. One might call the Catholic 
teaching regarding civil society moderate Liberalism. For it 
concedes to every man the free output of his energies in the 
acquirement and increase of temporal goods, provided that he 
does no man an injustice in the process and, at the same time, 
does not allow anxiety for his temporal welfare to take first 
place in his thoughts and so invert the natural order which 
requires his eternal welfare to be his first care. Within these 
limits free competition in trade would produce no evil or suf- 
fering which would not be amply provided for by the due ob- 
servation of the laws of Christian charity. Such an ideal state 
of affairs, however, given the existence of original sin, is 
scarcely to be looked for and, as a matter of fact, it is far 
from existing at the present day. While, therefore, our pri- 
mary duty is to strive to produce and to extend over as wide 
a sphere as possible that wakefulness of conscience which of 
itself tends to create such a condition of society as has been 
indicated, there still exists the scarcely less important duty of 
dealing with the question on purely social and economic 
grounds. Those who will not do right for conscience sake 
must be forced by the state to do right when their wrong ac- 
tion threatens the public good. 

Now all our social doctrine must start from the one fun- 
damental truth that man is in this world primarily to secure 
eternal salvation. Civil society was established by God in 
order that by combining their forces men might more easily 
attain a becoming measure of material welfare, over-anxiety 
for which would prove only an obstacle in the pursuit of their 
final end. In seeking, then, to heal the ills of society we must 
endeavor to produce such a state of affairs as will enable 
every man to acquire this moderate measure of material pros- 
perity, and will establish him in it with comparative security. 
This means that we must aim at securing that as many as 
possible shall belong to the middle-classes, while few, none if 
possible, exist in abject poverty; that a proportion of rela- 
tively poor will continue to exist is a fact for which we have 
divine authority. These, however, would form the proper object 
of Christian charity, which while saving them from abject pov- 
erty would not at the same time pauperize them, the inevit- 
able effect of all state and official aid. We may note that the 



8oo THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM [Sept., 

creation of such a universal average of material prosperity is 
also the aim of Socialism, with the difference that the socialist 
would produce this result by constraint, taking from those who 
have abundance to redistribute to those in want. The Catho- 
lic social reformer, on the other hand, seeks to provide for the 
poor man opportunity to procure for himself a fairly stable 
competence though not necessarily equality of opportunity, 
which is only a modified form of Socialism leaving the wealthy 
man in possession of his riches and allowing the state to in- 
terfere with and control his use of them only when an accum- 
ulation of wealthy men who neglect to use their riches rightly 
becomes a menace to the common weal. For on the one hand 
the possession of riches is of itself no sin, and on the other 
hand it is God's will that there should be in this world, too, 
some proportion between the material reward of a man's in- 
dustry and the efforts made to obtain it. Further, economic 
conditions should be such that a competence once acquired 
should not in the normal course of things be easily jeopar- 
dized, for this would involve over-anxiety for the future for 
which a man has the right and duty to make provision. 

We may note again that all this would theoretically be at- 
tained under the economic system of Socialism, though scarcely 
without much injustice in the despoiling of the rich, while, 
moreover, it would deprive the mass of men of that oppor- 
tunity for the putting forth of that continued effort which con- 
stitutes the field for the exercise of a multitude of virtues 
directly furthering their progress on the path to heaven. Yet 
in this connection it might easily prove necessary that, with- 
out enteiing into any formal alliance with Socialism, Catholics 
should find themselves supporting, for the freeing of some of 
the tied-up wealth, measures which while nominally socialistic, 
and indeed formally so as far as their chief promoters are 
concerned, yet may be supported on a perfectly justifiable 
ground. The main precautions for Catholics to take in such 
a case would be to secure, first, that their motives were 
not misinterpreted and so scandal caused, and secondly, that 
the supplies thus set free should not be doled out by a 
paternal state to the poor, but proposed as the reward of 
honest and reasonable effort. For we must never forget that 
an essential element in all sound social legislation must be 
the inclusion of the moral factor, that a main cause of the 



i9i i.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM 801 

social evil, one that has continually to be combated, arises 
from the morally blunted conscience produced by the per- 
meation of all classes with materialistic views of life; in a 
word, that laziness and love of ease and pleasure, constantly 
on the increase even among the lowest classes, undoubtedly 
produce no inconsiderable quota of the " out-of-works." 

We have implied in the above, a point that scarcely needs 
laboring, that the Catholic Social Platform not only admits 
the licitness but also proclaims the necessity of the right to 
private property. The teaching of Christianity on the matter 
from the earliest times is easy to follow and to demonstrate ; 
the reasonableness and necessity of such an incentive to the 
labor which God has willed that the attainment of material 
welfare should entail, requires only an appeal to common- 
sense to make it clear. How would the virgin lands of the 
United States and of Canada have been brought under culti- 
vation if the state had offered only a living wage instead of 
granting free lots? Or the mineral wealth of California and of 
Alaska developed had none been allowed to stake out claims? 
Again, from another point of view, we get this same result 
by an appeal to the seventh commandment, and a large pro- 
portion of the proletariate has not yet lost its belief in the 
validity of the ten commandments. Indeed, the socialists 
themselves all admit the necessity of some measure of private 
property while, on the other hand, we Catholics must, I think, 
allow that the extent to which the state may monopolize the 
means of production, distribution and exchange, is limited only 
by the extent to which this would be economically for the 
public good, provided, of course, that no injustice was com- 
mitted in the taking over of the various concerns. If state 
railways and municipal water supplies are licit, why not state 
steamships and municipal bakeries? And where, if only 
it be clearly for the public good, is the process theoretically 
to stop ? I am far from holding that such conditions as 
would thus be set up could be economically sound, at least 
as a permanency, but supposing that they became a moral neces- 
sity for a time during the process of change, I confess I see 
no ethical principle to" which they would run counter. 

A necessary consequence ol the maintenance of the prin- 
ciple of private property is that inequality of wealth must 
continue to be a normal condition of society ; an inequality, 
VOL. xcm. -51 



802 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM [Sept,, 

we may note, which practically could not be avoided even in 
a socialistic commonwealth. The very essence of the neces- 
sity of private property is that in its quality of capital it 
should act as a powerful incentive to the effort to increase it. 
Now it is clear that some, either through good fortune or 
greater personal industry or ability, will succeed better than 
others in this effort, and while it is only just that a man 
should have the right to hold the reward of his own labors, 
the increase that is merely the result of good fortune should 
be no object of envy to those who, themselves having a suffic- 
iency of the things of this world, recognize in all the guiding 
providence of God. It follows further from the fact that there 
must always be rich and poor has not Christ himself said 
" the poor you have always with you," the poor, not the penuri- 
ous and poverty-stricken that class distinctions will also con- 
tinue. Different degrees of wealth and diverse types of occu- 
pation necessarily imply variety of education, ideas, tastes and 
degrees of personal comfort, and it is these that are the founda- 
tions of class distinctions. They inevitably keep the various 
classes of men largely apart, and rightly so. The day-laborer 
would feel quite as completely bored by the constant com- 
pany of men of university education as the university man 
would by having to associate normally with the sons of toil. 
In the Christian society, charity should be broad enough to 
bridge over these distinctions when necessary, charity founded 
on the recognition of God's law and of the absolute equality 
of all men before God. 

So far we have considered the restoration of a sufficient 
measure of material prosperity implicitly to individuals only. 
But we must not forget that all men have the right, and most 
men have the desire, while mankind in general may be said to 
have the duty, of marrying and begetting a family. When once 
this right has been exercised by the individual, then there lies 
upon him the obligation of supporting and educating his 
family, of providing for its material and spiritual welfare. 
Hence it has always been a prime factor in Catholic teaching 
that the family must be the central unit of civil society; that 
the family's interests, therefore, must be the first to be con- 
sidered by the state, its duties and rights the first to be 
respected and upheld. This is one of the main points wherein 
Liberalism, Socialism and the manifold progeny of both all 



i9i i.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM 803 

fail. They are all infected with individualism, the legitimate 
offspring of that spirit of materialism and selfishness which 
within the sphere of economics is the natural corrollary of 
the sixteenth century heresy of private judgment in religious 
matters. 

The efforts of the state in almost every civilized country 
at the present day to exercise an excessive control in educa- 
tion is the outcome of this mental attitude. The state refuses 
to recognize that the school is merely an adjunct to parental 
training, no more than a means to enable the parent to fulfill 
more easily a duty that, left to himself, he could not ade- 
quately cope with. The more the state tends to supplant the 
parent, the worse for both parent and state. Not free meals 
and medical inspection in schools, but a state of society 
which would enable a parent to supply such things himself 
without undue strain of his resources is what ought to be 
aimed at. The education of parents to the recognition and 
fulfillment of such duties is the work of the Church backed, 
only when necessary, by the state. The state should, in con- 
sequence at least, not hinder the Church in this work. That 
the far graver evils of divorce and race-suicide are also the 
outcome of this cult of individualism and of forgetfuiness 
of the sacredness and importance of the family is too obvious 
for it to be necessary to dwell on the fact. We have only to 
note in conclusion here, that what has been said above as to 
the securing of a stable competency for the large majority 
of citizens must, in keeping with what has been set forth in 
the present paragraph, be understood not of individuals alone 
but of the family. 

It is a point that Mr. Belloc is fond of making, that the 
condition of highly-divided capital is the ideal condition for 
a civil society. This is a conclusion which follows naturally 
from the fundamental Catholic principles that have been enun- 
ciated above. Holding, as we must, the absolute necessity of 
private property, and keeping in view the main goal to be 
aimed at, namely, the securing of a stable competency for every 
family, a modicum of property in the hands of everyone is 
the best means of establishing the stability of income that is 
required. Moreover, if this capital be in the form of land, 
the stability is secured in the best manner possible. For bad 
seasons, weak markets, and all other drawbacks to farming 



804 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM [Sept., 

being taken into account, yet year in, year out, no other form 
of capital can be counted on, to give so secure and unvarying 
a yield, while when neglected as productive capital the land 
recuperates of itself. This is the teaching of nature as well as 
of history. Happy then the lands, such as Ireland, where 
such a solution seems possible. 

But we cannot establish a Utopia by writing down its con- 
stitution in black and white, and it is in countries that may be 
siid to have definitely ceased to be agricultural and have be- 
come industrial and commercial, that the crying social evil of the 
present day exists in its most dire and acute form. It is to 
the solution of the problem in such lands, then, that our prin- 
ciples need to be applied, and it is precisely here that we have 
no history to guide us. The state of affairs is entirely novel, 
while its factors are so manifold, wide- reaching and complex, 
that a complete and prompt solution, taking them all into ac- 
count, is practically an impossibility. We must feel our way. 
Still we have this much to the good, that for Catholic social 
reformers at any rate, principles have not to be investigated 
and established, but already exist. It is the application of 
the principles to modern conditions that calls for our united 
efforts, together with the propagation of the principles as widely 
as possible, and that not merely amongst Catholics. But to 
capture popular opinion principles must be propagated in the 
concrete, that is, there is little hope of their spreading unless 
put before the public in the form in which they are applied 
to, and offer a solution for present social evils. We are thus 
again thrown back upon our previous difficulty. 

The problem, then, has to be solved primarily for indus- 
trial conditions, and by the method of highly- divided capital. 
How is this to be done ? Speaking tentatively, it would seem 
that since practically all industrial concerns of the present day 
inevitably require large capital and co-operation, and since, con- 
sequently, an individual workman cannot be owner of a portion 
of such a concern with complete individual control, as in the 
days when nearly all manufacture was handicraft, the natural 
solution is that each should hold shares in the business with 
which he is connected and for which he works. I do not 
mean that all industrial and commercial undertakings should 
be compulsorily converted into co-operative societies u^der 
the management of a democracy of the employees. Experi- 



i9i i.] THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM 805 

ments in this direction have already proved failures, and it is 
a solution partially on socialistic principles, the refusal to the 
master of that right to private property which we are seeking 
to acquire for the man. There should be freedom and scope 
for private enterprise as at present, for that is the only sure 
basis for securing the live, personal interest that the contrcl 
of a large concern demands, while every employee should re- 
ceive a proportion of shares in the undertaking, to be paid 
for by installments deducted from a living wage. Every in- 
crease of salary should partially take the form of an increase 
in the shares held and consequently be accompanied by an 
increased interest in the business. On dismissal for any reason, 
the shares should be compulsorily bought back by the em- 
ployers at current market rate, and the lump sum thus secured 
would assist the workman to tide over the period of unem- 
ployment, almost inevitably occurring, before he could find 
other occupation. Some arrangement of this sort should prove 
the key to the solution of the problem for factory and com- 
mercial employees. For the case of the casual unskilled la* 
borer the difficulty is greater and would cpll for a discussion 
beyond the scope of the present article. The solution would, 
however, follow the same lines. 

It is worth while noting that experiments have been made, 
and are being made in this direction, and further, that the aban- 
donment of a recent one in the North of England there have 
occurred similar cases in the United States and on the conti- 
nent of Europe, too took place, not on account of any dis- 
content of the workmen with the arrangement, but at the bid- 
ding of the leaders of the Trade Unions, who declared that it 
was undermining the influence of those unions. The socialis- 
tic leanings this is in many cases a far too mild expression 
of the leaders of Trade Unionism in England at the present 
time are well-known, and their very opposition seems to give 
some ground for believing that the true anti-socialistic solu- 
tion had been found. At all events it is in some such direc- 
tion as this that efforts at improvement must proceed. All 
other legislation is either socialistic or merely palliative, or 
both at once. Liberalism as an economic doctrine has had its 
day, and no modern legislation is really inspired by it. So- 
cialistic legislation, as we have seen, is founded on false prin- 
ciples, and legislation that is merely palliative is unsound, for 



806 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PLATFORM [Sept. 

it does not mean the securing to men of their just rights, but 
simply the dispensing of charity by the state; and the dispen- 
sation of charity is not a function of the state. 

In conclusion, let it be observed, that what has been said 
in the foregoing paragraph, is not proposed as a ready-made 
solution of the social question and as a panacea for modern 
social evils. It is merely an indication of the direction in 
which the Catholic principles above enunciated, seem to point. 
It is for men of wider practical experience and fuller knowl- 
edge to work out the solution. But this they cannot do with 
success, unless the principles by which they are guided, are 
put well and constantly before the public and made to win 
acceptance. It is as a small contribution to this very neces- 
sary form of advertisement that the present article is intended. 
We have all to keep before our own eyes and before the eyes 
of others the main principles I have here briefly sketched of 
the necessity of private property, the central character of the 
family in civil society, and the goal at which we have to aim 
of securing a stable competency for every family, while recog- 
nizing that inequality of worldly possessions and class distinc- 
tions must and will continue to exist. 

If this be done, then, even though we may differ, as we 
probably shall, as to the means to secure the end in a ques- 
tion so complex and obscure, yet we shall always have the 
common ground of principle to fall back upon, a ground 
whereon those who have sought to follow a mistaken road 
can with honor retract and admit their error. I have purpose- 
ly refrained from illustrating my remarks with examples, as I 
have had in view no more than an exposure of principles, 
and illustration to be effective would have almost unavoidably 
encroached too closely on political ground. For all, however, 
who are moderately well-acquainted with the character of 
modern social conditions and legislation, illustrations will not 
fail to suggest themselves. Finally, let it be remarked once 
more, that even the best of economic and social reforms will 
prove vain unless attended by that moral reform, primarily 
the appointed work of the Church, which will teach the em- 
ployer to recognize his grave obligations of justice and char- 
ity towards his employees, and the latter to be mindful of 
their duty of giving honest, earnest labor in return for a fair 
wage. 




THE SPIRIT OF THE BOSH. 

BY M. F. QUINLAN. 

Hear the spaces hearthem calling ; 

Swift the sands of time are falling 
To the god Procrastination bend ye low on creaking knee ; 

Turn, O, People ! turn your faces 

To the waiting, empty spaces 
While ye bow at Folly's altar, time is weaving tragedy ! 

Ere the alien from the nor' ward 

Steers his strong Armada shoreward 
Eire your fate be sealed forever, vow and effort consecrate. 

Fate is calling ; can't ye hear her? 

Days of dread are drawing nearer 
Still the Continent is waiting with its broken Northern Gate | 

Grant Hervey, 

E was a jackaroo, and he came from down South. 
And the fact of his being a jackaroo and not a 
pleader at the bar, affords but another instance 
of the futility of making plans. 

For, according to the parental decree, Dick 
Harrington's career was irrevocably fixed. He was to follow 
in his father's steps. His future claim to borrow a digger's 
expression was already pegged out, and a legal practice as- 
sured. And yet if Dick Harrington had been free to choose 
However, he was not free to choose. The only alternative 
given him was medicine or the bar. So he chose the latter; 
at the age of nineteen he found himself a student at the State 
University. And as there was no help for it, he made the best 
of it. He read and he attended lectures, and, on the whole, he 
allowed himself less distraction than most of the men of his 
year, but it was of no use. His efforts at concentration were 
at first undermined and finally overthrown by a power out- 
side himself. 

The Open Spaces were calling ; the Spirit of the Land 
cried out to him ; and the voice was like no other voice 
so wild, so sweet it filled his heart with new life and long- 
ing. It seemed to awaken in his soul some elemental chord 
of unknown music, the beauty of which stirred the very 
fibre of his being. And, like the mariners of old who lent 



808 THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH [Sept., 

an ear to the song of the syren and were hurried to their 
doom, so Dick Harrington rose up to seek out that place 
where lurked the Spirit of the Bush. Thus, guided by the 
voice which was borne in to him from beyond, he followed 
the track that led away from human habitations, leaving be- 
hind the paths that were smooth with the passing of feet, 
and on, on, into the gray silence that guards the Lone Land, 
which is, as yet, the kingdom of the few. 

To be a jackaroo on a big cattle run may mean much or 
little, according to the individual. But with the possible ex- 
ception of "the new chum," fresh from the mother-country, 
whose soul is still bound by the trammels of conventionality, 
no man out back will shirk any duties by reason of their un- 
congeniality. 

Therefore, while Dick Harrington was treated as a guest at 
the little homestead that lay behind the low ridge of scrub, 
he did the work of an ordinary station hand during those 
first twelve months of his new life. And though he received 
nothing for his services a jackaroo having no marketable 
value he gained much useful information, besides which ; 

'Twas merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass 

To wander as we wandered many a mile 

And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths 
pass 

Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while. 

'Twas merry 'mid the blackwoods when we spied the station 
roofs 

To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard 
With a running fire of stockwhips, and a fiery run of hoofs, 

Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard! 

It was soon after his arrival at Muingara that he was sent 
off to inspect some fencing far out on the run. The sun was 
just peering over the edge of the plain when he set out. Be- 
fore him and around lay an endless stretch of scrub land, 
while away off to the left a line of willows marked the bed 
of the river. Then, leaving the river in the far distance, he 
headed off to the northeast, steering an open course, until 
finally he hit the boundary fence. 



i9i i.] THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH 809 

So far it seemed easy enough, and, his inspection finished, 
he started for home. But instead of leaving the bridle on the 
mare's neck, and letting her find her way back, he took the 
management into his own hands. The result was what might 
have been expected; at 5:30 P. M. he found himself at the 
exact spot where he had camped at noon. For there was the 
same old stump with the clematis climbing round its base, and 
higher up the solitary charred limb where the lightning had 
struck it. 

Getting "bushed" is not an uncommon experience. It 
may even happen to an old hand. Nor is this to be won- 
dered at, in view of the size of the runs. In New South 
Wales stations average about fifty thousand acres, but further 
north the land is reckoned in square miles. As the solitary 
horseman let his eyes rest on those vast spaces, he began to 
doubt the convenience of the latter method north, south, east, 
west it looked much the same to him. There was no land- 
mark; no point of rest; nothing to stop him anywhere save 
the encircling horizon. 

As luck would have it he had lost his compass, and there 
he was adrift in the open, like a rudderless ship at sea. And 
yet, he had seemed all the while to be heading straight for 
the homestead. True, he had not paid much heed to the sun 
beyond deprecating the strength of it. And now the sun, 
like a fiery ball, had dropped behind the skyline, and the 
shadows were quickly gathering in. 

There was no moon that night, and as yet he hardly knew 
the value of the stars. Added to this, his horse had gone 
lame, so there was nothing for it but to camp out and wait 
for the daylight. 

Accordingly, he stirred up the embers of his mid-day fire, 
and having hobbled his horse, he lay down by the side of the 
fire, with the saddle under his head. Of his day's rations 
nothing remained not even a modicum of tea ; and as he 
put down the "billy," it sounded so empty and desolate, as 
to give him an additional reminder of his unslaked thirst. 
However, the fire was company, and he had his pipe. 

Now that he had time to think of it, he felt dead beat; 
but the warm, dry ground was pleasant to lie upon, and close 
by he could hear his horse feeding on the driefUup grass. 

Overhead was black darkness; and, penetrating all, a great 



8io THE SPIRIT OF THE BUSH [Sept. 

silence. But as he lay there and listened, the silence seemed 
gradually to unfold, until from out of its heart trooped a thou- 
sand sounds, which, blent together, produce those wonderful 
harmonies that make up the soft music of the wild. And, 
whereas but a short while before the great world of the North- 
west lay out like a dead thing, now it seemed peopled with 
life and movement. Perhaps it is the soft passing of a gray 
kangaroo he can hear the smooth swish of its tail over the 
dry grass; or, again, it is an emu going down to a water 
hole somewhere beyond. Now a mopoke utters its eerie cry ; 
or again the stillness is broken by the weird, unearthly laughter 
of a jackass, as it sits up aloft in the solitary gumtree. And 
Dick Harrington, lying beside the charred stump, with his 
head pillowed on his saddle, hears it all, and his heart is glad. 
For the solitude speaks to him of the hidden joys that are 
bound up in the heart of the wilderness, and he hears, as in a 
dream, the low, sweet music that belongs to the open spaces: 
the voice of the unborn creek; the pulse of the laboring 
earth; and in that hour the veil of the future seems to be 
lifted, and before the eyes of his mind passes the wondrous 
vision of things to be. 

These are but some of the dream-whispers that come to 
him in the loneliness whispers, which they only hear whose 
ear is attuned to the harmonies of the wild, and whose hope 
lies deep in the silent land which, even now, is big with 
promise. 



Bew Books. 

THE SOCIAL VALUE OF THE GOSPEL. By Leon Garriguet. 
London: The Catholic Truth Society. $1.00. 

This book had been translated by Miss . Willson and 
published by the English Catholic Truth Society in order that 
correct views on the social import of the Gospel may be 
known by those who are engaged in social work. The author 
is a canon of both the Avignon and La Rochelle chapters, 
and is rector of the seminary of the latter place. He is the 
author of several works on the social problem, all of which 
have attained considerable success. 

The present volume is divided into six long chapters with 
prominent subdivisions, which in turn are broken up into sec- 
tions with italicized headings, after the manner of epitomes 
of what is to be dealt with. The opening pages are devoted to 
a statement of the object of the book. A chapter is next de- 
voted to the opinions of the three great schools of thought 
on social questions. (a) that Christ's Teaching was first and 
foremost reformatory and social, (b) That His Teaching was 
purely religious without a tinge of anything connected with 
social questions, (c) lastly, an intermediate opinion that Christ 
taught principles both religious and social, containing all that 
was necessary for the perfect organization of social life. The 
remaining chapters are on the social aspect of the Gospel; 
what is not found in the teaching of the Gospel; a proof of 
the Gospel's social value ; and the Gospel teaching on the 
goods of this world. 

It is pointed out that the new school of Catholic econo- 
mists, although encouraged by the Pope and the bishops, has 
aroused considerable opposition and mistrust among some 
Catholics. Much of the opposition comes from the false theory 
spread abroad that religion is a purely private matter and 
should not be introduced into public life. On account of this 
"the world has escaped us, and present-day society has been 
profoundly secularized." Enemies of the Catholic social 
movement come from within and from without. From within, 
the hampering arises because of the shallow criticisms and 
party-divisions of those Catholics who seem to be too small- 
minded and prejudiced to admit the probability of good in- 



8i2 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

tentions among any persons who differ from them on the 
question as to the connection of morality with live social 
problems. A letter of Archbishop Ireland, which was pub- 
lished in the Univers of September 21, 1899, is quoted on 
this point. 

For social workers the book will be of great assistance, in 
as much as it brings prominently to the fore the Biblical 
texts which show the connection of Christ's Teaching with the 
social problem, and it will be noted how schools as divergent 
as the poles can see in His words a support and foundation 
for their theories. To make these important texts easy of 
access we should like to see a good index. The want of one 
in this edition will deter many a student from using the book 
as frequently as he otherwise might. 

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN AND OF GIRLS IN THEIR 
TEENS. By Madame Cecilia. New York: Benziger 
Bros. 75 cents. 

The first part of this book treats of the training of girls 
under twelve years of age; the second of girls in their teens. 
In treatment neither part is exhaustive. Special emphasis is 
laid on the kind of atmosphere in which girls should be 
brought up. The aim of this treatise is to inspire mothers to 
cultivate high ideals on their own part. ''The ideal mother 
is the queen of the home. She looks upon that sacred centre 
as her supreme sphere, her ideal realm, where love is her throne, 
duty her watchword and her attendant ministers purity and 
truth." 

The author urges mothers to train their daughters from 
the beginning in the twelve good habits which she enumerates. 
" The mother who trains her child well in one single virtue, 
trains her practically in all, sfnce every virtue calls for the 
exercise of will power, now in one direction, now in another." 

The question of punishment receives attention "for hysteri- 
cal, cowardly, idle, disobedient, passionate and cruel children, 
corporal punishment, administered with promptness, moderation 
and justice, is an invaluable deterrent." After the age of ten, 
the author thinks, no girl ought to need corporal punish- 
ment. 

The second part of the book will be of valuable assist- 
ance to those who have the guidance of girls in their teens. 



NEW BOOKS 813 

INDIVIDUALISM: FOUR LECTURES ON THE SIGNIFICANCE 
OF CONSCIOUSNESS FOR SOCIAL RELATIONS. By Warner 
Fite, Ph.D. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.80. 

To have read Professor Fite's book without impatience, 
will be something of an achievement for lovers of precise analy- 
sis and moderate statement. The author, in his preface, avers 
that "no one has appropriated any special brand of individu- 
alism, nor made quite the same use of the conception of con- 
sciousness." To us the book is singularly barren of ideas, 
which invite appropriation. Its main theses are: i. That the 
individual as a conscious agent is the original source and 
measure of all value; 2. That in a community of conscious 
beings, the personal interests of the several individuals are 
essentially harmonious, so far as the individuals are conscious. 
"The philosophy of these lectures is a philosophy of self- 
assertion" (p. 182). Much of it can be made reasonable only 
by being explained away. Note this: "Some of those most 
conspicuous for the unscrupulous acquisition of wealth, have 
shown a high intelligence in their disposition of it. Shall we 
not say that after the fact, at least, they have so far justified 
their right?" (p. 264) And this: "Tell them, then, that this 
union (marriage) is forbidden by nature, except at the price 
of children; they will undertake to determine this, if possible, 
precisely as they themselves see fit. In this they will simply 
be true to themselves as self-conscious and responsible agents. 
To one who knows what he is doing and is capable of choos- 
ing what he will do, it is irrelevant to proclaim nature's law. 
For him the law of nature conveys no obligation " (p. 92). 

The author calls his system " rational egoism." Egoism it 
certainly is. He has written an Introductory Study to Ethics, 
and he teaches in the Indiana University. 

THE DAWN OF MODERN ENGLAND: A HISTORY OF THE 
REFORMATION. By Carlos B. Lumsden. New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co. $3.00. 

Histories of England are increasing rapidly. Here is an- 
other, but it is of that kind that will have plenty of 'room 
made for it. The period treated of begins with 1509, the 
accession of Henry VIII. and continues down to 1625, the 
year memorable for the victory of Pavia, the defeat and cap- 



3i 4 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

ture of Francis I,, and the sudden and great change in the 
power of Charles V. in Europe. During this period Henry 
VIII. had gained through the diplomatic gifts of Woteey a 
high position for England among the nations. The English 
had suffered an ignominious disaster at Guienne ; in court 
circles Henry, Wolsey, and the English nobles were held in 
contempt on the Continent; they had already been consid- 
ered deficient in culture; the Guienne affair brought down the 
contempt of a nation of fighters like the French. Taken all 
round the Englishman was regarded as being little better than 
a barbarian. This had to be changed. Henry VIII. made up 
his stubborn mind that it was to be so on the field of battle 
at least, and Wolsey directed the astuteness of his mind to 
retrieving the fortunes of the nation in more ways than one. 
By a piece of diplomatic trickery a Treaty was made with 
Charles, and before the ink was well dry Henry descended 
upon France and there wiped out the military disgrace of his 
realms. To remove the stigma of being rude and uncultured, 
an ocean of money was spent in the empty, useless show of 
the field of the cloth of gold. As accustomed as the French 
were to pageantry, the gorgeousness of this display amazed 
them, and raised the status of the English in their eyes. 

All this time the histories of the Continent and of England 
were bound together closely both by the aims of the monarchs 
and the interests and diplomacy of the Pope. But a change 
was coming over the nations, and there was no Julius II. to 
show the strength of a man. The discovery of America with 
the vast treasures coming from it, had effects upon commerce. 
The reiga of the financial magnate was just about to begin, 
and the vogue of communal interests, so much fostered by the 
Catholic Church, was on the wane. This change was in reality 
the secret of success of Luther's revolt. His cry of justifica- 
tion by Faith alone, was precisely what the nobles and middle* 
classes wanted. Rather, we should say that the negation of 
the necessity of good works as a means of salvation, was the 
prime and important question. With the people, the Reforma- 
tion, instead of being a theological question, was a financial 
one. The many great and ever-growing charities to which all 
had baen contributing, became irksome, when the new desire 
to become rich had seized upon men. The period of individu- 
alism and independence was commencing. And, then, the 



i9".] NEW BOOKS 815 

nobles, in their endeavor to seize more power, cast covetous 
eyes on the immense possessions of the Church. The cry of 
revolt raised by the proud, pretentious monk of Wittenberg, 
came most opportunely to those grasping, cruel, and tyrannous 
men. 

The author leads us all through the wars, intrigues, and 
successes of England during those sixteen years which seri- 
ously affected subsequent history. His treatment of Wolsey's 
career is impartial and careful. In spite of the defects of char- 
acter, one cannot help admiring the great Cardinal, who leap- 
ing by huge bounds from obscurity, came to hold at last the 
government of the realms in his hands, and who, not satisfied 
with all this power, was scheming to occupy the Chair of St. 
Peter, but was balked in his ambition by the Emperor. Then, 
there was Katherine of Aragon, the despised of the courtiers, 
both on account of her want of beauty, and her reserved, 
quiet manners. She was the very opposite of Henry, who 
lived a life of continual gaiety with an absorbing passion for 
gambling, which was soon to be a means of bringing disaster 
to the Church. 

We are promised a continuation of the history in forth- 
coming volumes. Such will be welcome to every Catholic who 
wishes to get a thorough grasp of what the Reformation 
meant and its outcome. Historians are uplifting the veil that 
has covered that movement for the past three hundred years. 
Mr. Lumsden is to be congratulated on his share in this work 
of teaching the truth by impartial history. In addition to 
having the history of the period at his fingers' ends he ex- 
pounds the teaching of the Church in a capable manner. And 
the method he adopts in the construction of history is admir- 
able both for its clearness and its coherence. 

A good Index and a large Bibliography, make the volume 
valuable for reference. Besides the errata pointed out by the 
author; another may be found towards the bottom of page 
221, where two words have changed places. 

A MANUAL OF ENGLISH CHURCH HISTORY. By Rev. Charles 
Hole, B.A. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $i 25. 

Some one has said that the majority of Anglicans are de- 
void of a sense of humor. The present reviewer appreciated 



8i6 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

that remark when he read the first words of the Dean of Can- 
terbury's preface to the Rev. Charles Hole's historical manual : 
" The History of the Church of England in the following pages 
will be found, it is hoped, to present that history with a thor- 
oughness and impartiality which has too often been absent 
from similar volumes." The History is neither thorough nor 
impartial. We might excuse the first fault, as it is impossible to 
treat the history of Christianity in any one country with any 
degree of thoroughness. But to call a book impartial, which 
within the first four pages states that the British Church "did 
not own the Pope's authority," and calmly claims St. Patrick 
as a Protestant, fairly takes one's breath away. 

The author's aim in the pre-Reformation period is to show 
how utterly Protestant were the kings, prelates, and people, 
under the Saxons, Normans, or Plantagenets, Every quarrel 
over temporalities is interpreted as a denial of the Pope's 
spiritual supremacy; every clear evidence of papal power, like 
the sending of the pall to the English archbishops, the divid- 
ing of dioceses, the sending of legates, etc., are merely proofs 
of papal aggression; the loyal religious orders, like the Bene- 
dictines, are secret emissaries of the Italian mission. 

The attitude of some sturdy "Romanists" is rather hard 
to explain. Wilfrid, in Saxon times, is styled " the first Ultra- 
montanist," and without the shadow of proof is accused of 
" misinterpreting the language of the Pope's letters to overawe 
the Northumbrians" (p. 25). In the Norman period "Anselm 
was bent on subjecting the Church of England to the Papacy ; 
but the Church showed no inclination to follow him" (p. 60). 
Lanfranc was an out-and-out Protestant, for he claimed for 
the Church of England an entire independence of Rome. We 
are not a bit surprised to find St. Thomas Aquinas condemned 
" for undertaking to defend the current Roman belief in every 
particular" (p. 92), but it was news to us that the Scotists 
" went perilously near Socinianism, sacrificing God's justice to 
his omnipotence " (p. 93). 

Of course, the rebel Wyclif is praised for "asserting Eng- 
lish independence of Rome, and for endeavoring to expel from 
England the corruptions of Rome " (p. 99) ; the words of 
Magna Charta, "the Church of England shall be free," are in- 
terpreted contrary to the context (p. 108); the statutes of 
Provisors and Praemuneri are quoted to show " that Parliament 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 817 

had not submitted to the Papacy, whatever the clergy may 
have done" (p. 112). 

The treatment of the Reformation is the least thorough 
and the least impartial portion of the book. As an antidote 
to the poison, we would recommend the scholarly treatment 
of Mr. Gairdner, in his A History of the English Church in the 
Sixteenth Century. It would be impossible to enumerate the 
scores of false statements that disfigure this so-called history. 
We are surfeited with a list of Protestant martyrs under Henry 
VIII. and Mary; "Martyrs who overcome by the Blood of 
the Lamb, suffering a martyrdom through which the Reforma- 
tion cause at last proved triumphant (pp, 170, 215); we are 
informed of the "sound and honorable" conduct of the dis- 
interested Cranmer" (p. 164); we are treated to an illuminating 
instance of English logic in the futile attempt of our author 
to grasp the distinction between divine and ecclesiastical law 
in the matter of dispensations (p. 132); we are satisfied re- 
garding the utterly Erastian and Protestant character of the 
English establishment with its denial of the Mass, priesthood, 
papacy, etc. (pp. 137, 141, 191, 195, 227, etc.). 

The author does not show the slightest grasp of the Catho- 
lic doctrines or practices he is constantly mentioning in the 
most insulting terms. Relics are " inventions of monks," shrines 
foster " wealth-producing adoration," the miracles wrought at 
them are " fraudulent," the principle acted on is " that the 
end justifies the means." The supremacy of the Pope is al- 
ways styled " the Papal aggression " and " the Papal usurpa- 
tion," and the bishops or priests, whose loyalty to Rome can- 
not be questioned, are merely " subservient vassals of the 
Italian mission" (pp. 37, 67, 81, 113, etc.), Catholic scholars, 
like Baronius, are, of course, " destitute of the needful learn- 
ing and critical skill" (p. 279), while the notoriously dishon- 
est Foxe, justly stigmatized by fair-minded Protestants, like 
Gairdner (A History of the English Church, pp. 38, 56, etc.), 
for misrepresentation and dishonesty, is whitewashed as a 
great historian of the Protestant martyrs (pp. 246-8). 

The book is unworthy of a University man, for it is utterly 
lacking in the one great characteristic of the true scholar 
intellectual honesty. It is inaccurate, trivial, insulting, and 
would be denounced by many members of his own communion 
as a most prejudiced and partisan perversion of history. 
VOL. xcm. 52 



NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

HOME LIFE IN IRELAND. By Robert Lynd. Chicago : A. C. 
McClurg & Co. $2.50. 

Home Life in Ireland, by Robert Lynd, author of Irish and 
English Portraits and Impressions, is a book which will inter- 
est many readers. It is a careful, capable study, in a style at 
once pleasant and thoughtful. Mr. Lynd is a Presbyterian, 
but although he frequently misunderstands the Catholic point 
of view, and misinterprets the motives of the Catholic priest- 
hood, yet on the whole he has laid aside the prejudice natural 
to his religion, and writes in a spirit of sincere tolerance and 
fairness. 

The chapter dealing with the Irish school systems is most 
interesting. Mr. Lynd condemns the National Schools and 
almost all the primary schools in Ireland, except some of 
those belonging to the Christian Brothers for ignoring the 
national factor in education, for not teaching the language 
and history of Ireland. A change in the right direction has 
been begun, however, he says, and he describes with warm 
praise a new Catholic school for boys, St. Enda's, which was 
opened last year in Dublin as an institution intended to be as 
Irish as Eton or the City of London School is English. 

Very interesting, too, is the account of the proselytizing 
tendency of the Irish Protestants, who were even clever 
enough to have missionaries trained to speak the Irish lan- 
guage so as to seize more intimately the inner spirit of the 
people. 

On the whole it must be admitted [writes Mr. I,ynd~| , that 
the Irish Catholic accepts the Protestant missionary with great 
tolerance. There has been trouble in the streets of Cork, and 
I believe, in the streets of Gal way, owing to the presence of 
missionaries preaching militant Protestantism in the public 
places in each city. But the Catholics as a whole take these 
attacks on their faith calmly, much more calmly than would 
Irish Protestants take similar attacks on Protestantism. The 
Catholic, indeed, may pray in his churches for the conversion 
of his non-Catholic fellow-Christians, but I do not believe 
there is anybody freer from the proselytizing spirit than tte 
ordinary Irish Catholic even the ordinary Irish Catholic 
priest. A score of exceptions do not disprove my contention. 
Irish Catholics nearly always give a fine example in respecting 
the religion of their neighbors. A Protestant rowdy does not 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 819 

object to flinging a stone at a chapel window, but a Catholic 
rowdy will think twice, or oftener, before he will do any dam- 
age to a Protestant Church. 

Politics are not dealt with at great length; there is one 
chapter on Sinn Fein, which the author calls " the new note 
in politics," and in which he is evidently a firm believer. 

Catholic readers will doubtless resent many things in Mr. 
Lynd's book, notably his criticism of the clerical control of 
schools, his condemnation of Cardinal Logue's act in sup- 
pressing the paper called The Irish Peasant, and his quite un- 
accountable omission of Canon Sheehan's work from the review 
of contemporary Irish literature. They will not fail, however, 
to appreciate his sincerity and his comparative freedom from 
prejudice. The volume includes some fine illustrations from 
photographs. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC. By H. H. Britan, Ph.D. New 
York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1,35. 

This book is an attempt to get at the meaning, aim, 
power and influence of music. The author states first in gen- 
eral terms those outlines of musical knowledge which may be 
obtained in any of the numerous handbooks of musical theor- 
ists. He divides his work into three parts: An Introduction, 
which treats of musical form, scales, and analysis; A Psycho- 
logical Analysis of Music, where considerable space is given 
to a consideration of rhythm, melody and harmony ; and The 
Philosophy of Music, under which heading are grouped chap- 
ters on the universality, versatility, power and content of 
music, together with a chapter on musical criticism and the 
value of music in education. 

The title of the book is somewhat grandiose, and arouser 
too great expectations. We feel that a false foundation has 
been built upon in several places, and bizarre standards have 
been adopted. Still, we cannot quarrel with this as the author 
has a perfect right to his opinions, which he gives without 
being dogmatic. Out of all the chapters, the last one, on the 
educational value of music, appeals to us as being the best. 
But throughout the book it strikes us as strange that no con- 
sideration of the folk-music of various peoples which contain 
such wonderful examples of perfection in melodic form should 



820 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

be given. We should like to take exception to the statement 
on page 133 regarding the power to compose a melody. At 
best, the statement as it stands is but a half- truth and very 
misleading to any musician who is not thoroughly acquainted 
with that branch of music in which melody is studied fully 
national music. Otherwise, we have nothing to criticize in 
the volume, and desire to recommend it to those interested in 
the development of music. 

MY LIFE. Authorized translation from the German. By Rich- 
ard Wagner. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 2 Vols. 
$850. 
In Wagner's own short preface to this book he explains 

its origin and purpose, as follows: 

The contents of these volumes have been written down 
directly from my dictation, by my friend and wife, who wished 
me to tell her the story of my life. It was the desire of both 
of us that the details . . . should be made accessible to 
our family and to our sincere and trusted friends. . . . 
As the value of this autobiography consists in its unadorned 
veracity, which is ... its only justification, therefore* 
my statements had to be accompanied by precise names and 
dates ; hence, there could be no question of its publication 
until some time after my death ; . . . and on that point 
I intend leaving directions in my will. 

Wagner's admirers and all who are interested in the work 
and personality of this extraordinary man, may be congratu- 
lated on the conditions which have allowed Frau Wagner to 
give to the public these lively memories of his toils, hardships, 
courageous struggles, and final artistic triumph ; for we are 
now able to assume that sympathetic point of view the artist's 
own which, always necessary in estimating any man of genius, 
is doubly demanded in the case of one whose scope and origi- 
nality, peculiarities of temperament, and intense individuality, 
have made it nearly impossible that he should be understood 
by the many. Indeed it is unlikely that in some ways, even 
with the most sympathetic efforts to accept his own explana- 
tions, his character will rouse such admiration and affection 
as that of Liszt, for example; yet the story of "one who 
dares " (the meaning of the word Wagner)> one who persists 
through all discouragement, who frcm youth to old age main- 






I9II-] NEW BOOKS 821 

tains heroic efforts to be true to his highest ideals, one who 
though pre-eminently occupied with himself in relation to bis 
work, is yet capable of great generosity, deeply touched by 
kindness, loving and forgiving, alive to all beauty, and always 
ready with help for noble ends, this story must touch many 
sympathies and be deeply interesting. 

There can be no question of the " veracity/ 1 of these pages, 
for Wagner was not only truthful and candid, but frcm his 
early youth he had kept a detailed record ; the " little red 
book," which always accompanied him, being frankly the in- 
tended source of his expected biography. 

Perhaps the freshest and most charming of his reminis- 
cences are those of his childhood, with the attractive pictures 
of German domestic life; the picnics, Christmas- trees, home 
amusements, and little Richard's introduction to things the- 
atrical, through his kind and generous step-father, an actor 
and painter; his own father having died in 1813, the year he 
the youngest of seven children was born. The child's ex- 
periences even included an appearance on the stage: "As an 
angel sewn up in tights, with wings on my shoulders, main- 
taining a laboriously practised pose." 

Strangely, on this occasion, the orchestra leader was Carl 
Maria Von Weber, that Weber whose music Richard later so 
profoundly admired, and later still, for the translation of whose 
remains from England to his native Germany, he arranged, 
and conducted the ceremonial music, and at the solemn re- 
ception made his first public oration. 

His good step-father died when Richard was about seven, 
and after that the deluge ! There was a learned but eccen- 
tric old uncle who took him for a while, then there were 
schools from which he ran away, teachers from whom he 
couldn't learn, at thirteen even a short turn at starvation in a 
garret where he lived on coffee and wrote verses, his where- 
abouts being unknown to his family. Then came a short time 
of wild student- dissipation, out of which his own disgust 
brought him, periods of intense absorption in out-of-the-way 
studies, some bitter instruction from experience the only 
teacher whose lessons were effective and finally out of this 
chaos emerged a dramatic artist, poet and musician, his brain 
teeming with unheard-of art-works and his daily necessities 
requiring attention to the ordinary and sordid. 



8*2 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

Here Is the tragedy of the years from the age of twenty- 
one (when after his first season of orchestral conductorship 
his assets were: a load of debt, a brown poodle and a young 
actress-wife as poor as himself); to his fifty- first year when he 
met for the first time his generous patron, Ludwig II., just 
become King of Bavaria at the age of eighteen, whose pleas- 
ure it was to rescue, help and inspire the almost exhausted 
artist. 

With this episode in 1864 the biography disappointingly 
ends. Wagner died suddenly in Venice, in 1883, almost seventy 
years old, and the continuation of his dictation was one of the 
tasks he had set for that winter. Any one who cares to pur- 
sue the story which is dramatic and romantic to the end, will 
find Henry T. Finck's Wagner's Life and Works (1893), The 
Correspondence of Liszt and Wagner (1889), and the Art- Life 
and Theories of Richard Wagner by Burlingame (1875) of great 
interest. 

Though the years here covered are highly important it is 
impossible to give, in a sketch, any idea of the various and 
incessant activities, of the friendships, enmities, travels and 
trials with which they are crowded. In the midst of uncer- 
tainty, want, political exile and mental suffering, Wagner yet 
composed, and even managed to get produced many of his 
great works, and had found the germs of others. For all this 
detail it is necessary to read the book. 

The volumes are externally attractive and there is a good 
index. The translation seems but fairly good. It is rather 
clumsy, too much inclined to slang expressions such as " a 
fake orchestra," "he did something," "for all he was worth," 
and contains a reckless number of double adverbs such as 
"moderately loudly," "sufficiently kindly" and the like. It 
is a pity there are so many typographical errors. 

LETTERS OF JOHN MASON NEALE, D. D., Selected and edited 
by his daughter. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 

$2.50. 

A few years ago The Life of Dr. Neale was published 
and excited so much interest that this volume has been 
called for as a supplement to it. It gives a further insight 
into the character of one who had no small part fn the ap- 
proximation towards Catholic doctrine in England in the past 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 823 

century. Students of bymnology cannot fail to be interested 
in one whose hymns, and especially whose translations of 
medieval hymns, are some of the most beautiful in the Eng- 
lish language. The letters in this volume begin with the year 
1826 and end with 1866, a very short time before his death. 
Although placed as a child under the care of an Evangeli- 
cal, and although he went to Cambridge in the days when 
Simeon's influence was still a power, Dr. Neale's archaeological 
and artistic susceptibilities brought him from almost the be- 
ginning into sympathy with the Tractarian movement, then 
just at its start. The slovenly way in which he found the 
services celebrated in some of the Catholic churches which 
he visited seems to have been one of the stumbling blocks 
which prevented his becoming a Catholic. This looks like 
straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel, in view of many 
facts which he mentions as to the way in which things were 
done in the Establishment. For instance, at a church which 
he visited in the West of England, it was customary to bap- 
tize children without using water at all, merely reading the 
baptismal service. This, of course, was but a single case, at 
least he knew of no other. It indicates, however, the wide- 
spread contempt for a right administration of even the most 
important sacrament which then existed, one which would not 
be possible in the Catholic Church, and renders it more than 
probable that the line of continuity with the ancient Church 
was cut by negligent administration of the one sacrament upon 
the validity of which all the others depends. 

Most of the letters are addressed to the eminent ecclesi- 
ologist, the Rev. Benjamin Webb, and deal with the revival 
of church architecture and embelishment. The conversion of 
Cardinal Newman, the Gorham Judgment, the revival of 
hymnology and of the ancient music, the foundation of the 
convent at East Grinstead are other matters of considerable 
interest dealt with by Dr. Neale in these letters. But on the 
whole it seems doubtful whether the work will contribute to a 
higher estimation of its author. It leaves many matters unex- 
plained of which an explanation will be looked for by those 
interested in the development of his theological opinions. He 
seems to have been hasty in his judgments and to have 
been influenced more by feeling than by reason. Especially 
does he seem to have no other standard than his own likes 



824 MBIT BOOKS [Sept., 

and dislikes and to have made them more a rule of faith 
than those do whom he would have called Protestants. Nor 
is there wanting a certain superciliousness as well as flippancy 
in his treatment of various subjects. This work has almost dis- 
enchanted us with one whom we have long admired. 

WHO ARE THE JESUITS ? By Rev. Charles Coppens, S. J. St. 
Louis : B. Herder. 50 cents. 

At last we have a handy compendium of information con- 
cerning the Society of Jesus. Often have we wondered why 
some Jesuit did not publish such a book as an antidote to 
the reams of slander and nonsense written about the followers 
of St. Ignatius. Father Coppens has now supplied the want 
by writing a most interesting little volume. He traces the 
history of the Society from the days of its founder's conver- 
sion from worldliness; he shows how the few followers of St. 
Ignatius gradually increased in numbers, and how by their 
learning and spiritual activity they swept back the tide of 
Protestantism in several corners of Europe. But as their num- 
bers grew and their influence extended, enemies also began 
to appear in all countries except Protestant Prussia and Or- 
thodox Russia. The various so-called Catholic governments 
raged against them, and threatened a savage repetition of the 
Reformation if the Pope would not suppress the Society. 
Clement XIV., a weak man, submitted, and ruled the Jesuits 
out of existence by the Bull, Dominus et Redemptor. With ad- 
mirable obedience the Fathers of the Society disappeared from 
the public eye. But St. Ignatius had not founded them out 
of whim. They were required by the Church, and in a few 
years came their re-establishment. Since then the Society 
has been as active as ever, fighting the good fight; the valiant 
assailants of the enemies of the Church. 

In twelve chapters Father Coppens traces the ups and 
downs of the Society, and in the last of these chapters he 
states and refutes, briefly, the many slanders such as " the 
end justifies the means," "the Jesuit Oath," "the Jesuits are 
rich," " the Jesuits mix too much in politics " that have been 
sent broadcast to unscrupulous enemies. One particular me- 
dium for spreading these slanders has been the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, with its ignorant and prejudiced article by Dr. 
Littledale. Father Coppens evidently had his book on the 



i9".] NEW BOOKS 825 

press when the new edition of this encyclopaedia appeared, or 
he would have dealt with the objectionable article by the late 
Father Taunton. 

We commend Who Are the Jesuits? as a very useful 
book, written in an attractive manner. It should find a place 
on the bookshelves of Catholic families and in the libraries of 
our societies. It would be a welcome addition if the date of 
the Bull of suppression were added when the opportunity offers 
itself. 

THE BEAUTY AND TRUTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Edited 
by Rev. Edward Jones. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.25. 

These sermons by the Very Rev. F. von Hutton, are se- 
lected, translated, and adapted from the German work in five 
volumes. They were preached in Vienna, and produced a 
strong impression there. They are intended, primarily, for 
priests whose duties are so arduous that they have little time 
for study and the preparation of sermons. The enthusiastic 
introduction by Archbishop Ireland, will doubtless bring this 
volume into general circulation. He says : " I consider these 
sermons masterpieces of sacred oratory, and I make the prayer 
that every priest in America will soon be in possession of 
them, whether in German or in English.*' These discourses 
are brief, and it would be easy for any one, after reading 
them, to reproduce the thoughts presented according to his 
individual style and ability. 

MODERNISM. By Cardinal Mercier. New York: Benziger 
Brothers. 50 cents. 

Miss Lindsay has done well in translating these contribu- 
tions of Cardinal Mercier to the ever-growing literature con* 
nected with Modernism. Of the three essays which the book 
contains, the first "An Address to Professors and Students" 
is not of any great value, neither may any particular distinc- 
tion be attributed to the third " A Letter to the Catholic 
University of Madrid"; but the second "The Cardinal's Pas- 
toral Letter on Modernism," is of itself well worth preserva- 
tion in permanent form. In it he speaks with no uncertain 
voice. He shows what Modernism is, whence it comes, and to 
what it tends. He also points out with emphasis the possi- 
bility of good-meaning Catholics being led astray by the at- 



826 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

tractiveness of Modernist teachers. Besides the philosophical 
trend of his paragraphs, there is much of what we are accus- 
tomed to call common sense embodied in these pages. 

We are sure that considerable good will follow on the trans- 
lation of the Pastoral. Above all, we hope that his words of 
advice regarding the formation of a small collection of relig- 
ious books in Catholic families, will not only be read with in- 
terest but put in practice. The absence of these books is in 
some degree the cause of many false conceptions concerning 
religion. 

The publishers have done their work well (we have noticed 
only one slight error); but fifty cents is too high a price for 
fifty-five pages of printed matter in these days of cheap 
literature. A foreword, giving the dates of the three sections 
of the book, would be a useful addition to the book. 

THREE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE SPIRITUAL 
LIFE. By Moritz Meschler, SJ. St. Louis : B. Herder. 

$i. 

It is the special value of this thoroughly excellent treatise 
that the author at once reduces the spiritual life to its founda- 
tion. He takes in succession its three underlying principles: 
prayer, which is the light, the life, the very breath of the 
soul; self-denial, the moral force and strength, which renders 
one victor in the strife with his lower nature; and love, which 
leads us to our ultimate aim and end, the object of the soul's 
eternal worship, our Lord Jesus Christ. It would be difficult 
to put the "science of the saints" into a form better fitted to 
meet the needs of the soul seeking to know and serve God. 
Some one has said, "to be profound is to be simple," and 
there is a sweetness and simplicity in the style of these con- 
siderations that make it easy to grasp and to assimilate the 
profound philosophy they contain. 

THE SECOND SPRING. By Cardinal Newman. New York: 
Longmans, Green & Co. 50 cents. 

The fact that one of Cardinal Newman's works has been 
edited with introduction, notes and exercises for the use of 
academies and colleges will be of interest not only to teach- 
ers and students of English but also to many other admirers 
of Newman. Hitherto The Second Spring has been inaccessi- 



i9ii.] NEW BOOKS 827 

ble in the school editions of Newman, published by Henry 
Holt and by Houghton, Mifflin. It is contained in the selec- 
tion published by Charles Merrill Co. To those who are fa- 
miliar with this " Romantic " or " Hebraic " triumph of ora- 
tory, the above announcement might easily give rise to a 
doubt whether the true appreciation of this inspired sermon 
can be fostered by any kind of textual criticism or rhetorical 
analysis. Fortunately, the editor of this sermon has abstained 
from all pedantic comment of a linguistic nature. Part I. of 
the Introduction gives in three stimulating pages " The Occa- 
sion and the Merits of The Second Spring" It might have 
been followed by a brief chronological outline of Newman's 
life, a bibliography, and a few suggestions to students as a 
possible point of view and devices that make the study more 
intelligent for example, that of constantly visualizing the 
audience. However, without such additions the* first three 
pages constitute an excellent foreword to the student and the 
teacher. Part II. of the Introduction is rather involved, even 
for the average college senior, and is apt to leave the impres- 
sion that, after all, Newman's oratory especially The Second 
Spring is not very profitable for the ordinary rhetorical study 
the avowed purpose of this edition. Part II. would be bet- 
ter as an introduction to the notes; its study should follow, 
rather than precede, the first reading, 

The text, like the rest of the book, is printed in excep- 
tionally clear type and, save for the paragraph numbers, bears 
no indication of the detailed analysis and imitation to which 
it is to be subjected by means of the notes and exercises. 
The typographical systems of annotated texts are very imper- 
fect. For classroom purposes it is desirable to have nothing 
appear with the text but the numbering of each paragraph or 
stanza and of every fifth line within these divisions. For 
study-hall purposes the text and annotations should appear 
on the same or opposite pages. Perhaps the compromise sys- 
tem adopted in this book is as good as any yet devised. The 
notes and exercises are less fortunate than the Introduction. 
This emphasizes the fact that The Second Spring is not built 
along architectural lines, that it resembles an improvisation in 
music, that " we are given some clue to the course of the 
thought yet not definite enough for the ordinary audience;" 
nevertheless the notes, outside of some valuable comments on 



828 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

diction, are a study of topic sentences; development by defi- 
nition, division, paraphrase by comparison, proof of topic by 
contrast, and development by enumeration ; choice and order 
of details; and similar analytical topics of doubtful value even 
when applied to other works of Newman that exhibit more 
structure, or to the writings of Irving or Macaulay, both Of 
whom can be proved guilty of greater mechanism in their 
sentence and paragraph structure. The examples of exercises 
modeled on The Second Spring read like mechanical copies, 
done word by word, with the model paragraph before the 
eyes of the student or in his mind's eye. Surely Franklin's 
imitations of Addison, Stevenson's imitations of Browne and 
others, and Newman's imitations of Cicero were not of this 
character. The giving of a piece of selected criticism to be 
applied to its allotted paragraph seems likewise mechanical 
and overdone. To dissect a Pentecost flower, or peony, and 
then to reproduce a petal in paper or wax, might be of bene- 
fit to makers of artificial flowers, but the process would be of 
little, if of any, value to the horticulturist. Despite its limi- 
tations, this book is a step in the right direction. It is to be 
hoped that this edition will lead to others, well adapted to 
Catholic colleges as, for example, the sermon on "Purity and 
Love" might be. 

LANDS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS : A VISIT TO SOUTH 
AMERICA. By Charles Warren Currier, Ph.D., Washing- 
ton, D.C. Spanish American Publication Society. $1.50. 

Lands of the Southern Cross is the graceful and appropriate 
title given to his book on South America by the author, Rev. 
Charles Warren Currier, Ph.D. Dr. Currier is widely known 
as an authority on the history of Spanish colonization in 
America, and of Spanish-American literature. He was chosen 
as delegate to represent both the United States Government 
and the Catholic University of America at the International 
Congress of Americanists, recently held in Buenos Ayres, and 
has gathered into the present volume his impressions and 
records of the voyage. In his character of delegate he was 
naturally afforded greater facilities for observation than the 
average tourist could command; his accounts and criticisms 
are therefore based upon accurate personal knowledge. He 
writes in detail of Brazil, more up-to-date than romantic; of 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 829 

Uruguay, and of Argentina, where, in Buenos Ayres, the 
Americanist Congress was held. Then, proceeding to the 
lands on the Pacific coast, he takes the reader through Chile, 
through Peru, with its historic and sacred memories, and en 
the particularly interesting return journey by Panama and the 
West Indies. In dealing with each country the author gives 
an exhaustive account of its history, resources, and industries, 
and a careful portrayal of its inhabitants, their character and 
manners of life. Especially in Argentina, Chile, and Peru be 
makes a thoughtful study of the present status and activities 
of the Church, and of its influence upon education. The 
author's attitude toward his subject is admirable; he avoids 
both patronage and undue criticism. 

It may not be out of place to remark that a book some- 
what similar has very recently been published Across South 
America, by Hiram Bingham, Ph.D., delegate of the govern- 
ment and of Yale University to the Pan-American Scientific 
Congress held at Santiago in the winter of 1908. Dr. Bing- 
ham, we believe, records a trip largely coinciding in route 
with that described by Rev. Dr. Currier, and offers, it would 
appear, a study and criticism along similar lines. A compari- 
son of the two books might be of interest. 

THE LECTIONARY : ITS SOURCES AND HISTORY. By Dom 
Jules Baudot. Translated from the French by Ambrose 
Catol. B. Herder. St. Louis: $i. 

Those who read Dom Baudot's volume on The Breviary 
awaited with no ordinary interest the appearance of this 
translation of his work on The Lectionary. The present volume 
is laid out on historical lines, and the evolution of the Lee- 
tionaries is traced out clearly. "By Lectionaries is meant, in 
a general way, the liturgical books containing the special pas- 
sages of Holy Scriptures which are read in the public ser- 
vices, particularly at the Mass." This is how the author states 
the subject of his work. But he subdistinguishes so that no 
confusion may come to the reader. He shows the distinction 
between the Lectionary and the Evangelary\; the former being 
the collection of the Acts of the Apostles, the latter a col. 
lection of the Gospels. A special name was given to the book 
containing both these collections. It was known as the Coir.us, 
Liber Comitis, Liber Comicus. 



830 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

From this he passes on to a historical discussion as to the 
use of the Old and New Testament lessons in the Mass, and 
quotes a large number of authorities. But he points out that 
preciseness of method and uniformity of law were not to be 
found at first, for the practices of each individual church de- 
pended on the actions of its bishops. Provincial Councils 
made efforts to overcome those sources of irregularity, but in 
reality uniformity came only as a result of the spread of the 
Benedictine rule. Dom Baudot points out that there were no 
marks in the lessons for the reader to finish ; his stopping 
depended on the presiding cleric, who brought the reader to 
a halt when he thought fit. The Comus attained considerable 
fame in the West by the tradition that St. Jerome was its 
author. Recent research, however, appears more inclined to 
give the honor of authorship to Victor of Capua (573). Dom 
Baudot also deems it probable that the Lectionary of St. 
Gregory was a different compilation from his celebrated 
Sacramentary. 

A very useful section of the book is that on the distri- 
bution of the Lections. Several pages are alloted to this por- 
tion, which gives chapter and verse of the Bible for each 
lection used on the Sundays and principal feasts, as well as 
during the great liturgical seasons. Added to this section. 
Chapter III on the documents available is of the utmost value 
to students who may desire to begin a search on their own 
account among original sources. First is given a list of manu- 
scripts that were known to Blessed Toniassi, then follows 
those of Ehrensberger, and then another list of the evan- 
gelaries cited by Tomassi. In rapid succession come good 
lists of manuscripts mentioned by Delisle, Dom Gueranger 
and De Rossi, and a few miscellaneous notes on other docu- 
ments. These lists add an unmistakable value to the book, 
a value indeed that Dom Baudot seems to minimize. 

The section on the ceremonies observed for the Lections is 
well done, though perhaps slightly too diffuse. We should 
have liked to see the present paragraphs slightly rearranged 
so as to bring similar points of liturgical observance more 
closely in conjunction. From the ceremonies to the book of 
the Lections itself is a logical step, and the author has much 
interesting matter to tell us regarding the lavish decorations 
of the manuscripts. Some of these were bound in ivory, gold, 






i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 83 1 

silver, and emblazoned with precious stones. They testified to 
the great love of the Catholic Church for the Sacred Scriptures. 
We have necessarily only touched here and there on the 
many good things that Dom Baudot has to tell us. He has 
not spared taking pains with the work, and we trust the book 
will have a large circulation. 

THE COMIC SPIRIT IN GEORGE MEREDITH : AN INTERPRE- 
TATION. By Joseph Warren Beach. London: Long- 
mans, Green & Co. $1.25. 

In twelve chapters the author discusses several phases of 
the comic spirit, in the highest sense of that word, in Mere- 
dith's works. First of all he lays down as the foundation of 
his work what the comic spirit is and the possible distinctive 
attributes of it. He finds that the comedy of Meredith is 
"humor of the mind"; that in the eyes of the author of 
The Egoist the most important part of humor rs to make people 
think. From this consideration a transit is made to an ex- 
amination of the humorous element of the principal of Mere- 
dith's works, as for instance, Shaving of Shagpat, Richard 
Feverel, and a group of five novels, beginning with Sandra 
Belloni and ending with General Opie and Lady Camper ; which 
group Mr. Beach calls the Book of Snobs, after Thackeray's 
famous volume. Other chapters are given over to The Sentimen- 
talists t The Amazing Marriage ', Diana oj the Crossways, of which 
Mr. Beach has not a very high opinion. 

The work will be a useful one tor students of Meredith. 
But in saying this we by no means wish to admit that we 
agree with all the author states. To many of the ideals he 
sets up, the theories he propounds, and points in his exposi- 
tion of humor we feel antagonistic. Much of what he says 
looks like special pleading, and is calculated to destroy confi- 
dence among literary folk. We fail to see the humor of cer- 
tain passages of Meredith, and in no place are we so lament- 
ably obtuse as in the passages where Meredith preaches his 
lax ideas of morality. The man who respects God and His 
Commandments cannot very well extract humor from the- 
snobbery of women who were ashamed of their own father, 
who lied, who contracted illicit unions. Meredith's position 
in literature is secure, but not all the praise which is now 
his will he receive when the coldness of time plays it part. 



832 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

A couple of misprints pp. 148, 172 make their sentences 
difficult to be understood. The Index is good ; its divisions 
into sections being very useful for hasty references. 

THE LIFE. OF BLESSED JOHN EUDES. By the Rev. Matthew 
Russell, SJ. New York: Benziger Brothers. 90 cents. 

Born in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and for- 
gotten for two hundred years, his recent beatification has fixed 
the attention of many upon Blessed John Eudes, who had 
scarcely heard of him before. He was distinguished for singu- 
lar purity of heart and unswerving devotion to his vocation, 
as well as eloquence in the pulpit, and an indefatigable zeal 
for souls. During the plague of 1631, he gave his personal 
service to all who were most destitute and abandoned, and 
slept at night in a large cask in a field to which the abbess 
of a neighboring monastery, sent him food when he returned 
to it. 

Perhaps the most splendid and enduring monument of his 
work for God is the Congregation of the Good Shepherd, now 
spread through the civilized world. He also founded the Con- 
gregation of the Lady of Refuge, and the family of his own 
sons, commonly called Eudists. 

In this compact little volume, Father Russell, S.J., gives a 
clear and interesting memorial of this great servant of God. 

FRANCE UNDER THE REPUBLIC. By Jean Charlemagne Bracq, 
Litt.D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50. 

To him who desires to read the effusions of a narrow- 
minded, prejudiced and bitter French Protestant this book 
will be welcome. Our duties from time to time during the 
past few years have caused us to read a large amount of lit- 
erature on modern France, and we can say that in all of it 
we have never met anything like what is contained within the 
covers of France Under the Republic. The title tells the con- 
tents, which may briefly be stated as a biased comparison of 
the condition of the country under the Empire and now under 
the Republic. When stripped of its cheaply- got statistics the 
comparison resolves itself into a fierce, dishonorable attack on 
the Catholic Church; such an attack, indeed, as would ema- 
nate from the lips of a peripatetic "anti-Romanist" lecturer 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 833 

of the Maria Monk type. It is a book over which any hon- 
orable, educated Protestant who knows France will hang his 
head in shame, for he cannot but help perceiving the false- 
hoods, contorted facts, and imaginings of this Frenchman. 

PASCAL. LA VIE RELIGIEUSE ET SON APOLOGIE DU CHRIS- 
TIANISME. Par H. Petitot. Paris: Beauchesne et Cie. 6fr. 

"So great is Pascal's authority that every one seeks to 
claim him for himself/' says Pere Petitot as he plunges into 
the well-worn controversy as to the orthodoxy or heresy of 
the writer of the Pensces. For the fact that the Port Royal- 
ists claimed him to be all theirs is not conclusive proof in it- 
self. Pascal himself disclaimed his connection with Port Royal 
as the author of the Letters to a Provincial, but he was so 
deeply engaged in convicting the Jesuits of hair-splitting that 
he seems to have fallen into the practice himself over this 
assertion. Pere Petitot in his volume makes a very careful 
study of the whole question of Pascal's orthodoxy. As the 
author of the Apologie du Christianisme he declares the Church 
may claim him with perfect security. The Pensees have never 
been condemned. He does not go beyond the surface of the 
dispute between the Jesuits and the Jansenists which gave rise 
to the Provincial Letters, and ultimately to the condemnation 
of Port Royal. This is a relief to the reader who has already 
grasped the main outlines of that painful piece of history. 

Pere Petitot gives us a most delicate and sympathetic 
study not only of Pascal's intellectual attitude towards Chris- 
tianity, but also of his most intimate promptings of heart and 
mystical experiences. He expresses great admiration for the 
saintliness of Pascal's life. He speaks of his resignation under 
almost incessant bodily and nervous suffering, of his austerity, 
and of the warmth of his affections. He will not hear of Pas- 
cal's being the rather inhuman incarnation of intellect that he 
has so often been painted, and with the gloom of certain at- 
titudes of his towards original sin and the Jansenist doctrines 
of insufficient grace and predestination he contrasts Pascal's 
intense joy in his own conversion. 

It is because of this sympathetic treatment of Pascal's 
character and temperament that Pere Petitot's rejection of the 
supposed death-bed retractation of Jansenism is the more im- 
pressive. That those who loved Pascal best did the greatest 
VOL. xcin. 53 



834 NEW BOO&S [Sept., 

harm to his fame by claiming him so unconditionally for Port 
Royal is, alas, not an isolated case. How often would the 
silence of friends as to the orthodoxy or otherwise of the 
dead be a truer service to his most intimate convictions than 
the explanations they clamorously make to the world. The 
good Abbe Beuerier felt justified in giving Pascal absolution 
on his death-bed. 

Various works have been written to prove that Pascal re- 
tracted at his death notably a recent volume by M. Jovy. 
Pere Petitot devotes his appendix to the study of this ques- 
tion. His final pronouncement runs thus : 

Was there possibly in Pascal's life a final conversion little 
suspected ? Was it perhaps the goal of a progressive march 
towards orthodoxy? This is the whole question. Most of 
the critics note in Pascal's last years a certain evolution, but 
while M. Jovy claims this evolution to have been in the direc- 
tion of orthodoxy, we believe it was rather in an opposite di- 
rection, towards a more uncompromising Jansenism. 

Lord St. Gyres' study of Pascal (Pascal, by Viscount St. 
Cyres. Smith, Elder & Co., London) is written from what 
we may call a more mundane point of view. He gives us the 
painful controversy against the Jesuits in great fullness. He 
also takes the worldly period very seriously and goes into 
various small quarrels and jealousies over scientific discoveries. 
The book is very thorough in its own way, and Lord St. 
Gyres' dry humor and attractive style make it pleasant read- 
ing. But there is a certain lack of comprehension of the 
workings of God in the soul of man that strikes a chill in the 
chapters on the conversion of Pascal, and Lord St. Gyres is 
more at home in the dozen and more technical discussions of 
Pascal's scientific researches than in the regions, to us more 
interesting, of his religious experience. 

L'ART DE TROMPER, D'INTIMIDER ET DE CORROMPRE 
L'ELECTEUR. By . Charles Marcault. Paris: Bloud et 
Cie. 

Every day we are receiving evidences of the decay and 
degeneracy of modern France, and now comes before us for 
review a book of over five hundred pages crammed full of proof 
of moral and political corruption and shame. We are clearly 



i9i i.] NEW BOOKS 835 

shown how the governing tyrants of the country manage to 
dupe the electorate, and, failing to deceive, have recourse to 
intimidation and physical force to gain their ends. M. Mar- 
cault makes his thesis clear and evident, but as we read we 
feel inclined to say that all things considered there is a large 
slice of puerility and incapacity in the average Frenchman, 
who seems to be drawn aside by any kind of red-herring, 
and who is wonderfully and magnetically attracted by shady 
tricks of corruption and palm-greasing. On the whole M. 
Marcault only lowers the character of his compatriots in the 
eyes of English-speaking people. 

One chapter in particular 5th, of Part II. is singularly 
illuminating as to how the government openly shields the 
most flagrant interference with the ballot boxes. A member 
of the Chamber of Deputies proves up to the hilt a case of 
tampering with the boxes, and changing the result oi the 
election. But no heed is taken of his expostulations, and the 
individual elected by corruption because he is a supporter of 
the bloc is allowed to retain his seat in the Chamber. After 
reading this, one will not be surprised at anything happening 
in France, and all we can say is, that the system of election 
over there is one huge fraud from start to finish. 

To those who write for the press, and who wish to have 
data at hand, no better book could be had than this of M. 
Marcault. It would take an ordinary journalist several years 
to form a collection of clippings on recent history in France, 
and he would then find that in no way could his clippings be 
found of equal utility with this book, for the great value of it 
consists in the speeches, documents, political addresses, plac- 
ards, etc,, which are given in full, and thus the reader can 
get his knowledge accurately and from primary sources. 

FENELON. ETUDES HISTORIQUES. Par Eugene Griselle. 
Paris: Hachette et Cie. 3 fr. 50. 

There are many valuable notes in this volume, but the 
manner in which the collection has been arranged, and the 
mode of printing adopted, make the book as unpleasant a one 
to read as it has ever been our misfortune to meet. For the 
printing of the various letters in the original seventeenth cen- 
tury French, we can see no valid reason ; this could have 
been done very easily in an appendix if the modern version 



8 3 6 NEW BOOKS [Sept., 

had been incorporated into the text. All through the book 
very little order is in evidence; indeed it looks sometimes as 
if a studied attempt to avoid it had been the idea of all con- 
cerned. This is a great drawback for the student of history. 
We can never know too much about the great Prelate of Cam- 
brai, or about the Church affairs of the period in which he 
flourished. It is all the more pity, then, that when new ma- 
terial is at hand it is given to us in such a form that many 
turn away in despair at the very sight of the printed page. 
The only redeeming feature in the volume before us is the 
presence of two good Indexes. 

The main object of the book is to show Fen el on as a 
preacher, and to dwell on the episode of the condemnation of 
his Maximes des Saints. Concerning the latter there are some 
new letters to the nephew of Bossuet, who had been promi- 
nent in urging on the action of the Holy See. 

NICOLAS CAUSSIN, CONFESSOR OF LOUIS XIII., AND CARDI- 
NAL RICHELIEU. UNEDITED DOCUMENTS. By R. P. 
Camilie De Rochemonteis, S.J. Paris: Alphonse Picard 
et Fils. 

This book will be of particular value to those interested 
in the times of the later Louises because it throws light on 
the marvelous attention to detail by which Cardinal Richelieu 
so long maintained his empire. It treats at length of Mile, 
de la Fayette, the child whom at the age of fourteen Cardinal 
Richelieu recognized as his most dangerous enemy, and of 
Father Caussin, the upright, heroic Jesuit confessor to Louis 
XIII. 

THE GARDEN OF THE SUN. By Captain T. J. Powers, 
U.S.A. (Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. $1.25.) From 
Homer down to Mr. Kipling's Soldiers Three, stories of fight- 
ing have ever been dear to the hearts of men, and there is a 
welcome for a new novel of army life in the Philippines, by 
Captain T. J. Powers, U.S.A. The book is called The Garden 
of the Sun, has pages of exciting fights and pages of almost 
boyish humor, and is lively from beginning to end. The love 
theme, however, is a sad affair; we are wearying of the mar- 
ried woman as heroine and the divorce court as the golden 
gate to " happiness ever alter." 






i9".] NEW BOOKS 837 

HER JOURNEY'S END, by Frances Cooke (Benziger 
Brothers. $1.85), is a story of life in a New England 
mill town. Its first chapters show, and show very ably, some 
problems of the labor-capital contention but as the story pro- 
ceeds it becomes the conventional love tale, not guiltless of a 
touch of melodrama. The theme of the mills and their workers 
might very profitably have been developed. That the author 
has ability is shown in the fine character picture of Mrs. 
Lackland, owner of the Lackland Manufacturing Company. 
Long past middle age, and the mother of two grown-up sons, 
Mrs. Lackland still keeps a firm, jealous grasp on the busi- 
ness which she manages calculatingly and conservatively, with 
stern justice, but never with personal kindness for the mill 
hands. She represents a certain type of the New England 
business woman and as such is very well portrayed. 

PSYCHIC PHENOMENA, SCIENCE AND IMMORTAL- 
-* ITY. By Henry Frank. (Boston : Sherman French & Co. 
$2.25) is an unscientific, unscholarly jumble of fact, allegation 
and hypothesis. The author was early informed by his bishop 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church that his ideas were un- 
orthodox. After leaving Methodism, he founded "The Metro- 
politan Independent Church " in New York City. It was 
apparently at the desire of this congregation that he ventured 
into the scientific and occult fields represented by the present 
book. Judging by the result, he was without the necessary 
training in psychology, physics and other branches of science 
to undertake such a work. 

SAINT LEGER, par Father Camerlinck, O.P. (Paris: J. Ga- 
baldaet Cie), is a delightful contribution to "The Saints." 
The life of the valiant Bishop of Autun is opportune and en- 
couraging at a time when we repeat the question of the Psalm- 
ist: "Why have the nations raged against the Lord and 
against His Christ ? " 

TA CITE FUTURE, by Louis de Meurville, (Paris: Li- 
*- / brairie Plon) is not, as its name would imply, an im- 
aginative picture of the possible city of the future, but a dis- 
quisition on the moral and social questions of the day, 
written, so the author tells us, with the sole hope of exciting 



838 NEW BOOKS [Sept. 

our interest in these problems and aiding in their solution. 
Modern society is found sadly deficient in personal and cor- 
porate justice, and we are told that a community in which it 
is possible for one person to die from hunger is not civilized, 
and that in three centuries our era will be regarded as some 
pretentious ones among us used to regard the Middle Ages. 

A CRISE ORGANIQUE DE L'EGLISE EN FRANCE. 
(Paris: Bernard Grasset.) Paul Vulliard considers the 
question from an intellectual and disciplinary point of view, 
pointing out also an interior origin. The writer's remarks on 
the disciplinary side of the crisis will surprise many. He does 
not hesitate to offer a solution of the abnormal situation of 
the Church in France. 

T A FAMILIA DE SANTA TERESA EN AMERICA. Par 
*-* Dr. D. Manuel Maria Polit (B. Herder). In his introduc- 
tion, Dr. Polit ably describes the work of the religious orders 
in America, the contemplative sharing with the active in 
spreading the Gospel of Christ. The book gives an interesting 
account of St. Teresa's brother and his descendants in Amer- 
ica, especially of his daughter, the first American Carmelite. 

OACRATISSIMI CORDIS JESU. Par Fr. J. C. Cardinal 
^ Vives (New York : Fr. Pustet), is a series of contem- 
plations and daily prayers for the year taken from the writ- 
ings of the saints. 

TJISTORIA DE LA EDUCAClCN Y LA PEDAGOGIA. 
" Por el P. Ramon R. Amado. The author of this volume 
has made a careful study of the classical and monastic periods 
of education, and his work is an excellent defence of the 
Church as teacher. La Comunion Frecuente Y Diaria Y La 
Primera Comunion, por el Juan B. Ferreres, S.J., gives a clear 
solution to the many difficulties presented against early First 
Communion. Principles Fundamentals del Derecho Penal, por 
el P. Victor Cathrein, gives the reader useful knowledge on 
the fundamental principles cf penal law. La Comunion De Los 
Ninos Inocentes, por el P. Ramon R. Amado, contains excel- 
lent instructions for mothers on the manner of preparing the 
young for First Communion. 



jforeign Iperiobtcate, 

The Tablet (15 July): "To Drink the Hemlock" is a review 

of the political world. Dom A. Kentigern Milne, 

O.S.B., deals with " Bishop Hay's Place in History," in 
view of the approaching centenary celebrations. "The 
life of Bishop Hays," says the author, " practically means 
the history of the Catholic Church in Scotland for near- 
ly half a century." C. Dease writes at length of 

" The Holy Well of Boon," situated in the Highlands 
of Donegal, and of the pilgrimages which are made 
thereto. 

(22 July): The Catholics of Scotland will celebrate 
in October the hundredth anniversary of the death of 
one of their greatest prelates, Bishop George Hay, Vicar- 
Apostolic of the Lowlands, from 1769 to 1811. The 

Holy Father, helped by the generosity of the faithful, 
expended over eight million francs in the relief of the 

earthquake-stricken Sicilians and Calabrians. The 

Labor party in England is endeavoring to unite with 
the Labor members of Parliament in the Dominions to 
form an organization "for enlightening public opinion 
and demonstrating the solidarity of the Labor move- 
ments in the Empire." 

(29 July): The Second National Catholic Congress was 
held in a district teeming with historical memories 
New Castle-on-Tyne. In " Catholics and the Minor- 
ity Report," J. W. Gilbert, K.S.G., states that "if there 
is one subject above all others which should be kept 
perfectly free from party politics, it is the administra- 
tion of public assistance." 

(5 Aug.) : " The strike among the London dockers has 
arisen out of what is confessedly a misunderstanding 
by the men as to 'an agreement which had been arrived 
at between their representatives, the employers, and the 

Port of London authorities." " Catholic Views on 

the Crisis," discusses important letters on the Consti- 
tutional crisis from Lord Llandaff and from two Catho- 
lic members of the House, Mr. Rowland Hunt and 



840 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Sept., 

Major Mark Sykes. Egerton Beck takes exception 

to the treatment accorded the Augustinian Canons in 
the Encyclop&dia Brittanica. The most serious matters 
on which it has gone wrong are the relations which 
existed between the Canons and their charges, and the 
question of the General Chapter. 

The National (Aug.) : " Episodes of the Month," again devotes 
a great deal of space to the European situation, discuss^ 

ing "the weakness of England by land and sea." 

" Anarchy and the Scuttle," by Ignotus, declares that 
"the British people find themselves confronted with an 
internal crisis of the gravest character at the very mo- 
ment when abroad they are faced by a deliberate chal- 
lenge." "Military Policy and War, 1 ' by the Earl 

Percy, sounds yet another note of warning for the ben- 
efit of Great Britain. "A Fielding Find," by Austin 

Dobson presents two of Fielding's latest letters, recently 
brought to light. These letters relate to his last voy- 
age to Lisbon in search of health.- " African Big 

Game Shooting for Women," by Mary Bridson. The 

Earl of Denbigh studies the "Beet Sugar Industry," 
apropos of which he says that " it would be hard to 
find in the whole range of human progress a more 
striking example of the enormous benefits arising from 
the triple alliance of Science," Industry, and Agriculture." 

Dublin Review (July) : Herbert Thurston, S.J., traces the Cor- 
onation Order of George V. to the Egbertine Pontifical 
of the eighth century. He attacks the popular exag- 
geration, found even in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, of 

the king's ecclesiastical character. William Wistar 

Comfort gives a portrayal of " The Saracens in Christian 
Poetry," rather more conventional and romantic than 
historical. The spiritualizing assistance of the Catho- 
lic Church as necessary for race culture and for the suc- 
cess of the Eugenics Education Society, is the theme 

of the Rev. Thomas J. Gerrard. Mgr. R. H. Benson 

draws the specialist's attention to the other " Points of 

View" besides his own. In "Catholicism and the 

Spirit of the East," Canon William Barry argues that 
the Papacy survives because it is the hierarchical em- 
bodiment of the supernatural, the guardian and expo- 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 841 

nent of the Revelation to the Hebrews Francis Mc- 

Cullagh explains "The Portuguese Separation Law/' 
and pronounces it an effort to exterminate all religion. 

Ihe Month (August) : " Christianity and Woman's Rights," 
by Rev. Jos. Keating may be summarized in the four 
following propositions: ist, Christianity dees not dis- 
criminate between the sexes in the religious sphere on 
any natural grounds; 2nd, Christianity holds that the 
sexes are complementary, hence no single standard to 
determine their relative excellence; 3rd, Christianity 
assigns to the father the official headship of the family 
on the strength of God's revelation; 4th, Christianity 
favors every development of woman's personality, in- 
tellectual, moral, political, which leaves proper scope 

for her functions in the family. " The Clergy and 

Social Study," by Rev. Chas. Plater emphasizes the 
necessity of social study among the clergy, and points 
out the dangers which will follow its neglect. The 
Rev. Herbert Lucas in an article entitled "Socialism 
and Social Reform," indicates the chief reasons why 
no well instructed and conscientious Catholic may be a 
Socialist. 

Le Correspondent (10 July): "A Question of Justice," is an 
unsigned article on the present bone of contention 
between the English and French speaking Catholics 
of Canada " The French Language, " which, it is 
hoped, the recent visit of Cardinal Vannutelli will 

help to solve. "Across Bolivia," by Prince Louis 

of Orleans describes the scenery and customs of the 
country observed on a trip from Cochabamba to Santa 
Cruz in the Sierras. Fortunat Strowski has a de- 
scriptive article of the life and works of "Theophile 
Gautier," whose centenary is celebrated this year. 
"The School Question in Holland," by Paul Ver Schave, 
is the history of the struggle between the Dutch Goot 
and the Religious Sects concerning religious education 

for their youth. In " Our Churches in Danger," Max 

Doumic describes the architectural beauty of the churches 
in the district of Lyons and their present danger for 

lack of repairs. "Souvenirs of the Papal Zouaves," 

by M. de Traissan, tells of their campaigns against the 



842 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Sept., 

Garibaldians and brigands of Italy, and describes the 
army of the Loire. 

(25 July): "The Public Spirit in Germany," by Henri 
Moysset describes the interest which the Kaiser takes in 
the advancement of the economic life of Germany, and 
the enthusiasm he instills into the hearts of the busi- 
ness men. " SS. Francis of Sales and Frances of 

Chantal," by Henri Bremond describes the spiritual life 
of master and pupil with extracts from the letters of 

Francis of Sales. " In Abyssinia," by George Re. 

mond describes the customs of the country and the last 

days of Emperor Menelik. " Men of the Day," is an 

unsigned article, being a character sketch of Joseph 
Cailloux, and a study of his administration. " Gen- 
eral Booth and the Salvation Army," by M. Renaud 
gives a history of the General and the Salvation Army 
and a description of the manner of conducting their 
religious meetings. 

Revue du Clerge Franfais (15 July): S. O. Pillion's sketch of 
"The German Inquiry into the Life of Jesus," deals 
chiefly with M. Drews and M. Jefka, the former denying 
the actual existence of Jesus, the latter his Messiahship. 
These and other theses have been refuted by competent 
Catholic scholars, Dr. Jacob Schaefer, Hilarin Felder, 

O.F.M., and F. X. Kiefl. E. Vacandard contributes 

an article on "The Composition of Martyrologies, and 
the Unauthentic Saints." Confusion of legends about 
persons of the same name, and the misapprehension of 
monumental inscriptions are largely responsible for be- 
lief in unauthentic saints. Ch. Calippe treating of 

" Catholics and Syndical Organization " gives a brief 
account of labor organizations in France and elsewhere. 

P. Batiffol writes of "The First Christians and 

War." 

(i Aug.): L. Venard presents the first half of an article 
dealing with " Christian Origins." In this instalment 
he treats of the historic existence of Jesus, the value of 
Christian sources of evangelical and apostolic history, 
the kingdom of God, the person and work of Jesus, and 

the Gospel in the face of Hellenism and Judaism. 

In his "Chronicle of Apologetics." J. Bricout considers 



i9i i.] FOREIGN PERIODICALS 843 

among others the following topics: "The Apologetic of 
Lacordaire," "An Essay on Experimental Apologetic," 
"The Church and Progress," "The Miracles of Lourdes." 

"The Sovereign Independent Pope" is the title of 

an article by Flourens, former Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs, briefly sketching the machinations of the Masonic 
Fraternity to ruin the Church in southern Europe. 

Revue Pratique d* Apologetique (i July) : R. Garrigon Lagrange 
treats of the proofs of the existence of God comform- 
able to the anti-modernist oath under five heads: God 
the end of all things ; God as known by the light 
of reason ; The means by which He is known ; 
The manner; and the possibility of this knowledge. 

"The Odes of Solomon" is an analytical study 

by A. de Boyssen. J. L. de la Verdome in "The 

New Formula of the Protestant Declaration at the 
Coronation of George V." reviews the history of the 
Declaration. 

(15 July): "Viaticum an'd Extreme Unction for Chil- 
dren," by Andrieux a history of the Church's practice 
from the time of Charlemagne in regard to Viaticum 
for children gives also the ruling of the Fourth Lateran 

Council in this matter. H. Lesetre treats of charity 

in more notes on " Preaching and the Preacher." 
E. Beaupin's "Jottings of a Missionary." 

La Revue du Monde (1-15 Aug.): The continuation of Baron 
Bonnal de Ganges article on " Alsace-Lorraine and Bis- 
marck Judged by History and Diplomacy," ascribes to 
the Chancellor the crime of precipitating the war with 
France, and quotes M. Tiers' analysis of the causes of 
the war and its outcome. "The Protestations of Al- 
sace-Lorraine against Prussian Annexation," and "The 
Official Protestations Abroad against the Dismember- 
ment of France," form the matter of chapters second 

and third of this third section* The genesis of the 

Concordat, the document itself, and its fate are pre- 
sented in the Abbe Feret's continued study of the re- 
lations of " The Empire and the Holy See." " Let- 
ters from Prince Eugene to the Emperor During the 

Captivity of Pius VII. at Sarona," follow. The story 

of "The Booty of the Bee" is completed. "Ambi- 



844 FOREIGN PERIODICALS [Sept. 

tion," by A. Deran, the beginning of an historical drama 
of the time of Julian the Apostate, promises well both 

as to interest and force. "The Eleventh Chapter of 

the School Question in the Canadian Northwest," by 
Arthur Savaete, considers the justice of the Canadian 
educational situation from the standpoint of international 

] aw . The valuable study in Syntax and Orthography 

is completed. 

Etudes (5 July): Louis Chervoillot finds numerous traces of 
Modernism in the Leila of Fogazzaro, yet notes his 
good intentions and personal devotion. " An enigmatic 
character/' instinctively supporting compromised causes, 
he made persevering but futile efforts to reconcile Ca- 
tholicism with advanced religious, scientific and politi- 
cal theories. Apropos of the recent coronation in 

England, J. de la Serviere summarizes the characters 
and reigns of the two preceding sovereigns. " Victoria 
was entirely German in her ideas and tastes; Edward 
VII., ' a European gentleman/ as free as possible from 
insular mentality ; . . . King George, sailor, Puritan, 
country gentleman, belongs to England and to her 
alone; the British nation has finally assimilated its 
dynasty." 

Biblische Zeitschrijt (Aug.): Prof. S. Euringer in a paper on 
" The Egyptian and Cuneiform Analogies to the Find- 
ing of the Codex of the High Priest Helcias," follows 
E. Naville into a comparative study of Egyptian par- 
allels to 4 Kings 22. P. B. Kloevekorn, O.F.M., writ- 
ing on "Jesus Before the Jewish Authorities/ 1 states 
that Jesus stood before the Jewish sanhedrim only 
once, and that He was condemned as a blasphemer by 
reason of His claim that He was the Messias. This 
claim in the mouth of a poor, despised Galilean seemed 
to them blasphemy against the God Who had promised 
them a glorious, royal theocracy and a great and vic- 
torious king who would rule over His nation. 



IRecent Bvents, 

Although the external troubles of 
France. France have been by far the more 

serious, those with which she has 

been threatened in her own internal affairs have scarcely been 
less grave. The new ministry of M. Caillaux has been ani- 
mated rather by the spirit of M. Briand than by that of M. 
Monis. The latter leaned rather towards conciliation, and 
concession to the demands of the men who had been involved 
in the railway strikes of last year, and who had in conse- 
quence lost their employment. He therefore received the 
support of M. Jaures, and the collective Socialists of whom he 
is the leader. M. Caillaux offered a firmer resistence to their 
demands, not thinking the yielding to them would be for the 
best interests of the country. He thereby excited the hostil- 
ity of M. Jaures and the Socialists in the Chamber of Depu- 
ties, and of the railway men throughout the country, co-oper- 
ating with the Confederation of Labor, an organization which 
is bent upon a revolutionary reorganization of society by the 
most violent of means, the operations of which have for a 
long time caused a feeling of unrest and anxiety to prevail as 
to the immediate future. A campaign of what is called sabo- 
tage has been inaugurated and carried on in all parts of the 
country. Outrages of various kinds have been perpetrated for 
the mere sake of doing injury, irrespective of the persons who 
were to suffer, whether they were innocent or guilty. At- 
temps have been made to wreck trains by various methods, 
telegraph lines have been cut, and all kinds of ways in which 
it was possible to inflict malicious injury have been adopted. 
This has been going on for some time, but of late there has 
been a great increase in their number. From October last to 
the middle of July there were no fewer than 2,936 cases of sabo- 
tage of one form or another. During that period in only two 
instances were the perpetrators brought to trial. This seems 
to indicate widespread sympathy with the movement. In a 
few cases it was soldiers that were caught in the act. In fact 
there has been a revival of the anti-militarist propaganda of 
M. Herve who is suffering imprisonment for the part which he 
took, and it has been found necessary to place him in closer 



846 RECENT EVENTS [Sept., 

confinement. The government has indicated its firm deter- 
mination to spare no effort to put down and suppress, by 
every means in its power, all attempts of this kind. It thereby 
excited the bitter hostility of the Socialists who, in the Cham- 
ber of Deputies, vented their fury on the Prime Minister by 
loud- voiced execrations, and even assailed with blows certain 
members of the Chamber who offered opposition to their de- 
mand that the strikers should be reinstated. There are some 
who think that it will be necessary to recall M. Briand to 
power, he being the one man who has a policy which is at 
once firm and conciliatory. A demonstration which the So- 
cialists proposed to make on the National Fete was forbidden 
by the government, and the offices of the residences of certain 
notorious labor agitators searched by the Prefect of Police* 
Certain incriminating documents are said to have been found. 
Late in the day the Budget has been passed and the money 
found for the Old Age Pensions. 

For some unexplained reason considerable opposition to 
the Pension Act has been offered by workingmen, some of 
them having positively refused to comply with its provisions. 
The Fete Nationale was celebrated with becoming rejoicing 
although cries of a bas Fallieres ! a bas Lepine ! were raised 
by Socialists and the Camelots du Roi. 

Certain of our modern teachers, journalists, dramatists and 
novelists, have been showing the world the degree of civilization 
to which they have attained by fighting duels one with another. 

With reference to the command of the army, serious dif- 
ferences of opinion have arisen between the Army Council 
and the General who would act as Commander-in-chief in the 
North East of France in case of war. The dispute caused 
some little anxiety for reasons somewhat too technical to be 
understood by the general public. It has been settled by the 
Cabinet. The new arrangement is said to secure a more com- 
plete unity of command. For the first time in the history of 
the Third Republic the French army has a Commander- in- 
Chief designate, the impersonal Army Council being relegated 
to the background. The new arrangement will enable the 
officer who is to command in the event of war to have a hand 
in shaping in peace-time the instrument which he will be 
called upon to wield. This reorganization has been generally 
welcomed by public opinion. 



19 ii] RECENT EVENTS 847 

The internal troubles of France 
France, Germany and Morocco, bear no comparison with those 

which have threatened from out- 
side. The latter, indeed, may have been the means of avert- 
ing the former, for often common foes make potential enemies 
into friends. What motive Germany had for sending a war 
vessel to Agadir is still uncertain. It does not appear to be 
probable that it was done in order to provoke a general war, 
for an easier way to have done this could have been found. 
Nor does it seem likely that of set purpose she was claiming 
a part of Morocco, for the integrity of this country is pro- 
vided for by the Act of Algeciras to which other Powers besides 
France are parties, and such a proceeding would have pro- 
voked their hostility. It is true that the advance upon Fez 
of the French forces and the occupation of the capital were 
considered by many Germans to be for the purpose of a 
permanent occupation of the country, and that the alleged 
invitation of the Sultan was a mere pretext. Moreover the 
Mannesmann Brothers have been active in urging the Ger- 
man government to take steps to protect the interests in 
Morocco which they have been so enterprising in securing. 
But the more probable solution of the question seems to be 
that it was only a characteristic way of calling to the atten- 
tion of France certain desires which Germany had of rectify- 
ing the frontiers of her Cameroons colony and of enlarging 
its borders. These claims, it is said, were mooted by Ger- 
many when the agreement was made with France in February 
of 1909, by the terms of which Germany recognized that all 
her concern with Morocco, outside of the Algeciras Act, was 
economic, and that France had a superior political relation to 
Morocco which other Powers were bound to respect. France, 
it was said, had neglected to give the attention that was due to 
Germany as the consideration for having made this agreement, 
and Germany therefore took this way of reminding her. How- 
ever this may be, immediately after the incident, the govern- 
ments of France and Germany entered upon what were called 
conversations which by mutual consent were to be kept secret 
from the rest of the world. These conversations, however, 
had only gone on a few days when by some means or other 
it leaked out that the compensation which Germany required 
in order that France might be left with a free hand, amounted 



848 RECENT EVENTS [Sept., 

to the cession to Germany of the better part of the French 
Congo, consisting of some 200,000 square miles of territories 
and embracing two of the best harbors on the African West 
Coast as well as of the reversion of the whole of the vast 
possessions of Belgium in Africa, which is held at the present 
time by France, in case Belgium should ever wish to relin- 
quish them. This enormous demand brought Great Britain 
upon the scene, for the transfer to Germany of such an ex- 
tent of territory would effect so great a change in the bal- 
ance of power, the preservation of which is one of the main 
features of Great Britain's policy, that it was impossible for 
her to allow such a change to be made. Moreover, she was 
bound by her entente cordiale with France to support her in 
the event of her rights being unjustly jeopardized. The Prime 
Minister, Mr. Asquith, lost no time in declaring that Great 
Britain was interested in the matter, and Mr. Lloyd George, 
who is by no means disposed to be warlike, went out of his 
way to say that Great Britain would be unworthy of her 
place among the Nations if she allowed such changes to be 
made. 

Preparations for war were quietly made, part of the Navy 
was placed in a favorable position for action, leaves of ab- 
sence were recalled, the ships coaled day and night, insur- 
ances were effected against the risks of war. It was made 
evident that Great Britain meant to be consulted, and that no 
such arrangement as that proposed by Germany could be made. 
The conversations between Germany and France are still going 
on in secret, and up to the time that this is being written, 
no conclusion has been reached. But it is widely said that 
the claims of Germany have been brought within more reason- 
able limits, and that there is, therefore, hope of a peaceful 
settlement of the question. The fact that France's ally, Rus- 
sia, espoused her cause, has contributed largely to the more 
peaceful outlook. The whole of the action of Germany in this 
matter seems to be based on a notion accepted of her people 
that, as their country is the strongest Power on the Continent, 
she has the right whenever any other nation, through the 
logical outcome of events, has obtained an increase of power, 
to receive a similar extension of her influence. This is not a 
very comfortable doctrine for her neighbors. 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 849 

France and Spain have been on 

France, Spain, and Morocco, good terms for a long period, but 

the expedition to Fez excited such 

strong feelings of hostility among large numbers of the Span- 
ish people that it looked as if war might break out. Spain 
for many centuries has held several places on the coast of 
Morocco, and the mere fact of her close contiguity to the 
Moorish territory makes it a matter of great importance to 
her who is to be its possessor. In the ultimate and much-tc- 
be-desired break-up of the power of the Moors, Spain would 
have a clear claim to a part of the country to the whole, if 
she were strong enough. Compared with Spain Germany is a 
mere intruder. To a certain extent this was recognized by 
the Act of Algeciras. To France and to Spain the right of 
police-regulation was given. Certain districts are recognized 
by France as being within the sphere of influence of Spain. 
It is, therefore, not to be made a matter of blame if Spain, 
seeing France advancing to the capital, felt a certain degree 
of anxiety. The steps, however, which she took to vindicate 
her rights were ill-advised, for they excited the hostility both 
of the French and the Moors, and could only be justified by 
the conviction that France was acting in bad faith and meant 
to retain permanent possession of the territory temporarily 
occupied. The affronts offered by Spanish officers in Morocco 
to the official representatives of France brought matters to a 
head, and had Spain refused to make the explanation demanded 
by France, matters might have taken a very serious turn. There 
is now every reason to believe that a peaceful way will be found 
to effect a settlement between the two countries. Whether 
there was an understanding between Germany and Spain for 
the action taken by them in Morocco, is at present merely a 
matter of conjecture. 

The events, political and social, 
Great Britain. which have been taking place in 

Great Britain call for at least a 

brief reference in these notes. For various reasons no attempt 
as a rule to refer to British politics has been made in "Re- 
cent Events" of which the chief is that it is hard to keep 
due proportion to say enough and not to say too much. 
But an exception may be made on this occasion. Whether 
the Bill limiting the power of the House of Lords is a revo- 
VOL. xciii. 54 



850 RECENT EVENTS [Sept., 

lution, or an evolution [too long retarded, will be a matter in 
dispute between the opponents and advocates of the change. 
That all power rested with the people and that its will was 
to be done when ascertained, and that the duty of both Lords 
and Commons was to ascertain that will has long been com- 
mon ground to both Conservatives and Liberals. The only 
question was as to the way of finding this out. The Lords 
claimed the right to force a General Election for this purpose 
whenever they thought there was a doubt. This right the 
Liberals denied, claiming that by the very essence of the 
House of Commons it was the voice of the people. The 
Bill therefore which has now become law gives to the Com- 
mons the position claimed by them, and while it takes away 
from the Lords every vestige of control of finance it leaves 
to them the power of delaying measures to which they object 
and in some cases this will involve the submission of the 
question to the consideration of the country. There is, there- 
fore, no change in the source of the power ; all that has been 
done is to facilitate the access to that source to find what is 
thought an easier and a more efficient way of learning its will. 

There is no doubt that the motive power which has given 
sufficient strength and impetus to the movement to secure 
this change has been derived from the prevailing desire for 
the amelioration of the great mass of the people. England 
has been called the paradise of the rich but the hell of the 
poor. While a tenth of its population is submerged, it has 
been commonly said of late that some twelve millions are liv- 
ing from hand to mouth, more or less on the verge of sub- 
mersion. For large numbers how large it is impossible to 
say it has long been utterly impossible to find employment. 
This state of things has brought the conviction home to the 
mass of the people that a change in the social arrangements 
of the country is necessary, and this conviction has borne 
fruit in several measures that have already passed into law 
while several more are projected. That the Lords would show 
themselves intractable was taken as certain and therefore it 
was necessary to render their opposition futile. The political 
change is due to what may be called the Social Revolution 
which is impending. 

The Old Age Pensions Act was the first of those meas- 
ures, although it had been preceded by several more or less 
inefficacious attempts to find work for the unemployed. Pen- 



i9i i.] RECENT EVENTS 851 

sions are now given to all persons seventy years of age who 
are really poor and in need. This involves an expenditure of 
some sixty millions a year. To provide a remedy for unem- 
ployment, Labor Exchanges have been established in a large 
number of places throughout the Kingdom, and these Ex- 
changes have proved a great success. Another measure, of 
the success of which not so much has been heard, is the 
establishment for certain sweated industries of Trade Boards, 
consisting of employers and employed, for the purpose of fix- 
ing the minimum wage for the respective trade. The much- 
talked of Budget contained provisions for facilitating the dis- 
tribution of land by taxing unearned increment, and unde- 
veloped property, and there is no doubt that further steps 
will be taken to destroy the monopoly of the land held in the 
hands of the few, which is characteristic of the English land- 
system. To complete the list, there is before Parliament at 
the present time a proposal of the government to give state 
aid to insure against unemployment, illness and inability to 
work, while the complete reorganization of the Poor Law is 
one of the tasks of the immediate future. To the student of 
social questions and to those who desire for the mass of the 
people the improvement so much needed, future legislation in 
Great Britain should prove of great interest. 

The treaty with Japan which has just been concluded de- 
serves mention, not only because it tends to secure peace for 
a further period of years, and removes an obstacle to the 
Arbitration Treaty with this country which has just been 
signed, but also because it initiated the new policy of Great 
Britain in dealing with her Colonies. For the first time the 
treaty before being signed was submitted to the consideration 
of the self-governing Colonies, the Premiers of which were 
then assembled in London. This indicates that they are no 
longer subject states of Great Britain but sister-states and 
it forms a step to that Imperial Parliament which possibly 
the future may see in which they will sit side by side with 
the Mother Country. 

The signing of the Arbitration Treaties between Great 
Britain and this country, and France and this country consti- 
tutes an epoch in international relations, but as the necessary 
confirmation by the Senate has not yet been secured, and it 
is even doubtful whether it will be secured, notwithstanding 
the almost universal approbation of the treaties which has been 



8 5 2 RECENT EVENTS [Sept., 

shown by the people, it would be premature to express com- 
plete satisfaction or to be sure that a new step has been taken 
in the world's progress. 

" The poor Albanians lack the 
Turkey. mighty voice of a Gladstone to 

proclaim these horrors to the 

world from the tribune of Parliament, and in the name of God 
to call a halt." In these days in which selfish interests seem 
all powerful and mediocrities have the control of the course 
of events, even those who could not see their way to agree 
with Mr. Gladstone in all things may well regret that he is 
not himself here, and that he has left no successor capable of 
making even an effort to rouse Europe to take effective steps 
to put an end to the proceedings of the Turks. Thousands 
of men whose only crime has been the defense of long- exist- 
ent rights have been deliberately starved to death, women 
have been thrown into their burning homes, their children 
bayoneted while clinging to the breasts of their mothers, and 
other outrages too horrible to mention have been perpetrated, 
while Austria, Russia and Italy, the three Powers to which of 
late has been entrusted the care of the Balkan peoples, have 
stood quietly looking on, each one afraid of taking any step 
for fear of exciting the jealousy of the rest. The Press of 
Austria, it is true, or a part of it, has been outspoken, and 
has not failed to reproach the government for its failure to 
discharge its duty. For the Catholic Albanians, who are the 
chief sufferers, are under the protection of Austria, and con- 
sequently they have a claim upon that Power. If belief may 
be placed in what is said on good authority, and to which no 
contradiction has been given, during the crisis which followed 
the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina arms were distrib- 
uted among these very Albanians for political purposes, while 
now that they are being starved not only is no help of any 
kind given, but the proposal to send food has been forbidden 
by Count Aehrenthal, who has again resumed the charge of 
Foreign Affairs. To such a degree of heartless impotency 
have the Powers been reduced by the exclusive pursuit of 
selfish interests. It is some consolation to learn that the 
Catholic 'Archbishop of Westminster has associated himself 
with the Bishop of London and leading Dissenting Ministers 
in an appeal for funds to help the Albanian sufferers. 

The situation is indeed a complicated one. So much 



i9ii.] RECENT EVENTS 853 

satisfaction was felt by all the world that the degrading des- 
potism of Abdul Hamid has been brought to an end, that the 
hearts of all went out to the Young Turks who had, at great 
risk to themselves, effected the deliverance of so many of the 
inhabitants of the world from a soul- destroying thraldom. 
But the Young Turks are proving themselves by their pro- 
ceedings in Albania this year and last to be substantially the 
same as the rest of the Turks, bent upon establishing their 
own domination by fire and sword. It is beginning to be 
seen, as a Catholic Paper at Vienna says, that there is no 
remedy for the evils that have so long existed, unless the 
Turks whether Old or Young are driven out of Europe where 
they have so long been camped. The odious spy-system 
which was characteristic of Abdul Hamid has, of course, been 
abolished, but it has been superseded by the brutal methods 
recently adopted, having for their object the making all the 
various races that dwell in Turkish territories into one homo- 
geneous nation, and that the Ottoman. This attempt was the 
cause of the Albanian rising last year and this. The privi- 
leges which the various tribes had possessed for centuries were 
taken away, among these the most valued of which is the right 
of carrying arms. An aggravating circumstance is that the suc- 
cess of the Young Turks was largely due to the support they 
received from the tribes now being suppressed. Had not the 
Albanians thrown in their lot with the movement it would 
have failed. It was only when Abdul Hamid heard of their 
defection that he submitted. 

In the default of the Christian Powers an appeal was made 
to the Jews. It is somewhat humiliating to have to acknowl- 
edge this, especially as it was not successful. The real power in 
Turkey, and this is another thing that adds to the complication, 
is not the Cabinet which sits at Constantinople, but the Council 
of the Committee of Union and Progress which sits at Salon- 
ika. Its secret behests have controlled the government hitherto, 
although an opposition is being formed which advocates more 
moderate methods and an honest and open constitutional pro- 
cedure. This Committee is secret, but, as is becoming known, 
it is under Masonic influence, and that the Jews and Crypto- 
Jews of Turkey have had influential part in its organization. 

The Jews, therefore, of Turkey, are to a certain extent re- 
sponsible for the recent proceedings, inasmuch as they have 
great influence upon the Committee, which is the real author 



854 RECENT EVENTS [Sept., 

of the sanguinary methods adopted in Albania. It was, there- 
fore, urged upon the Jews, who are now so well treated in the 
rest of Europe and the world, that they should use their in- 
fluence with their co-religionists in Turkey to secure the 
adoption at once of more humane and wiser methods. For 
bad as are the European Powers, there is a prospect that they 
will be forced to take action, and to intervene. To them the 
King of Montenegro, in whose dominions many of the Al- 
banians have taken refuge, has made an appeal. If a response 
is made, of which there is a prospect, war between Monte- 
negro and Turkey may be averted. If, however, war should 
break out, even the selfish interests of the Powers will pre- 
vent their acquiescing in the subjugation of Montenegro and the 
aggrandizement of Turkey. Turkey has proposed concessions, 
but not satisfactory to the insurgents. Indeed, even if they 
had been satisfactory, no reliance can be placed on their 
being carried into effect, for the Turks keep no faith with 
those who resist their will, as has been proved by the events 
of the past year, and by the fact that within the last few 
weeks they have taken advantage of the armistices which they 
granted to carry on military operations. If submission is] to 
be made by the Albanians, a guarantee is therefore necessary, 
and what guarantee it is to be, is the matter still under dis- 
cussion, or whether under a veiled form something equivalent 
to a guarantee may not be found. The only thing worthy of 
respect that holds the Powers back from taking action is a 
lingering desire to preserve the new regime. But most people 
will be coming to the conclusion that such a regime as it 
has proved to be is not worth preserving. In fact it looks 
as if the Powers had been thoroughly deceived by their sym- 
pathy with the recent revolution and that things are likely 
to be worse for the Christians after that event than they were 
before. For upon the establishment of the Constitution the 
International Organization of Officers, which had a certain 
control in Macedonia, was withdrawn, and to the Young Turks 
was given a free hand to do as they pleased. What it has 
pleased them to do the course of recent events has shown. 

During the festivities which took place at Constantinople 
in celebration of the third anniversary of granting of the 
Constitution, a great fire broke out, which destroyed 3,500 
houses, followed on the succeeding day by another fire in 
which 1,200 houses were consumed. Some 50,000 people 



I9H-] RECENT EVENTS 855 

were rendered homeless by the two events. Whether they 
were due to accident, or to the malice of the reactionaries is 
not known. But so many untoward events have of late oc- 
curred in the capital and the provinces that a state of un- 
bearable tension exists which usually forebodes massacres, re- 
volts or assassinations. Greek and Bulgar bands are said to 
be moving in the European possessions of Turkey, while in 
the Asiatic the Kurds and the Armenians are stirring, the lat- 
ter threatening to join the Orthodox Church in order to gain 
the protection of Russia. 

While in Turkey the experiment 
Persia. of constitutional government seems 

likely to fail on account of the 

brutality of the people, in Persia its success is doubtful, on 
account of their childish levity. The Mejliss passes its time 
in fruitless debates in undoing one day what it did in the 
preceding. So disgusted was the Prime Minister with its futili- 
ties a month or two ago, that he left the Chamber and gave 
his coachman the order to drive to Europe. He had not 
got far on his way when he consented to be recalled, and 
since his return more serious efforts have been made to deal 
with the difficulties of the situation. The difficulties, undoubt- 
edly, are very great. Chaos and anarchy reign from one end 
of the country to the other. In the South the tribes are at 
continual warfare, more or less open, with each other. Com- 
merce has become so unsafe that Great Britain had, in Octo- 
ber last, to give to the Persian Government an intimation of 
its intention to form a force under Persian officers to keep 
the thoroughfares safe. In deference to the wish of the gov- 
ernment, and in consideration of its promise to maintain order 
a promise which to a certain extent has been redeemed 
this purpose has not been carried out, although it was found 
necessary to land men in Southern Persia to suppress gun- 
running in that district. These evils, and the want of funds, 
are beginning to make the somewhat vainglorious Persians see 
that recourse must be had to the help of other nations who 
have not lost all the natural virtues. The finances, as has 
been mentioned before, have been placed in the hands of an 
expert from this country, and in consequence it has been found 
possible to raise a loan. A British officer has been asked to 
organize a fiscal gendarmerie, which is to collect the revenue 
under the superintendence of the American Treasurer- General. 



856 RECENT EVENTS [Sept. 

Belgians have for some time been in charge of the adminis- 
tration of the Customs, while to Russians is due the efficiency 
of the Cossack Brigade. The calling upon the foreigner for 
help wounded deeply the vanity of many Persians and excited 
much opposition. Partly on this account and partly from his 
ardent desire to serve his country by placing himself at its 
head a second time, the ex-Shah has returned, and is making 
an effort to regain the throne. He is meeting with a consid- 
erable amount of support, and it is still in doubt whether or 
not he will succeed. Suspicion was at first felt whether Rus- 
sia was aiding and abetting these efforts to restore absolute 
rule. It seems, however, from all that can be learned that 
the pretender received no encouragement from tke Tsar or his 
government. The Persian authorities are making every effort 
to frustrate the ex-Shah's attempt, and have placed a price 
of $165,000 on his head. As doubts were felt as to the 
loyalty of the Prime Minister himself, he was compelled to re- 
sign. The situation at the capital is said to be a nightmare 
of intrigue. The policy of Russia and Great Britain, the two 
Powers most concerned in the matter, is said to be one of 
abstention from all action; the question is to be considered 
as a merely domestic concern. A new Cabinet has been formed. 
It is gratifying to note that the new American Treasurer- 
General, who was recommended by our President, has already 
done much to ameliorate the condition of things in Persia. 
It is instructive also to learn the method he adopted. He 
took tke position that he was the servant of the Mejliss, that 
is, the House of Parliament, and would obey only the laws as 
made by it. In particular, he refused to make payments unless 
they were authorized by its authority. Persian ways are illus- 
trated by the fact that Cabinet Ministers had been in the 
habit of issuing drafts at their own will and pleasure. The 
Prime Minister, for instance, asked for an unauthorized credit 
of $500,000, and the fact that the Treasurer-General would 
not sign it was, it is said, one of his reasons for wishing to 
go to Europe. This same gentleman, while one of the largest 
landholders in the country, has paid no land-tax on his es- 
tates for some years. It would be a great pity, if, when a 
beginning was just being made of a change for the better, the 
restoration of absolute personal rule should be restored, with 
its necessary concomitants. 



With Our Readers 

THE press of the country for the past month has been filled with 
the details of a marriage, the very mention of which disgusts 
every clean-hearted man and woman. Wealth, social position and 
a previous scandalous divorce have contributed to give it a wide- 
spread notoriety. 

The fact that a divorced man prohibited by the law of one 
state to enter into wedlock, is to marry again and have his mar- 
riage sanctioned by the very state that prohibited it, and is to 
marry a young girl of seemingly respectable family, is certainly 
nothing new in our country. The frequency of divorce and re- 
marriage have made our land the laughing-stock of the world. 
Such an occurrence the word well signifies the little importance 
attached by some to marriage and divorce is quite common not 
only among the rich but also among those not over-blessed with 
this world's goods. 

* * * 

TO those who have eyes to see, divorce is an evil that is doing more 
than all else to {undermine our life as a strong, patriotic 
people. For decades has it cursed our land like a plague and its 
infection is year by year, with ever more disastrous results, spread- 
ing further and further. The reason of such loose morality is the 
general belief that marriage is simply an institution of the state ; 
that it should be regulated only by civil law. The non- Catholic 
press of this country, and in fact of the whole world, savagely at- 
tacked the latest legislation of Pius X. on the subject of mar- 
riage, claiming that it was another instance of how the Catholic 
Church seeks to tyrannize over the state, and to rob the state of its 

just rights. 

* * * 

MARRIAGE, this non-Catholic press maintained,' can be regu- 
lated by the state and the state alone. The law of the state is 
supreme in the matter and there is no other law. Of course this robs 
the vows of husband and wife of all sanctity and subjects them to the 
caprice of human, very human, legislators. The legislature might 
to-morrow declare that all marriages contracted up to date were in- 
valid ; disrupt every family and throw into chaos the whole social 
body. Under stress of anger or hatred or jealousy or lust or any 
other passion a man will readily argue that no merely human die- 



858 WITH OUR READERS [Sept., 

tate of fallible legislators can bind him for life, and will just as 
readily act upon his conclusion. 

If anything were needed to show the unworthy and oftentimes 
corrupt influences that govern our legislators, the daily and 
monthly press of the country for the last five years has supplied 
testimony more than sufficient. And many of the American people 
seem to have concluded that such unworthy influences will continue 
to be effective, for they are preparing to arm themselves with the 
referendum and recall. To call marriage holy and plighted vows 
sacred and then to intrust them into the hands of legislators is like 
storing great treasures in a pasteboard safe. 

* * * 

YET this is exactly what Protestantism has done from the very 
beginning. It denied marriage to be a sacrament. Christ did 
not elevate the vows of husband and wife to a supernatural dignity 
beyond the reach of man. Marriage is a purely human institution. 
Protestantism has become so saturated with Krastianism that it ac- 
cepts the state as sole and final arbiter in every question relating to 
marriage and divorce. 

* * * 

IT is idle to say that thousands of individual Protestants would 
enter a disclaimer to this ; that many clergymen and bishops of 
Protestant churches cry aloud against the abuses that are daily in- 
creasing because of the teaching that marriage has no essentially 
religious character. The Protestant churches have sanctioned 
divorce ; their ministers have re-married divorcees ; they have offi- 
cially preached that marriage is entirely under the control of the 
state. That one of their number which claims to be nearest to the 
Catholic Church, which indeed at times usurps the name, the Epis- 
copal Church, was brought into being by Henry VIII. because 
Clement VII. refused to grant him a divorce. Henry VIII. made 
himself both Church and state, and in his own person fully illus- 
trated state control of marriage and divorce and re-marriage of the 
guilty party. A writer in the [latest Encyclopedia Brittanica re- 
peats of Henry VIII. Michelet's words " le nouveau Messie est le 
roi" and adds this significant estimate : 

The King was the emblem, the focus and the bond of national unity ; 
and to preserve it men were ready to put up with vagaries which to other 
ages seem intolerable. Henry could thus behead ministers and divorce 
wives with comparative impunity, because the individual appeared to be of 
little importance compared with the state. This impunity provoked a 
licence which is responsible for the unlovely features of Henry's reign and 
character. The elevation and the isolation of his position fostered a detach- 
ment from ordinary virtues and compassion, and he was a remorseless in- 



.] WITH OUR READERS 859 

carnation of Machiavelli's Prince. He had an elastic conscience which was 
always at the beck and call of his desire, and he cared little for principle. 
. . . His mind, in spite of its clinging to the outward forms of the old 
faith, was intensely secular; and he was as devoid of a moral sense as he 
was of a general religious temperament. 

One of I,uther's first acts as founder of a new and " truer " re- 
ligion was to grant a divorqe to one whose political favor he very 
much desired. The Episcopal Church of this country denies the 
right to the guilty party to a divorce suit to re-marry ; the Church 
of England does not deny him that right. 

* * * 

IT is perhaps too much to ask any individual or institution to be 
absolutely logical. The aforesaid marriage that is to be, and 
that has attracted so much public attention has called forth opinions 
on matters of sexual purity and marriage that are not even worthy 
to be called pagan. Is it unfair to lay the blame for them on this 
chaotic and immoral teaching of Protestantism itself ? We do not 
think it is. We welcome, indeed, the strong, passionate words that 
many of the Protestant clergymen, particularly the Episcopalians, 
have uttered in the face of this outrageous public scandal ; yet what 
will these protests avail ? Can not they who utter them and their 
followers also see that reformation is needed at the very roots, that 
the world to-day as it ever did, needs a Savior and that, unless the 
clear, positive teaching of Christ on marriage be restored and obeyed, 
their protests are illogical and therefore fruitless. 

* * * 

PERHAPS the unusually rank offensiveness, the brazen effrontery 
1 and the utter disregard of decent public sentiment of the parties 
to this latest divorce and re-marriage scandal, will do something 
towards the creation of a better public opinion ; perhaps it will en- 
iighten many who now sit in darkness. But that such things can 
be, that the press of the country sees fit to give the matter columns 
of reading matter and pages of illustrations, that an influential jour- 
nal like the New York Herald can enthusiastically champion the 
immorality and tell the " baying " clergymen to keep their mouths 
shut; that letters signed " Christian " and an " Episcopal Clergy- 
man " can appear in the public press, denying any religious charac- 
ter to marriage and claiming for both innocent and guilty the right 
to re-marry all these signs are of ominous portent and surely ought 

not to be disregarded. 



THE Church throughout the world, and particularly the Church 
in Australia, suffered a great loss in the death of Cardinal 
Moran. His long life of constant labor in every field of endeavor 



86o WITH OUR READERS [Sept., 

won for him the title of the Master Church Builder of Australia. 
Socially and politically, as well as religiously, Australia owes him 
a lasting debt of gratitude. Neither by voice nor pen was he ever 
idle. His published volumes testify to his ability as a Catholic 
apologist ; the history of the country tells of his fearless champion- 
ship of Catholic rights ; the churches, convents, schools, charit- 
able institutions, the prosperous condition of the Church in Aus- 
tralia are the memorials of a head and heart that were wholly 
given to the service of Christ' and His Church. 



THE CULTURED FAUN. 

WRITTEN IN 1891 BY UONEI, JOHNSON. 

HE, or shall we say it ? is a curious creature ; tedious after a 
time, when you have got its habits by heart, but certainly 
curious on first acquaintance. You breed it in this way : 

Take a young man, who had brains as a boy, and teach him 
to disbelieve everything that his elders believe in matters of thought, 
and to reject everything that seems true to himself in matters of 
sentiment. He need not be at all revolutionary ; most clever youths 
for mere experience's sake will discard their natural or acquired 
convictions. He will then, since he is intelligent and bright, want 
something to replace his early notions. If Aristotle's Poetics are 
absurd, and Pope is no poet, and politics are vulgar, and Carlyle is 
played out, and Mr. Ruskin is tiresome, and so forth, according 
to the circumstances of the case, our youth will be bored to 
death by the nothingness of everything. You must supply him 
with the choicest delicacies, and feed him upon the finest 
rarities. And what so choice as a graceful affectation, or so fine 
as a surprising paradox? So you cast about for these two, 
and at once you see that many excellent affectations and para- 
doxes have had their day. A treasured melancholy of the German 
moonlight sort, a rapt enthusiasm in the Byronic style, a romantic 
eccentricity after the French fashion of 1830, a "frank, fierce, " 
sensuousness a la jeunesse Swinburnienne ; our youth might flourish 
them in the face of society all at once, without receiving a single 
invitation to private views or suppers of the elect. And, in truth, 
it requires a positive genius for the absurd to discover a really prom- 
ising affectation, a thoroughly fascinating paradox. But the last 
ten years have done it. And a remarkable achievement it is. 

Externally, our hero should cultivate a reassuring sobriety of 
habit, with just a dash of the dandy. None of the wandering 
looks, the elaborate disorder, the sublime lunacy of his predeces- 



i9"] WITH OUR READERS 861 

sor, the "apostle of culture. " Externally, then, a precise appear- 
ance; internally, a catholic sympathy with all that exists, and 
" therefore " suffers, for art's sake. Now art, at present, is not a 
question of the senses so much as of the nerves. Botticelli, in- 
deed, was very precious, but Baudelaire is very nervous. Gautier 
was adorably sensuous, but M. Verlaine is pathetically sensitive. 
That is the point : exquisite appreciation of pain, exquisite thrills 
of anguish, exquisite adoration of suffering. Here conies in a ten- 
der patronage of Catholicism : white tapers upon the high altar, an 
ascetic and beautiful young priest, the great gilt monstrance, the sub- 
tle-scented and mystical incense, the old world accents of the Vul- 
gate,of the Holy Offices ; the splendor of the sacred vestments. We 
kneel at some hour, not too early for our convenience, repeating that 
solemn I/atin, drinking in those Gregorian tones, with plenty of 
modern French sonnets in memory, should the sermon be dull. 
But to join the Church ! Ah, no ! better to dally with the enchant- 
ing mysteries, to pass from our dreams of delirium to our dreams 
of sanctity with no coarse facts to jar upon us. And so these re- 
fined persons cherish a double ' * passion," the sentiment of repentant 
yearning and the sentiment of rebellious sin. 

To play the part properly a flavor of cynicism is recommended : a 
scientific profession of materialist dogmas, coupled for you should 
forswear consistency with gloomy chatter about "The Will to 
I4ve. M If you can say it in German, so much the better ; a gross 
tongue, partially redeemed by Heine, but an infallible oracle of 
scepticism. Jumble all these " impressions " together, your sympa- 
thies and your sorrows, your devotion and your despair ; carry them 
about with you in a state of fermentation, and finally conclude that 
life is loathsome yet that beauty is beatific. And beauty ah, beauty 
is everything beautiful ! Isn't that a trifle obvious, you say? That 
is the charm of it, it shows your perfect simplicity, your chaste and 
catholic innocence. Innocence of course : beauty is always innocent, 
ultimately. No doubt there are " monstrous " things, terrible pains, 
the haggard eyes of an absintheur^ the pallid faces of * ' neurotic ' ' 
sinners ; but all that is the portion of our Parisian friends, such and 
such a " group of artists," who meet at the Caf6 So-and-So. We 
like people to think that we are much the same, but it isn't true. 
We are quite harmless, we only concoct strange and subtle verse 
about it. And, anyway, beauty includes everything ; there's another 
sweet saying for you from our "impressionist" copy-books. Im- 
pressions ! that is all. I,ife is mean and vulgar, Members of Parlia- 
ment are odious, the critics are commercial pedants : we alone know 
Beauty, and Art, and Sorrow, and Sin. Impressions ! exquisite, 
dainty fantasies ; fiery-colored visions ; and impertinence straggling 



862 WITH OUR READERS [Sept., 

into epigram, for " the true" criticism; c^est adorable / And since 
we are scholars and none of your penny-a-line Bohemians, we throw 
.in occasional doses of " Hellenism " : by which we mean the Ideal 
of the Cultured Faun. That is to say, a flowery Paganism, such as 
no ".Pagan " ever had : a mixture of " beautiful woodland natures," 
and " the perfect comeliness of the Parthenon frieze," together with 
the elegant languors and favorite vices of (let us parade our ' * deca- 
dent " learning) the Stratonis Epigrammata. At this time of day we 
need not dilate upon the equivocal charm of everything I/esbian. 
And who shall assail us ? what stupid and uncultured critic, what 
coarse and narrow Philistine ? We are the Elect of Beauty : saints 
and sinners, devils and devotees, Athenians and Parisians, Romans 
of the Empire and Italians of ihe Renaissance. Fin de siecle ! Fin 
de sticle / literature is a thing of beauty, blood, and nerves. 

I^et the Philistine critic have the last word ; let him choose his 
words with all care, and define in his rough fashion. How would it 
do to call the Cultured Faun a feeble and a foolish beast ? 



N 



OT long since a noted educator said in the course of a conver- 
sation with a Catholic friend : 



Catholics sometimes apply for admission to my school, and I do not wish 
to take them. Not because I have any prejudice against a person simply 
because he professes the Catholic Faith, but because I believe so very 
strongly that religion is the best and greatest influence for character-build- 
ing in a growing boy's life, and if a Catholic boy comes to my school he 
misses that. It is not practicable for me to send a boy outside constantly to 
get an adequate religious training in his own faith, he does not recognize the 
authority of my religion over him, and so he falls between two stools and his 
loss is a very great one. 

If a non-Catholic sees this so plainly, it certainly ought to be 
clear to the Catholic parent ; yet an examination of the catalogues 
of well-known non-Catholic boarding schools, shows the presence of 
Catholic boys in them who ought not to be there. The absence of 
positive instruction in the faith, the non-Catholic "atmosphere," 
and often the anti-Catholic statements heard, or overheard, work 
disaster, and such boys almost inevitably lose their faith later on. 
This is not a theory, but a fact ; a fact supported by actual observa- 
tion of many individual cases for years past. 

* * * 

SOME parents invent reasons for not sending their children to 
Catholic schools, claiming that they desire a school ol home- 
like surroundings, and one in which individual attention may be 
given to every pupil. Such reasons are not valid to-day, for there 



i9i T.] WITH OUR READERS 863 

are a number of Catholic schools throughout the country that answer 
in every particular these requirements. The pioneer among them 
is, we believe, the Newman School, of Hackensack, New Jersey, 
founded, with the advice of the late Archbishop Corrigan, by Dr. 
lyocke, the noted convert, who is still its director. These boarding 
schools wherein the surroundings are homelike, the students limited 
in number, and the corps of teachers capable, make it unnecessary 
for any parent to risk the precious possession of his son's faith, by 
putting the latter in non-Catholic surroundings. 

With schools of this kind, and with the many large and excel- 
lent schools conducted by our religious orders, meeting the purses 
and the tastes of different Catholic parents, no parent need do his 
boy the injustice of depriving him of a Catholic training. 



THE following words of the noted educator, G. Stanley Hall, are 
noteworthy as a contribution to the need of religion in edu- 
cation : 

Protestant though I am, I believe that, with the young, morality needs 
religious reinforcement, and in this general proposition I believe the Catho- 
lics are right, and that schools should not be so secularized as to become 
godless. I do not forget that France and Japan are experimenting on just 
this line. But both these countries have been driven to this step by political 
and other exigencies, as indeed we were in the day of intense denomin- 
ational spirit when our schools were divorced from church influences. More- 
over, France and Japan realize the gravity of the problem and are doing 
everything in their power to make civic life and public service and welfare a 
religion. Now, the child's soul at the dawn of adolescence is nine-tenths 
feeling and instinct, and this age witnesses a vast access of all these old 
hereditary powers that shape human life, while the intellect is still feeble 
and unable to control the passions and sentiments which thus need reinforce- 
ment by supernatural sanction. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



E- P. DUTTON & Co., New York: 

The Downfall of the Gods. By Sir Hugh Clifford, K.C.M.G. $1.50. The Kilmartin 
Wonder Book. By Lady Gregory. Illustrated by Margaret Gregory. $1.50. 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York : 

The Catechist. Vols. I. II. By Rev. George Edward Howe. 2 Vols. $3.80. 

JOHN LANE COMPANY, New York: 

The Glory of Clementina. By William J. Locke. $1.30. 

LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York: 

The Queen's Fillet. By Canon Sheehan. $1.35. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York: 

Children of To-morrow. By Clara Laughlin. $1.30. Her Little Young Ladyship* By 
Myra Kelly. $1.25. Kennedy Square. By F. Hopkinson Smith. $1.50. 

CATHEDRAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, New York: 

An Order for the Consecration of an Altar. Translated for the use of the laity from the 
Romaa Pontifical. 

L. C. PAGE & Co., Boston: 

Dionis of the White Veil. By Caroline Brown. $1.50. The Story Girl. By L. M, 
Montgomery. $1.50. 

B. HERDER, St. Louis : 

The Dawn of All. By Robert Hugh Benson. $1.50. Where We Got the Bible. By Rev. 
Father Graham, M.A. 30 cents. Explanation of the Rule of St. Augustine. By Hugh 
of St. Victor. Translated by Dom Aloysius Smith, C.R.L. 75 cents. Catherine of 
the Barge, By Madge Blundell. 50 cents. Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. By Maurice 
Meschler, S J. $1.50. The Child's First Communion Catechism. By Peter Geirmann, " 
S.J. 30 cents per doz. 

PLON-NOURRIT ET CiE, Paris : 

Le Nouveau Docteur. Par Jules Pravieux. 3 fr. 50. 

P. LETHIELLEUX, Paris : 

Jeanne d' Arc et La France. Par le Chanoine Coube. 

RAZ6N Y FE, Madrid : 

La Muerte Real y la Muerte Aparente. By J. B. Ferreres, S.J. 1.50 pesetas. La Curia 
Romana. By J. B. Ferreres, S'J. 6 pesetas. Los Esponales y le Matrimonio. By J. 
B. Ferreres, SJ. 3.50 pesetas. 



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